Yenta talks about her family's fate during World War II, including her father's work as grave digger. Pesia then recites a Yiddish song, she heard in the Pechera concentration camp. Pesia then describes the singer, Elke Bartik, before she recalls other individuals begging for food.
A woman speaks about relatives who carried out burial work, including children, during the war, and Kerler asks about a song on the gravedigger theme. Kolodenker then recites, with Kerler asking for repetition, a Yiddish song heard in the Pechera camp in which a woman who lost her six children begs for bread. She names the singer (the surname is unclear) and tells of a girl who asked for bread in Russian after her mother died of hunger.
Adds the Russian-speaking girl episode and Kerler's request to repeat the song.
Pesia talks about her education at the Yiddish school before the war, including teachers. Yenta also shares her memories of the Yiddish school. They also discuss Yiddish books.
Kerler asks about the prewar Yiddish school. Kolodenker names the director and recalls teachers and lessons in Russian and Yiddish. A second woman says she learned little Yiddish writing, and they mention a singing teacher with a nickname and a teacher later in the camp. Kerler asks what Yiddish books were read; the answers are vague.
Pesia talks about prewar Jewish life. They then talk about massacres in the Vinnytsya ghetto, before Pesia recites another Yiddish song she remembers from the camp. They mention more massacres.
A speaker talks about prewar acquaintances and a Jewish man who acted as a spy among the partisans, with Kerler asking about him. They then talk about the killing of Jews around Vinnytsya and in the region, including the time it took. Kolodenker recites another camp song asking for pity, and the speakers discuss Jews who returned after the war.
Adds the partisan man Feynberg, and the second camp song.
Katsman and Yenta speak about their lives after the war and recall secret prayer services. Pesia remembers prayer services up to the 1950s, led by a hired coachman.
Kerler asks whether people prayed after the war. The speakers describe prayer in private homes, hiding from the authorities, and a coachman or horse-driver named Avrom (?) who was hired to lead the prayers. They discuss when this took place, in the 1950s (?), and the weekly Sabbath minyan.
Pesia speaks about prewar Sabbath food customs and preparation. Yenta also shares information about her mother's food preparation. They then discuss general prewar food customs and the acquisition of food in the Pechera camp.
Kerler asks what was cooked for Sabbath before the war. Kolodenker and others describe a dish called zhandere (?), bean soup, onions, and a kugel-like dish, and discuss how the soup differs from ordinary soup. They then recall cornmeal with cheese, keeping food warm in the oven, and the scarcity of salt and food in the Pechera camp.
Adds Kerler's questions on dish terms and camp food.
They discuss prewar religious customs. Pesis then speaks about her family and observance, before she remembers the local poor Jew Ayzik. According to Pesia, he taught her to build a mezuzah. Yenta also describes Ayzik. Among other episodes, Pesia describes how he helped her during "his visit" to the Pechera concentration camp when she was sick with typhus. Pesia's family also helped Ayzik out after the war.
The speakers discuss prewar religious customs: wearing the tallit, saying the morning prayer, and the mezuzah. Kolodenker then tells at length about a poor man, Ayzik, who showed her how to make a mezuzah from tin and a page of an old prayer book, who was fed by her mother Perl, and who helped her when she was sick in the camp. They also discuss a wealthy woman with daughters hidden after the war (names such as Brane and Gitl (?), unclear), and how Jews helped her.
Adds the Ayzik stories and the hidden woman, as well as the morning prayer and the mezuzah.
Alexandr speaks about his imprisonment in the Pechera camp and recalls the killing of a woman in the Souther Bug river. Pesia remembers this episode as well.
A speaker recalls the Pechera camp and the killing of a woman, Rachel, who tried to cross to the other side of the Southern Bug to get bread. She was shot, leaving two small daughters who died two days later. Others confirm, including that they saw it themselves (in Russian).
The speaker is not clearly Aleksandr as the catalogue says.
Kolodenker talks about prewar circumcision and birth customs, as told by her mother, including baking special rolls and cakes for a boy's brit, and the cradle and rocking custom for babies. Kerler and others discuss the term for a girl's celebration and a child who nursed until age three.
Adds terminology for a girl's ceremony and the cradle custom.
A woman recalls a boy who was still nursing at the age of three and was embarrassed by it. Kerler then asks about naming customs. The interviewee explains that a child could be given two names, one after a deceased relative, and tells how her own mother arranged her name, Pesele (?).
The passage opens with a story about a late-weaned child, and the naming story concerns the interviewee's own name.
Katsman and others describe prewar wedding customs, such as the in-laws exchanging gifts and the giving of a bread called "makes" or "maki" (?), and the music and dancing that accompanied them. Kerler asks about the wedding jester and the klezmer who played, and a woman recites a rhymed wedding song. The talk then turns to the interviewers' route from Vinnytsia and the purpose of the recording.
Also covers the wedding song and the interviewers' travel route and aims.
Pesia and Katsman answer Kerler's questions on holiday food before the war. They mention Hanukkah gelt, baked goods for Purim, dairy dishes for Shavuot, and special breads such as a bread given to a woman after childbirth. They then talk about the Sabbath bread and the baking of potatoes in each Jew's oven, and about fish and water supply.
They discuss Jewish life in prewar Tulchyn, including the relationship between Jews and non-Jews. Pesia then shares food customs for Sabbath and weddings.
The women say that life in prewar Tul'chyn was good and mention the difference between Jews and non-Jews. Kerler asks how Sabbath fish was prepared. They discuss fish cutlets, stuffed fish and ingredients such as onions and flour, and the question moves on to Passover.
Pesia and Katsman speak about food customs for Passover, as well as baking goods. Pesia then describes the custom of giving a "komisbrot" to the unmarried at weddings.
The women discuss Passover dishes, including a pudding made from matzo meal, and the baking of a special bread eaten at weddings. This bread (kneysh-broyt (?)) was given to unmarried girls and young men as a charm for a speedy match, and Kerler explains it as such. The passage also touches on Yiddish terms for the foods.
Includes the bread as a charm for the unmarried at weddings.
Pesia speaks about prewar Sukkot celebrations, as well as wedding customs after the war. They also discuss postwar religious life, particularly recalling the local kosher butcher.
The women discuss Sukkot and describe how before the war a wedding canopy of four poles was set up, a custom not kept after the war. A woman recalls the postwar shoykhet Moyshe, who also performed circumcisions. Kerler asks again about the filled bread kneysh-broyt.
Kerler asks whether Yiddish theater or plays were performed before the war, and the women say they were, in Yiddish. A woman then tells humorous tales about Hershl Ostropoler, who was a jester and trickster.
Kerler asks about matzo in the 1950s and 1960s, and the women say the community baked its own matzo. They discuss expensive matzo from Israel and America and the Four Questions at the seder.
Yenta speaks about prewar Jewish life, including locals and poverty. She then addresses her education at a Yiddish school, which she attended for six years.
A woman describes poverty before the war: heating with wood, taking coals from neighbours, and the neighbours' mutual help. She recalls her six years at the Yiddish school, where teaching switched to Russian in the higher grades and the food at school was scarce. Earlier, Kerler asks about a wealthy man named Roytshlom (?) and how he got his name.
Starts with a wealthy man's name and ends with schooling and school food.
A woman speaks of her family: four children, an older sister working at sixteen, and a mother who did not work. Kerler then discusses a planned trip to Pechera and Bershad' and asks who could come along, and the group talks about the arrangements, including not travelling on the Sabbath.
