MDV 682 · Mariia (Masye) Andreevna Yakuta

Kerler states the date and Yakuta's address, then asks for her name for the record.

Yakuta gives her name and birth in Teplyk in 1921 and says she lived there until the war. She names her father and says he was born in Teplyk, and that he and her mother and three children were killed by the Germans. Her father was a hatmaker, and she describes the lined caps and collars he made. She gives her grandfather's name and her parents' names and birth years, lists her siblings, and says two brothers were evacuated to Tashkent. One brother served as a military doctor, and the family is now partly in Tel Aviv.

adds the hat-making terminology, the siblings' names and birth years, and the brothers' evacuation to Tashkent

Yakuta talks about her Yiddish school in Teplyk, its director, and her seven years there. Kerler asks whether she remembers Yiddish writers studied in literature, and she does not. She recalls her father, who was self-taught, reading the Yiddish newspaper Der Shtern aloud to the people of the town who came to listen.

adds the school director and the other townspeople gathering to hear the newspaper

Yakuta recalls how electric light first came to Teplyk in the 1930s, from an old tractor set by the river that gave one lamp per house. After the war a captured tank supplied more light, and radio arrived. S3 and Kerler briefly discuss the Ukrainian word for radio.

adds the postwar radio and the exchange on the Ukrainian word for radio

Yakuta lists the subjects taught in Yiddish at her school, including dictation and letter writing, and mentions Russian as a subject. She describes her father's secret Sabbath and religious practice during Soviet times and his trips to Uman and Bratslav with a pooled cart, as a Bratslaver hasid. Kerler asks her about the terms "good Jew" and "honest Jew", and the tsadik. She then begins to tell how the Germans selected craftsmen from among the Jews, including her father.

adds the terms for 'good Jew' and tsadik, and the start of the wartime account of the selection of craftsmen

Yakuta says her father refused to stay as a selected artisan when his wife and children were taken, and that he was killed with them. The other specialists were killed later. Kerler asks for the Yiddish for "later".

Yakuta describes prewar Sabbath at home, with her mother blessing the candles and her father requiring the children to sit and listen to his Sabbath order. He told stories about Teplyk people who went to America, and about Uman. Her mother prayed from a Yiddish prayer book, which Kerler discusses with her, and retold biblical tales such as the binding of Isaac. A side discussion with Kerler concerns Yiddish words and a blessing phrase.

adds the stories about emigrants to America, the prayer book, the binding of Isaac, and the Yiddish word discussion

Yakuta describes the many prayer houses of prewar Teplyk, including those of shoemakers, tailors, butchers and klezmers, and the one for the rich. She says Teplyk klezmers were hired for weddings elsewhere, in Bershad and Uman. She also lists other trades such as shoemakers, tailors, wigmakers and tinsmiths, and mentions a dentist and his wife.

adds the trades list including tinsmiths and the klezmer travel to other towns

Yakuta talks about the local wise woman and folk healing, including the cure for the evil eye by spoken charm. She tells how her mother, when her husband had malaria, cooked porridge with bread and salt and threw the pot into the river with an incantation to the seven spirits. Kerler and S2 discuss the Ukrainian and Yiddish words for the "grain of salt". Kerler then asks about the time when religious practice had to be hidden.

adds the discussion of the Yiddish and Ukrainian word for the pinch of salt

Yakuta says religious practice was done secretly before the war, and that the change came with collectivization. She recalls the great hunger of 1933, when starving non-Jews ate the mash from the alcohol plant's pit and died, and the road was full of corpses. She mentions the common pit at the non-Jewish cemetery and says she does not remember Jews dying of hunger there, though they suffered. The Jewish cemetery is also named.

adds secret religious practice and collectivization before the famine

Yakuta describes the main synagogue of prewar Teplyk, with its high steps, the women's section at the back, and the ark with the Torah, and a bimah she remembers from childhood.