Hiding and rescue

Rezmovits recalls the family's time in Klausen-Leopoldsdorf in Austria near the end of the war, where they posed as Hungarian refugees. They hid a young Jewish man whose looks might betray him, and heard that twenty Jews had been killed nearby. As the Red Army approached, he describes an Italian soldier and a cellar scene, in which German soldiers threw grenades into houses before entering.

Herbst describes the liberation of the camps by the Americans and the Russians, his work at the quarry on one meal a day, and his return to the Mauthausen infirmary when too weak. There a Polish Jew from Krakow, whose name is given roughly as Boleslaw Bialik, shared bread and hid him from selections. He also speaks of Kapos, one of them a one-armed Hungarian Jew named Singer (?), and of overcrowded bunks. Kerler asks about the Russian word for bunks and about conditions in winter, and Herbst also mentions Hungarian Jews arriving in the autumn of 1944.

Herbst talks about a female friend in Jerusalem, an ethnomusicologist who wants to write a booklet about him, and gives his address. Kerler remarks on the dangers he survived and asks about a Polish man who saved him. Long Hungarian stretches concern friends and acquaintances in Budapest and people to visit. Kerler compliments Herbst's Hungarian and asks about Yiddish speakers in Budapest after the war.

Pearl says he was freed by partisans and spent weeks in the forest. From there he watched the German soldiers retreating from the Balkans and the Russian army waiting beyond them. He returned via Romania, went home to Tállya and found his brother, then went back to Budapest, continued his studies and became an engineer. He says he survived the camp because he was young and healthy.

Pearl describes working for a non-Jewish firm whose director was an antisemite but decent. He says he gave out false non-Jewish papers to people and used some himself, but gave them up when people were caught and killed, so he reported for labor service. He says he knew his parents had already been deported and had no alternative.

Reti says nobody sang in Auschwitz and describes the brutal forced labor, including a beating that broke his hand. He tells of the last days of the war and a Satmar Jew in the British army who spoke Yiddish to the prisoners. He explains how the camp commander refused an order to shut the prisoners in a tunnel to be killed.

Kalussky is asked about the war years and the ghetto. He says he was in a ghetto near a place called Vinets (?). He sings a sad war song and recites a ghetto lament. He then recalls being left with two small brothers and going out to beg bread from Christians, and says Ukrainians helped. Interviewers ask for his phone number and he says he may recall more later.

Mester describes three years in the Berlivka camp, including a stay in Vertiujeni where Romanian gendarmes beat prisoners and tore at rabbis' beards. She recalls being held in a forest for a few days and her elderly mother being helped to walk. In Berlivka, prisoners lived in a barn, her mother sewed for Christians in exchange for food, and they were taken to repair a bath house. Young people sang and danced; Germans searched for partisans, and the camp was freed by partisans in German uniform. Lemster and Kerler ask about words in camp speech.

An account of the killing of local Jewish women in Sarai in 1941. One mother fell on her child and the child survived; a local non-Jewish woman took the child, had him baptized and raised him. Kerler asks who the victims were and where the story comes from, and they say the neighbours told it.

Benderskij speaks of his childhood and two friends, one now in America, and games played with ball and the Romanian game of zurka. He describes the arrival of the Soviet troops, an exchange between neighbours, and a grandfather's warning about children. Lemster asks about rescuers; the speaker recalls non-Jews who helped Jews and the search for relatives' property on return.

Raisa begins her own interview. She recounts her family of five children, brothers and sisters who died in the camp or of hunger, and her father and brother shot by a German. She and her mother survived on a pig farm in Obodovka, and she describes the march to Bershad. After returning to Lipcani she worked washing floors and married at seventeen, and she describes Iosif's work making sausage.

Boiarskaia describes the ghetto, where it was forbidden to leave and there was no water, and where Jews slipped out to fetch water and bread. She tells of the rebbe who prayed alone by day and night, helped by others, and who was helped to reach the Dniester. They fasted and were brought food secretly by acquaintances; for Passover two brothers had matzo baked for him. She says she was there with her three children.

Milevskaya talks about elderly community members, many unable to speak Yiddish, and about young people having left for America and Israel. She describes former ghetto prisoners, including Ida Lazarevna (recently buried) and a woman held in the Savran camp under Romanian rule, and Pogrebinsky's family who hid in a tree and now live in Germany. The remaining speech covers the town's population and the geography of Pervomaysk, Golta, Bohopil and Olviopol, and the beer factory is mentioned. Arrangements for a visit to Sofia Lvovna follow.

Meir answers Kerler's questions about prewar Dorohoi. Some non-Jews were decent, some hid Jewish families, and non-Jews who knew Yiddish words. He and Lemster discuss Jewish weddings: the canopy in the synagogue, the hall, music and dancing, and non-Jewish guests. They discuss a wedding entertainer and a Romanian word for jokes.

Hirsch speaks about the later war years, after Stalingrad, when the Romanian authorities treated Jews somewhat better. In a partly Hungarian-language account, a young man tells of being locked up with about ten other Jewish youths, with a minyan, as punishment, to be sent to Transnistria. They were released when an order sent officers to the front, which he calls great luck. He also says Botoșani Jews were not deported because they paid the authorities.

Ruti recalls the aftermath of the Transnistria years: only two families with children came back to Siret, and she remembers the dead being carried out on a cart. She describes a woman's body in a trench and two dead children. She then tells how a German doctor in Pishchana, when she was six or seven, took a liking to her and wanted to take her to Germany. Her parents hid her, he threatened them, and the Russians arrived before he could act. Davidovich adds details, and Kerler says the whole town knew the story.

Shtaigman describes daily life in the Transnistrian ghetto: obtaining food, buying from nearby villages, bread made from flour, potatoes, and aid sent from Bucharest through a woman named Albrecht (?). His father was sent for forced labor to Sharhorod for two years until a Romanian sergeant from Rădăuți sent him back ill. He says Jews and non-Jews in Rădăuți got on very well, and a neighbor who was a police officer warned them two days before the deportation.

Mezei tells of an elderly relative's marriage match and her Romanian lesson, then answers Kerler about singing in Auschwitz. She tells in detail of Miri, a Slovakian or Hungarian block elder from Birkenau, who knew her fiancé's family and helped her and her sister with food while they were in forced labor. She describes selections, the transport, twelve-hour day and night shifts, singing Hungarian and Romanian songs with other women, and the final evening when Miri decided not to leave with them. The part also touches on an uprising by the Sonderkommando and her friendship with a rabbi's wife.

Weinberger describes his family and Nižná Jedľová, a small village near Svidník with about nineteen houses, a few of them Jewish families including his own and uncles. He recalls his grandmother Leah (?) who cooked for him when he came home from cheder in Stropkov. His uncles were taken in 1942 and his father died in 1943 (?), his mother and siblings were deported, and an uncle hid him so that he lived on false Christian papers. He also mentions an uncle with eight small children, married to a woman from Poland, and the nearby border and villages.

Weinberger names his father, Leyzer Kirshner of Krosno, who was a Polish citizen and so gave his Slovak-born son no citizenship. On arrival in Budapest he stayed in a prayer house with Jewish refugees, learned a little Polish and went to the Polish Committee under the Polish name Yosef Chibotsky (spelled Przybycki in the catalogue). He received papers, money and food, worked in the fields and a bakery, attended services and received meal vouchers from the Jewish community. Kerler also asks about the date of the crossing, which he gives as late December 1943, and about the arrival at the Budapest station. Weinberger also mentions the deportation of Jews from Subcarpathian Rus.

Guzman describes the ghetto, which was closed off so that no one could go out or buy anything. Some non-Jewish neighbours secretly brought milk and potatoes, while police stood watch in the street. In answer to Kerler she says the police fled when the Red Army returned, and that her father was beaten at the gendarmerie and became an invalid. Romanians are mentioned, but how the family survived is not clearly answered.

Kerler asks about Kazakevich's family. Her father died before the war and her mother survived, hidden among Ukrainians who took in the mother and the children; the daughter passed as Ukrainian. She had five siblings, including the eldest, Chaim, and a sister Bronya. A brother who was a football player died at the front and a sister who was a nurse also died. An off-camera relative speaks Russian and supplies much of the family information, including half-siblings now in America and Israel.

Kerler asks how life was after the war and Katz asks her to tell something in Yiddish, but Kazakevich answers mostly in Ukrainian and Russian, helped by relatives. She says the family spoke Yiddish at home, that her mother looked Ukrainian and passed as one, and she recalls the Germans rounding up Jews to be shot in prepared pits and her escape. Very little coherent Yiddish speech is heard.

Zhovtis tells in a long and hard-to-follow account of the German occupation. He describes the first killings of Jews and communists near Khmilnyk, and the roundup of Jews from the town and surrounding villages, including his mother, siblings and himself. He escaped while his mother was being beaten and was taken in by a non-Jewish villager, who gave him milk, but a local officer turned him in. He also describes forced labor for German and Romanian commanders, repeated escapes, and falling ill. He was taken to Mohyliv-Podilskyi. He names several places, but their spelling is not clear in the transcript.

Kerler asks Zhovtis to go through the occupation again and Zhovtis explains the killings in January and the forced labor on the roads and in a town. He describes his work, going to Zhmerynka and Murafa, harsh treatment, the dangers of bridge-building near Mykolaiv, being weak and ill, and being taken to the station and to Mohyliv-Podilskyi. When the Red Army arrived he left on foot for Khmilnyk, found no Jews left, and was then drafted. He served seven years, in the north near Murmansk, as the only Jew among many.

Berzon speaks about antisemitism and mixed marriages, citing a newspaper figure on the share of mixed marriages in Israel. She says there were good non-Jews who rescued Jews in the war. She remembers childhood relations with a Ukrainian neighbour who fed her borscht and gave her radish on bread, while her own home was kosher.

Kogan tells how his wife survived hiding in a cellar in the war, and returns to his school years, where Russian, Ukrainian and German were taught, and of the Yiddish-speaking youth circle. He names the school director and a brother who later lived in America.

Vaisman recounts the war: evacuation toward the Caucasus and then to Central Asia, where he worked, and being drafted into the army and sent to the front after a short course. He served for about a year in Romania, catching deserters, and afterwards fought Bandera partisans in the Baltic region. He mentions Jewish comrades, a commander, being questioned about informing, and release from the army. The second informant tells of an old Jewish tailor who stayed under German occupation with his wife and two sons and was hidden by non-Jews. He hid under a bridge with a crying infant and was spared by a German soldier. Kerler also asks whether one could pray in the army.

Vainshelboim speaks about Ukrainian and German attitudes toward the Jews, and about neighbors taking Jewish property. He explains that in 1942 he feared his employer would betray him. On neighbors' advice he went to the Rozhysk district, where he worked on a state farm among prisoners for about a year until the Red Army arrived. He recounts the arrival of the Soviet forces at the end of 1943.

Vainshelboim speaks of his wife making fish and baking bread, and invites the interviewers to visit again. Kerler and he exchange remarks about where they live and about the need to leave for Kyiv, so they cannot stay now. Vainshelboim then mentions a German photographer or artist who wrote a history of how he survived. He says he took the man to the place where Jews were shot and where he jumped down from the bank (details unclear).

Burmenko shows letters and photographs, including material connected with Spielberg's foundation in America. She mentions a photograph from her sixteenth year, one from the war, and her age at 80 and now 92. Her sister's child was killed. She also shows a Russian-language certificate recognising the people who hid her (Gordei and Akulina (?)), with a reference to Israel. Kerler asks her to tell about the photographs.

Vainshelboim guides the team through Berdychiv and tells of the German occupation and the roundups and killings of Jews. He tells of the murder of 960 young men, the grave pits, and his own escape when his father was shot. His mother, sisters and brother lie in the mass grave. He also mentions a brick factory and a pit for hiding Jews, the Soviet memorials, the erection of the Star of David, and gold-seekers digging up bones.

Gvinter sings a song about winter days and a camp, repeating the first part at Kerler's request. She says it matters that children and grandchildren know about the pits, the forced labor carrying stones, and the starvation. Kerler asks about partisan detachments in the area. Gvinter names Yashe Talis as the leader, and a woman in the room mentions the ghetto.

The second man opens by explaining that the synagogues were closed before the war and that after the war only a few were allowed. He recalls that a synagogue building stood on a spot in Bershad', and points out the main street, which became Lenin Street. Sklyarskiy then gives his name and patronymic and says he was orphaned young (his mother died when he was three, his father when he was seven) and brought up by an aunt and uncle in the shtetl Zhornysche, where about two thousand Jews lived. He tells how in 1942 the Jews were driven out by police, he was shot at and wounded, and the family hid in a dugout in a field. His sisters and their children were killed when he went out for food; he then joined the partisans and was wounded again. He describes his father as a carpenter, his sisters, and his schooling: a four-year Yiddish school, then a Russian one. He talks about the shtetl before the war, a rabbi, holidays in the synagogue and the postwar murder of a Jewish man. Kerler asks about the length of the hiding and the number of people in the dugout, and asks him to retell the first shooting and the forced labor under the Germans, including burying dead soldiers.

Sklyarskiy shows his documents and talks about his status as a partisan and war invalid, with a utility benefit that reduces his electricity charges. Kerler asks when his sister took him, and Sklyarskiy says he recovered in the Lipovets district. His sister was an officer in a field hospital, and he travelled with the hospital. Kerler also asks about the person who shot at him.

Sklyarskiy speaks about his family and again about the dream in which he was told to run to the field. He mentions his wife's fasting and illness near the end of her life and the interview his granddaughter made with her. Kerler arranges to photograph him with those present, and there is talk of his writing. A garbled recogniser loop appears in this part.

Sklyarskiy and Kerler finish the formal interview and he speaks of today's life, the market and the neighbours. He recalls a Jewish couple, and a pious man who prayed, and says that few Jews and some non-Jews still speak Yiddish in Bershad'. They discuss the cost of dental care and the polyclinic. He returns to the story of the two hiding places and to the geography of Ivanky and Lipovets. Kerler thanks him and offers blessings.

Pustilnik describes the march on foot to the Pechera camp, where those who could not walk were shot. She mentions a small book of Jewish survivors, and Kerler notes that he has recorded people in Tulchyn who were in the camp. She tells how the pregnant mother and small children escaped from a Gentile who had been paid in wheat to take them. The father was in the Red Army, and the passage ends with the mother pregnant in 1942.

Kupershmidt recalls surviving the grave, then answers Kerler's question about non-Jews who spoke Yiddish and says Jews and non-Jews lived together well before the war. He describes his father's work with horses and a cart, hauling loads, and gives his father's death as 1952 (as heard from INF2).

She recalls the arrival of the Germans, who collected money, gold and clothing from Jewish homes, and then the Romanians, who fenced off a square by the school as a ghetto, six years long. She describes a woman accused of being a partisan because of a grenade and shot, and the memorial later built on the square from the bones.

Kupershmidt talks about his wartime experiences. He trained as a driver and worked for a Soviet official, and says he was exempted from army service when the war started. He describes his plan to flee with his wife and child, and the false name he took under the Germans. He mentions earlier service in Finland and time in Zhytomyr (?) and Rivne ghetto, though many details are garbled.

Kupershmidt recalls local families who perished and continues with his driving work for Germans and Romanians. He tells how he wore a Star of David, of a German officer living with a Jewish woman, and of a letter about him that he offers to show. He also recounts a trip to Mohyliv-Podilskyy, where he made a delivery, and the car trouble on the road.

Kupershmidt tells how he was denounced as a Jew and how he was taken in a column of prisoners near Zhytomyr. German soldiers stopped them and asked who was a driver, and he was picked for a lorry. A German soldier told him to say nothing, but another man pointed him out. Details of the order of events are unclear in the transcript.

The cemetery caretaker, speaking Russian, shows the team around and gives information about local graves. He mentions a mill owner named Soliterman (?) who was shot, the graves of Nathan and Nachman's Bratslav disciples, and the tourists and Hasidim who come, including large crowds at Rosh Hashanah on the way to Uman and Mezhybizh. He also points out the grave of Kupershmid (?) and his family, a man who saved Jews in the war, vandals taking bricks from graves, and the few Jews still in Bratslav, including an old man David Geller (?) and a woman Kelmenson, whom he suggests the team visit.

Shames speaks about the war years and after. She worked in a factory in evacuation and then came to Khmil'nyk, where her mother had survived the war. She worked as an accountant, did not attend a Yiddish school (she was taught at home at eight), then switched to Ukrainian. She tells how her father was killed and how her mother hid and survived, and cannot recall details.

Kerler notes that her sister Niusye was killed not far from the town. Shames explains that the sister was handed to someone who took money to hide her but gave her up, and she was killed.

A long dialectological questionnaire in which Kerler and Lemster give Russian and Ukrainian words and Gammer supplies Yiddish ones, with her daughter commenting. Items include greetings and times of day, mouse, house and building, window pane, deaf, near and far, early and late, cold, honest, pious and ordinary words for family and body. Gammer also talks about how she learned Yiddish, why it matters, and a Khmil'nyk inn. She then identifies men in a photograph (a partisan among them) and a doctor, and Kerler asks about visiting the killing site.

Schreier tells what happened after he was found on the road. He was taken to a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp, where he slept well, and then to a town camp filled with displaced persons. He went on with the Italians toward Roßwein, where a German woman gave him bread, and then to Freiberg in Saxony, where he stayed in a former camp for a few days. He was liberated there by the Soviets around 7–8 May 1945. A French and a German doctor tried to help him. Afterwards he looked for work at the department store opened for Soviet officers.

Kopyt talks about her aunts, who sang, and about neighbours during the war: the Grossman family, whose children were hidden by Russians. She says that her grandmother's home housed many families. She tells of being pressed to testify that people were Jewish, and she talks about Jewish writers from Fastiv such as Khashevatskaia (?) and Khentin. She says she gets no Yiddish newspapers, only Sovetish Heymland, and that she has helped make a museum in Korsun with artifacts.

Beigel recounts the war: the family went to her mother's parents but a week later killings began, so they fled to Krasne and were later sent back. The Dnister (?) river divided the German and Romanian zones. She was beaten in the ghetto. An elder of the community bought her out so that she would not be killed. She also escaped bandits and hid with a Pole, and three times escaped being killed.

Geller tells of his 2005 trip to Pyatka with a grandchild (the catalogue says great-grandchild) to visit the Jewish cemetery. A hundred or so gravestones remain. He describes the killing of Jews buried there and the survival of a boy and a girl who later lived in Berdychiv and emigrated to Israel. Kerler asks how many Jews lived in Pyatka, and the passage ends with a Jewish man with a surname like Pastovsky (?) who was killed by a car.

Geller recounts the outbreak of war in 1941 and the family's evacuation. At the station his mother, a former partisan with Kotovsky, secured a cart by force for the family. His father came back and missed them; he later sent two men with boots. The father then disappeared at the front and was never found, and Geller speaks of how he was missed in Kuzmin.

Geller talks about his wife Feyge: a Kyiv university student evacuated to Tashkent, she volunteered for the army and served as an artilleryman and then radio operator. Her mother, siblings and grandparents were shot by the Germans, while her father and elder sister hid, the father surviving a pit during the shooting.

Geller talks about police work and about thieves, with no Jews among them. Asked about his mother's songs, he says he was too young to remember. He tells how he later led the automobile and motorcycle society for years, describes his car and his pension, and his Yiddish learned from his parents in the Yiddish-speaking town of Kuz'myn. His first wife Feyge died in 1991; her parents were killed in the war. He remarried after meeting a woman by chance, they registered and have been together some fifteen years. He mentions his son in Moscow, his garden, and the Colorado beetle.

Asked about the ghetto, Khandros says he was in the ghetto and in the Pechera camp and escaped from it, and that he was shot at and wounded. He refers to his published book for the full story. He speaks of five people who saved him at different times and are honoured at Yad Vashem, whom he regards as his own family, and offers to show photographs.

Khandros recalls his service as a commissar in a cavalry regiment, quartered in the park of an estate at Bialy Wody in summer 1945. He describes the ruined town of Grabovets, where pavements were laid with Jewish gravestones, and a local priest who told him the history. He tells how he found a cellar with Jewish belongings and the names of an owner, his wife and two children, shot for hiding Jewish families. The Ukrainian police were alerted by a neighbour. Kerler establishes that this was summer 1945.

Grayf says he worked on the railway when the war began and left for Russia within days, while his parents stayed. His parents were taken to the ghetto and deported; many Jews were shot nearby and others sent to Germany. His younger brother and sister jumped from a transport; the sister was caught, the brother hid in town and later reached Palestine and Tel Aviv. He says Ukrainians sheltered some Jews, and he blames Bandera's followers for antisemitism after the war.

Kerler thanks Katsman and concludes the formal interview. Katsman mentions a Kyiv rabbi and then says in Russian that he served as chief doctor of a partisan brigade and has been photographed for a Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. Kerler asks him to say it in Yiddish.

Gershtein recounts his flight at the start of the war as one of four children. They reach Sarny, meet the Red Army in the woods, and a commander named Kuznetsov (?) arranges for them to reach the evacuation trains. A bombed bridge stops the train; they spend the night in a field, barefoot and with little clothing. A freight train takes them to Kyiv, where they are fed and put to work digging potatoes. He is then sent to Andizhan.

Pensatii speaks in Russian about two years working underground in occupied Kyiv under a false Muslim (Kumyk) identity. He tells how he was denounced and brought to the German commandant's office, where a German officer vouched in writing for his false papers and he was released. He also mentions Raisa Akipnaya of the Kyiv underground and says he saved many people. Kerler thanks him at the end.

Leibel recalls a song his sister sang at the Yiddish kindergarten, remembering only the first lines. He describes the Rivne street where he lived, its Jewish and Polish neighbors, the synagogue on the hill, and local figures including a children's doctor who survived the war. He names a professor and an economic figure or factory owner. A neighbor later hid people in a hideout (?).

Dorfman recalls the outbreak of the war on June 22: he had finished his third year at the technical college and was living in Bessarabia, and the Soviet army was unprepared. He tells of two articles he published on Polish Jews, one of them an officer who posed as a Ukrainian. He then talks about his work documenting rescuers of Jews for Yad Vashem, including a woman rescued as a child and the Polish antisemitism she knew.

At the Janowska camp site, Dorfman describes the sand pits, the camp for Jews, the uprising of November 1943 led by a poet, and the burning of corpses with a mill. He talks about the stone memorial put up with help from Freiburg, the Munich professor Alexander Schwarz, plans for a larger monument that he opposes, and Ukrainian recognition of rescuers. He also describes the camp's labor and the Nazi report that Galicia was free of Jews.

Shvartzbroit gives a detailed account of the Pechera camp. She tells of being sent out with Ukrainian Jews while Bessarabian Jews bought their way out with money, of the transport in wagons, of the dead and living in the camp and of how she was helped to leave. She then tells of her flight via Sharhorod, Murakhtu (?) and Ozarintsy to Mohyliv, where relatives took her in. Kerler's questions clarify the details.

Shvardovskaia, asked by Kerler to speak of the war, describes first the Polish period, then two years of Soviet rule with closed shops, and the arrival of the Germans in 1941. Jews were confined as in a ghetto, forced to hand over valuables, and the first skilled Jewish worker was killed at once. She describes Jews thrown into pits and shot, her escape and flight into the woods, and a Ukrainian acquaintance who hid her in an attic, where her father and a sister joined her for three months. Later they hid for a year in the forest, fed at night by Ukrainians, escaped a second shooting, moved between villages, and finally joined Russian partisans. She mentions that her father and brother were killed; the details are unclear in the transcript.

Briefly recounts what happened after the war. After the partisans she went with her unit to the Carpathians and worked in a hospital for wounded soldiers, and the military commissariat then assigned her to a military hospital. Kerler remarks that his mother also became a nurse. She reflects on how the survivors felt, wild and unlike normal people, and on her age.

She describes how she escaped from the execution pit where the Jews of the town were shot and fled while being shot at. Her father had told her to go to a Ukrainian acquaintance, who took her into the forest, where she spent about two years in cold and hardship. He brought food and, when Germans were near, left it in a canal. A younger sister also came. Kerler asks about the shooting and the Ukrainian nationalists.

She says she came to Luts'k in 1946 after the war. Partisans found them in the forest and she worked in a field hospital as a nurse, and afterwards in a hospital. Lemster and Kerler ask about postwar Luts'k, and she says its Jews were nearly all newcomers from Russia and she was the only local Jew from Volhynia.

Shoikhetman tells of a well-off local owner with a large building in the town centre and of a young person connected with him who hid gold, escaped to the forest and was later taken into the army. Who the person is and how he relates to the speaker is unclear in the transcript. Kerler asks what languages he spoke, and Shoikhetman then estimates how many Jews were in the town after the war, perhaps about a thousand.

Vaisburd tells how she escaped from Pechera at night with her mother and about twenty other people, running for two hours and bribing two policemen who threatened to return them to the camp. She lost her parents in the woods, was found by a local woman, and then by a cousin who had led them out. The family then stayed two or three weeks in Sharhorod with a woman named Khane, where her mother baked bread and pea pastries; Vaisburd explains how the pastries are made and baked. She then recalls the return to Mohyliv, where her father was drafted at Chernivtsi (Kleyn Tshernovits), and the Romanian police stopped them, where her mother passed as a Christian by crossing herself and praying, and the earlier roundup, ransom and deportation by train. Kerler and Lemster ask about local place names, the shoykhet and local Jewish figures, and her Russian studies. From about 13:00 the passage becomes mainly the dialectological questionnaire, partly in Russian, covering words for dawn, apostate, Christian and peasant, greetings and thanks, household and food terms, adverbs, body words, verbs, adjectives, and sentences to translate.

Endelshtein says he had no siblings. He is asked about Hasidim, Zionists and halutzim in Bolgrad before the war, and says his uncle left for Palestine in 1939 (?). He tells of meeting a Jewish girl who gave him a prayer book that came from her grandmother, who was killed in a shooting. The book was identified in Moscow as a Lithuanian siddur and he mentions Yad Vashem. He says his mother was found in Dnipropetrovsk, and gives the Bolgrad Jewish population before the war.

Bakmayev describes the arrival of the Germans in 1941 and the order for Jews to move and wear a star. His family hid in a cellar with other families. He went out to beg for food in villages, walking about twenty kilometres. They were freed by the Red Army in 1944. He also names the siblings he lived with there, and the passage includes a question on how many hid and survived.

Bivson says she returned to Polonne in 1945 from Birobidzhan. She answers questions about the Jews there, fewer than before the war because many were killed and tortured, and about relatives, neighbors and friends. She mentions the ghetto and non-Jews who rescued Jews.

Marinina speaks about the two Germans who helped Jews during the war: a Czech-born driver and an officer who rescued children and took them to Bershad'. She also tells of a non-Jewish woman who saved a Jewish boy, and of the difficulties of getting this confirmed. The passage deals mostly with rescue and not with the Dzhankoye song or Passover, as the catalogue describes.

Gliazer mentions that his parents were hidden in Skalat, and that Jews from America, Israel and Poland set up a memorial there. Kerler asks about the language of the inscription, which is in Hebrew. They also note that Podgaytse has a synagogue and talk about driving there.

In the car, the guide mentions a thematic collection on the Jewish ghetto and photographs of the Battler-Kanner family. She describes the Lyceum and the museum, and says a diary kept as a boy by Roman Kravchenko-Berezhnoi (?) about Nazi crimes against Jews, now living in Murmansk oblast, is to be published in English. She also tells how the family hid in an attic, how a baby's crying during a roundup caused the mother to poison the child, and how she then hanged herself with her father's help. The planned visit of kobzars and the museum's opening hours are also mentioned.

Gliazer describes Purim in the shtetl: masks, collecting Purim money, and plays, with Christians coming to watch. He says the Subbotniki took a strong interest in the Jews and even rescued some during the war. Asked about the Purim play, he recounts the Esther and Mordecai story with Haman hanged.

Miaskovskij mentions a sister in Israel and answers Lemster's and Kerler's questions about prewar Jewish weddings in Tomashpol' and his father's house. The house is about a hundred years old and has a mezuzah on the door but not on the window frame; he explains what a mezuzah is for. He recalls his pious grandmother and speaks about the languages he used and his Ukrainian school. He says his mother died before the war and that his father hid during the occupation, with a ghetto mentioned. Kerler asks to see the father's books in the attic, but Miaskovskij says he cannot climb up.

Kerler and Lemster talk with Vasili Mukha (b. 1933) about his Yiddish. He spoke it with Jewish friends as a child, has forgotten much of it, and is asked for songs and sayings. He says his father's brother was a Jewish shoemaker. In the war Jews slept in his family's house, with the transcript suggesting they were hidden. He is asked whether there were beautiful Jewish girls, about life after the war, the town's Jewish trades and streets, and his own work.

Kogan speaks about his wife, who was born in Zhabokrych. He describes the massacre of the town's Jews and how only a few people survived by hiding in a cellar and an attic. Kerler asks for the town's name and district and about children, and Kogan answers that he has none.

Golfeld recalls leaving the camp to find food in the villages. In Chechelnyk he met a rebbe (whether Hasidic or a teacher he does not know) who took him in for a service and gave him alms. He then tells how a Ukrainian, Mishka Kotsap (?), hid the Tul'chyn Torah scroll and brought it into the Pechera camp. His mother, who could read Hebrew, is mentioned, and Golfeld praises the man.

Vainer-Shpak gives personal information (born in Vinnytsya in 1921; the address of her prewar home) and names her family: her father Froyke, a Bratslav Hasid, her mother Dobtse from Pryluky, brothers, sisters and grandparents. She tells of her Jewish model school in Vinnytsya, her studies as a dental specialist and the assignment to a sugar factory village in 1940, then her journey toward Odessa on foot at the start of the war and her return, hiding and survival in Vinnytsya, with her husband. She also talks about her parents' religious life, Sabbath, Purim and Hanukkah food and customs, the synagogues of Vinnytsya, and a story about Haman and Esther.

A woman recalls the Germans coming to the camp to take people for work. Her young mother had a baby sister and was urged to run away. The mother escaped and survived, living to old age. The daughter held the child and the details of who was taken are hard to follow. A woman named Sarah is mentioned.

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.

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.

Pecherskaia and the team try the dishes she has prepared. She speaks about her son, who lives in a new district of Tul'chyn, and about relatives in Israel and America, including half-sisters whose city she does not know. She describes going to Pechera every year at Rosh Hashanah, where her family lies, and being photographed and interviewed there. She names her family and gives her name, maiden name and birth year; her father Yosif worked as a coachman or carter. She had four siblings, including her brother Hershl, killed in the army at seventeen, and her sisters Shele and Rivele, who died in Pechera. She gives a long account of Pechera: her mother killed with shovels, her sisters' deaths, her escape and recapture, the German camp in Bratslav with its killings in the forest, and hiding in a pit and with a Polish woman until the partisans came. After the war she worked at a brewery in Bratslav and married in 1945. She talks about her husband Shune, her stepfather, her children and grandchildren, and a daughter in Israel. She recalls prewar Bratslav, a field wedding, her grandfather and prayer, Passover, the Bratslav tsadik's grave, and the hunger of 1933. She also talks about Tul'chyn after the war, her fasting, Passover matzo and gefilte fish.

The woman tells of surviving the killings in the Bershad' ghetto, lying wounded and escaping from the pit, and wandering from town to town. She says she lived in the synagogue building, tells of a sister who fell at the front, and says her mother left the house. She now lives with her husband, a Jewish shoemaker, while her daughter lives nearby; Kerler and others discuss compensation payments from Germany.

Teplitskaia names her family: her parents are buried in the Jewish cemetery, and her sisters and brother live abroad, in Dimona (?). She speaks of her children, one son in Germany, and of raising them alone after her husband left. She describes four years under the Germans, hiding in cellars and attics, hungry, naked and lice-ridden, and two pogroms she lived through.

She tells how, when the Germans came and a pogrom broke out, her father's friend took the family to another village, where non-Jews hid them. She later returned to Ternovka and then, in 1952, moved to Uman' with her parents. She says her sisters are in Israel, in Haifa and Dimona, and mentions phone calls with them.

Rubin recalls a large family (about twelve sons and eight daughters) and a relative who visited from America, who was allowed only as far as Kyiv and had to hire a taxi at night. He also speaks of an old woman, Frida or Fanya (?), who survived the war hidden among Germans, now receives money from Germany and parcels from America. He ends with his own work as a taxi driver.

Vainer-Shpak recalls the Vinnytsya ghetto and a labor camp. Men were taken from the camp for road work, and she joined a work group paving a road. She then fled with a man she met there, and they became husband and wife. They returned to Vinnytsya and found a neighbor occupying their house.

She says she confronted the neighbor who had taken over her house, and the neighbors soon moved out. She describes her happy childhood and her isolation during the war, with no parents or siblings left. A man named Itsik helped save her from death. She mentions her hearing loss.

The team meets a Ukrainian man, Matsey (also called Volodya, surname Pidpaliuk (?)), who is about seventy and speaks Yiddish. He says he lived all his life on a Jewish street and worked with Jews. Asked by Kerler and Lemster, he points out the old shoykhet's house, recalls Jews hiding in a cellar during the war, and mentions playing with Jewish children. He talks about his five children, Soviet life and politicians, the Jews he worked with, and whether life was better with Jews.

Interviewers talk on the street with a local woman, mostly in Ukrainian and Russian. She tells what she heard from her mother and grandmother, Pelageya Vasilyevna Demianchuk: Jews hid in the reeds and in a cellar during the war, a baby was born in hiding, and a later letter from the son seeking the family went astray. Kerler and Lemster then ask about addresses, houses and former Jewish residents: a Farber family that left for Germany, a shop, a former synagogue, the Grinman brothers, one now in Israel, and a hairdresser family. The passage ends with the group leaving for Yatskova's house.

Burshtein recounts the start of the war in Goworowo (Govrove) and the arrival of the Soviets and then of the Germans, who began killing Jews. His father refused to gather with the others and led the family toward the Russians. He describes crossing a bridge past German guards and meeting Soviet soldiers. He recalls the testimony of an elderly woman about the killings and burning of Goworowo. He then describes the journey via Zambrów and a committee that fed refugees, to Białystok, where refugees stayed in a club and later in empty apartments, a Polish village and a slaughterhouse. His father decided they should register to go further into Russia, and the family was taken to Babruysk, where they were disinfected and helped by local people.

Antsis says many Russians saved Jews during the war, and that she knows of this from the newspapers. She personally knew one woman who sheltered and saved a man.

Burshtein recalls the start of the war and the bombing of his town. His family took refuge in the prayer-house, where the Torah scroll was opened and psalms said. After Polish soldiers announced the Germans' approach, the family fled by night with his father, mother, two sisters and two brothers. They ran into German motorcyclists and reached Ostrów Mazowiecka, where Jews were driven out of their homes and assembled and some were held for days. He describes hunger, bread thrown over the fence, shooting and a curfew, a German officer's cruel jokes, and the Germans' searches. His father and a brother were held, and the family searched for them. They crossed a bridge to the Russians' side, where the rabbi's wife told how Goworowo's synagogue was burned with people inside.

Burshtein recalls the family's flight in 1939. He saw his Polish teacher in the street while German troops marched past, so he could not reach her. He tells of a Bolshevik saved by Jews who dressed him in tallis and tefillin in the beit midrash, and then of the walk with his father through burnt villages and forest to the Russian side. The journey takes them via a town named Zembrów(?) to Białystok, where Jewish families host them for Sabbath, and then on to Babruysk and a kolkhoz commune where his father got work at a factory.

After the war Nibulskaia returned to her sister's village. The sister, a teacher, had been saved from the Germans because her Russian husband said she was not Jewish. Her brother-in-law brought her to teach in Pulyny (Chervonoarmiysk), where she met her husband without a matchmaker and they married. They lived in Pulyny until 1977 and had three children; two now live in Zhytomyr and one in Kyiv, and a grandchild is on a kibbutz in Israel.

Shraibman, born 1930, was eleven when the war began and was hidden by non-Jews for about a week and a half. He tells of his maternal grandfather, a tailor who worked in the surrounding villages with a Singer machine, and of another grandfather killed in 1918 by Petliura's men. He describes sheltering with a customer in the village of Dvorishche (?) and the decision to return to town despite warnings. He recounts the arrival of Soviet scouts, the German entry, the formation of a police force, the shooting of Jews and the roundup of about 700 Jews in the militia stable.