MDV 71 · Adolf Smajovics

Smajovics describes meeting two elderly Yiddish speakers in America and talks about visiting his sister in Queens and his daughter in Miami, including Passover there. Kerler also talks about his own life in America and Israel, and a short exchange about the recording and papers follows. The beginning is partly garbled.

Kerler's remarks about his own life in Moscow, Israel and Indiana, and Passover in Miami.

The formal interview begins. Smajovics says he lived in Velyka Kopanya, ten kilometers from Vynohradiv, gives his birth year as 1922, his Hungarian and Yiddish names and the nickname Bumi, and names a man from Debrecen with Maramureş parents. He explains that his mother was an orphan, and that his father, a field worker who broke in horses, was killed by them in 1926, leaving four children.

The question about names and the nickname Bumi, and a mention of a Debrecen man who speaks Yiddish.

Smajovics says his father was a field worker. He went away to learn blacksmithing and was in Budapest when the war began. He came home in the summer of 1943 and was called up that October into a labor battalion.

Smajovics describes his labor battalion service, working as a locksmith with German tools. After the Germans arrived in 1944 he was taken to Ercsi on the Danube to dig trenches. He tells of a conversation in Czech with a German soldier whose sister was in a concentration camp. He describes the Soviet crossing of the Danube and his liberation in December 1944.

The catalogue's 'peddler' detail is not clear in the transcript.

Smajovics describes liberation near Ercsi, about 120 km from Budapest, and the journey back to the Carpathians with two other boys. He recalls meeting Soviet officers, including Jewish ones, and being offered a place in the Czech army. He tells how his sister returned and how he took up work as a blacksmith. The coming of the kolkhozy, his move to Vynohradiv and his jobs there (a factory, a small furniture factory, warehouses, a garage) are covered, with the 1960s mentioned, and his move to Budapest in 1978 when he bought a flat. He mentions his two daughters and his pension.

The meeting with Jewish officers and the Czech army offer.

Smajovics talks about his education. He began cheder at four, following his older brother. He learned to pray early and was taught by the dayan, then celebrated his bar mitzvah in Adar. He then attended the local yeshiva until about 1938. He also says his grandfather was not a Hasidic man.

The bar mitzvah preparation and the grandfather's non-Hasidic outlook.

Smajovics says about sixty families lived in Velyka Kopanya and that it had a large synagogue. He left his studies in 1938 at the time of the Czech mobilization, at around sixteen and a half, and took over the field work and driving for the household. Then the war came.

The Czech mobilization of 1938 as the reason he left his studies.

Smajovics tells how he met his wife at a wedding in the winter of 1945. He recounts how he found his brother Mordechai in Israel and first visited him in 1982 after forty years. He describes his nervousness on the flight and his nephew who served in the army. His brother's descendants, visits to Israel and the death of his wife are mentioned, and Kerler states the date for the recording.

The wedding where he met his wife and the nephew's military service.

Smajovics answers questions about his parents. His father was a field worker and his mother was Golde, and both were from Velyka Kopanya. He names his father's birth year as 1897, his sister Beyle in Brooklyn, and his paternal grandparents Moshe and Motl. His grandmother Motl was deported to Auschwitz and came from Oylak (?), 25 km away.

Details of the grandparents' names and the grandmother's deportation.

Smajovics tells how, in the Hungarian labor battalion, he met an older man in a camp who turned out to be a relative of his grandmother. Kerler asks him to describe how his father was killed by young horses in 1926, and he does so.

The meeting with the relative.

Smajovics recalls his grandmother's charity in giving shelter and food to the poor, and tells of a man who remembered her. He talks about a loan he and his wife made, collecting money, and Kerler asks about Yiddish and Hebrew terms for money and for non-Jews and a few other words. He describes the Miami building full of Jews where Carpathian relatives gather at Passover. He also recalls the expulsion from Spain, and visits to Israel.

Kerler's elicitation of money and Hebrew-origin vocabulary.

Smajovics gives a saying about stealing under the Russians. Kerler asks about Talmud study, and Smajovics recalls cheder, his grandfather's non-Hasidic style, and learning prayers by heart under examination by the teacher. He tells of a childhood friend he met again in Israel, a farmer who studies in the study house, and of their visit.

The childhood friend in Israel.

Answering Kerler's questions, Smajovics says he went to cheder from age four and to the Czech school from four and a half until 1936, and kept to cheder until 1938. He describes learning to write and reckon, and working in the fields after the 1938 mobilization. He started his blacksmith apprenticeship at seventeen in 1939 and worked until 1942.

The Czech mobilization of 1938 and his work in the fields.

Smajovics speaks about the late 1930s, when he worked at shoeing horses, and mentions the arrival of Polish refugees. He says he could not speak Hungarian at that point, but learned it in the forced labor battalion from Hungarian boys.

Learning Hungarian in the labor battalion.