A woman sings Yiddish songs about luck and happiness, and a Sabbath-eve song recalling a grandmother and a grandfather at the Friday-night table. Kerler and Katz ask whether she knows Hatikvah. She recalls that Hatikvah was sung in Poland before the war. She sings a Polish school song about passing youth, a song about the Messiah, and a lullaby-like song about longing for home and mother.
Also includes a Messiah song and a lullaby, and Hatikvah is discussed.
A discussion about a Russian magazine and about language. Katz and Kerler say they understand only Yiddish and want to speak Yiddish. The informant insists she knows Russian and Ukrainian very well, and Katz asks her name.
Groisburg gives her name and says she speaks Yiddish with no one now. She describes her father as an educated man who studied in Leningrad to become a doctor, and names her father and grandfather (the latter died in Warsaw). She says she was born near or in Berdychiv, in 1906, and that her father worked with the army.
Gives her birth year and the names and origins of her father and grandfather.
Groisburg recalls attending an army school in Berdychiv and later working as a teacher. She tells of teaching Russian to poor Jewish children in a poor street. A Yiddish teacher came to the home at her father's wish, and she reads Yiddish only with difficulty.
Adds the Yiddish tutor at home and her difficulty reading Yiddish.
She remembers a Passover seder with an honoured guest, her grandfather, and gives her Yiddish and Russian first names, her father's and mother's names and the family surname. She says her father, a doctor, could not practise after the 1905 revolution and pogroms because of restrictions on Jews, and that she herself later joined the Communists.
Gives names of family members and the father's career blocked by the 1905 events.
Groisburg recalls pogroms in the 1920s, when Jewish families from Zhytomyr fled to Berdychiv and several families stayed in her home. She mentions a local leader whose name is unclear and says that many young people from Berdychiv emigrated to Palestine and America.
Includes a community leader (name unclear) and emigration of the young.
She describes Zionist, Communist, Social-Democratic and Bund parties in Berdychiv and recalls an educated young man. The educated Jews spoke Russian, not Yiddish. There was also a Zionist school teaching in Hebrew.
Groisburg remembers the choral synagogue in Berdychiv, with a cantor and choir, and says she went there with her father two or three times. She names the Staromestnaya street synagogue and answers Kerler's questions about the building and its location. She then mentions that she buried her mother elsewhere.
She speaks about her father: a learned man who wanted her to study Hebrew, though there was no opportunity. Under pogroms and poverty he insisted his children study, if need be as external students. He was drafted into the army before the Revolution. She and her mother were left alone after his death, and she then went to work.
Concerns the father's views on education and his army draft.
Groisburg speaks about her sister, who studied at a technical school, and about the family's move from Berdychiv to Zhytomyr, whose date she cannot recall.
Groisburg describes Zhytomyr before the war as a large provincial city with many Jews and a Yiddish school. She studied in Ukrainian because her work required it, as her father had died and the family was large.
Groisburg lists her siblings, several of whom died. One went to the Caucasus, and a brother died in evacuation. Her mother died in evacuation and she buried her. They were evacuated for five years, and she worked as a specialist. She says the men in her family died young.
Covers siblings, the mother's death and five years in evacuation.
She talks about life today: two young Jewish women and the local synagogue help her, and she mentions its rabbi. She says Jewish doctors and many others emigrated to Berlin, Israel and America and did not return. Kerler explains the recording's purpose.
Groisburg recalls the Passover seder, with her brother asking the four questions to their learned father, who knew five languages. She then remembers Hanukkah and sings a Hanukkah song from childhood twice, mentioning dreidels and doughnuts. Kerler and Katz also talk with S4 about Russian.
Kerler and Katz explain their limited Russian and talk about having lived long in America. Katz says he is from Brooklyn, and Kerler asks about Jews' residence restrictions under the tsarist regime. A recogniser loop and mention of Moscow occur.
Groisburg says she learned German and French and that her father wanted her to study English. Kerler asks about Purim and about celebrations before the First World War, but she answers mostly about Passover matzo and holidays at home.
Answering Kerler's questions on holiday food, she names hamantaschen and pancakes. She says her mother made gefilte fish with raisins, and recalls her father going to synagogue on Sabbath and her mother on Rosh Hashanah.
Includes gefilte fish and the parents' synagogue attendance.
Groisburg says that pews at the large synagogue were costly and her religious family could not afford them. She recalls that her grandmother was at home on Sabbath, which was observed. The children worked on Sabbath, while the father went to synagogue with his tallit, in which he was later buried.
Concerns the cost of seats, her father's tallit and burial.
Groisburg names her grandfather Shimon (the surname is given as Tatakovsky (?)) and says he died after the Revolution. His wife, her paternal grandmother, died later, and no relatives remain. Kerler asks whether a famine was involved.
Asked about Hasidim in Berdychiv, she says there were many and describes a rebbe living on Staromestnaya street opposite her family's lodging. The family lodged with someone named Nuz (?). She recalls a Hasidic demonstration and says the rebbe, who had a court and sons who studied, was a good man.
Names the street and the landlord family (Nuz (?)) and mentions a Hasidic demonstration.
Groisburg speaks about a Zionist writer, Samuil Marshak (?), who wrote in Russian and about Palestine, and Kerler comments on him. Kerler then asks for Yiddish words and she and S3 try to supply a word for 'ladder' (Russian lestnitsa), settling on a form of the Yiddish word 'loyter' (?). They also try to name the word for 'cross' (kryest/krest), which she says is not a Jewish thing.
