Topics
What the interviews are about, in 51 subjects. A topic is attached to a passage when the catalogue's description of that passage mentions it — so these are topics of the descriptions, not of everything said; a missing topic means "not described", never "absent". Read how the topics were assigned.
Community, politics and migration
- Local Jewish history932
The town's Jewish population, institutions, neighborhoods, history and sites: "prewar Jewish life in X", "Jewish life in Y", geography of the town. - Life today651
Contemporary daily life: health, pensions, family today, "life today". - Jewish–non-Jewish relations416
Relations with Ukrainians, Romanians, Hungarians, Moldovans; non-Jewish Yiddish speakers; neighbors; intermarriage. - Emigration and relatives abroad411
Emigration to Israel, America, Germany; aliyah; relatives abroad; visits abroad; the decision to stay. - Community institutions248
Community organizations in any period: the Joint, Hesed, community centers, charity and mutual aid, communal offices, rebuilding communal life after the war, community events. - Photographs and documents210
The interviewee shows photographs, documents, medals, letters, books. - Soviet system151
Party, Komsomol, Soviet institutions and ideology, Soviet Yiddish culture, life under the Soviet regime as such. - Jewish identity and attitudes112
Statements of identity ("Yiddishkayt", "Jewishness"), opinions and reflections: on Israel, the future, the decline of Yiddish, best moments in life. - Zionism and youth movements111
Zionist organizations, Hashomer Hatzair, Betar, Bund, youth movements, hakhshara. - Memorials and commemoration88
Monuments and memorials, memorialization, commemorative visits, Yad Vashem recognition, remembrance of the war as an obligation.
Education and culture
- Songs and music726
Talk about songs, singers, klezmer, choirs, musicians; the songs performed (see activity singing). - Schooling684
Yiddish schools, state schools (Romanian, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Hungarian), gymnasium, higher education. - Yiddish literature and press471
Writers, books, reading, newspapers, Sovetish Heymland, libraries, the interviewee's own writing. - Religious education379
Cheder, talmud torah, yeshiva, melamed, private religious tutors. - Cultural life (general)271
"Jewish cultural life", "prewar Yiddish culture" and similar summaries with no more specific topic; clubs, libraries, cultural institutions as a whole. - Theater261
Yiddish theater, amateur troupes, performances, purim-shpil as theater. - Stories, humor and sayings253
Stories, legends, anecdotes, jokes, proverbs, curses, riddles, expressions. - Folk beliefs and healing128
Evil eye, superstitions, demons, folk remedies, healers, amulets.
Everyday life and economy
- Work and trades700
Occupations, crafts, artisans, factories, the occupational structure of the town, working life. - Daily life (general)678
Life in a place or period described without a more specific topic: "life before and after the war", "prewar life", "life in Gorove", leisure. Use with the period facet. - Food581
Dishes, cooking, recipes, holiday and Sabbath food, food customs. - Poverty and economic conditions166
Wealth and poverty, hunger, prices, pensions, economic hardship. - Home and housing156
Houses, courtyards, furnishings, domestic routine, the Jewish street or neighborhood as lived space. - Agriculture and kolkhoz154
Farming, Jewish collective farms and colonies, livestock.
Family and personal history
- Family history2269
Parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, children; what became of them. - Childhood644
Childhood memories, games, friends, early home life. - Personal information474
Biographical data given as such: birth, names and naming (name changes, nicknames, what a name means), residences, "provides personal information". - Marriage and weddings341
Courtship, matchmaking, wedding customs, married life. - Birth, coming of age, death194
Circumcision, bar mitzvah, funerals, burial, mourning, cemeteries as custom.
Language
- Yiddish language and dialect884
Talk about Yiddish, dialects, who spoke what, language attitudes, Hebrew and other languages, plus every dialectological-questionnaire segment (which also gets activity elicitation). - Cultural terminology294
Names of things: food terms, kinship terms, household words, "cultural terminology"; tag the domain too when it is stated (e.g. food).
Religion and ritual
- Religious life (general)750
Religious life and customs described in general terms: "prewar religious life", "religious customs", observance and its decline or revival. - Synagogue and prayer705
Synagogues and prayer houses, services, cantors, prayer, minyan. - Other holidays623
Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah, Shavuot, holidays in general. - Hasidism and rebbes330
Hasidic life, rebbes and their courts, visits to rebbes, tsadikim. - Sabbath286
Sabbath observance, meals, customs. - Passover258
Passover, seder, matzo baking. - Purim234
Purim customs, purim-shpil, gifts, food. - Kashrut and slaughter121
Kosher food laws, shoykhet, butchers, ritual slaughter.
War and persecution
- World War II (general)308
The war years without a more specific tag, "life during the war", "the war and its aftermath". - Army service302
Red Army and other military service, the front, being drafted, war injuries and medals. - Liberation and return269
Liberation, the return home, what was found on return, the immediate postwar years. - Ghetto244
Life in ghettos, incl. Transnistrian ghettos (Bershad', Sharhorod, Mohyliv…). - Camps and forced labor242
Concentration and labor camps (Pechera, Transnistria), forced labor, labor battalions. - Evacuation199
Evacuation to the Soviet interior (Central Asia, Urals, Caucasus) and life there. - Mass killings139
Massacres, mass shootings, roundups and executions of Jews, mass graves (Babi Yar, the Berdychiv and Balta killings, Transnistria). - Hiding and rescue130
Survival in hiding, help from non-Jews, escape, partisans. - Soviet repression and famine114
Arrests, purges, Stalin-era repression, exile; the famines of 1932–33 and 1946–47. - Antisemitism113
Antisemitism before, during or after the war, incl. postwar Soviet. - Deportation91
Deportations from Hungary, Transylvania, Transcarpathia, Bukovina; Auschwitz; transports. - Pogroms and civil war36
Pogroms, the 1918–21 civil war, bandits, Petliura.
Kinds of passage
Besides its topics, each passage has a kind: narrative (the default), questionnaire (dialectological questions), singing, recitation, a filmed service, a tour of the town, footage without speech, informal talk.