Kashrut and slaughter

Rezmovit relates the legend that the Kaliver rebbe heard a song from a Christian shepherd and turned it into a Hebrew song, keeping the Hungarian words. Kerler establishes that the rebbe only heard it and did not buy it. Rezmovit tries to play or recall the Hungarian melody on the harmonica and sings, with Kerler, the Sabbath song his father sang. He then speaks of his father's piety and his remark that a Jew on a mountaintop must still be a Jew.

Galambos describes prewar Jewish life in his village: some poor people, but most Jews worked, as farmers, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters and an innkeeper. Kerler asks about prayer shawls. Galambos says they were kept in the synagogue, and children carried theirs. Only the shochet wore one in the village, and he mentions boys' sidelocks.

Herbst describes Sabbath in his parents' home before the war: his mother baking challah and bread in the early morning, cholent and kugel baked in the oven, and thin flat breads. Meat was not always affordable and there was no fish, so mock fish was made, with farfel as a side. He recalls a neighbour, a butcher, who survived the camps and now lives in Brooklyn.

Herbst recounts the deportation: in April 1944 the family was taken to the ghetto in Mateszalka (?), where for six weeks they slept in the open at the cemetery, then to Auschwitz in the first transports with a childhood friend. He declined an offer to be hidden and went with his family. He later worked on a tunnel, came to Mauthausen, and was liberated there by the Americans on 5 May 1945.

Gotlieb describes prewar Jewish life in her hometown: about three thousand Jews, Neolog, Orthodox and Hasidic communities, and her own Orthodox family. She mentions early morning prayer and study, two mikvehs, three ritual slaughterers, three large synagogues and many small stiblekh. She talks about Hasidic dancing and mentions a rabbi whose son now lives in New York.

Herbst recalls that the family had a cow, geese and hens but did not sell milk, because eight children needed it. His mother baked round bread and challah and some flat dough cakes, and they ate meat on Sabbath only rarely. He mentions a goose slaughtered once a year in winter and a simple dessert of noodles with sugar.

Asked about his childhood, Pearl describes Tállya's one synagogue, daily minyan, cheder, mikveh and rabbi Rosenbaum, who came from a place whose name is unclear in the transcript. There was no yeshiva in the village, but there were several in nearby towns, including one his brother attended. He says the rabbi preached in Yiddish and kept strict observance of the Sabbath and kashrut, and that about 3,200 non-Jews lived in the village without antisemitism. Only one non-Jew, born in Munkács, knew Yiddish, while Jewish women spoke it.

Doman describes the yeshiva day, from rising early through prayer, breakfast and Talmud study until the midday meal, plus afternoon and evening sessions and a Friday examination. He compares the cheder system, in which children began Humash at about six. He explains the system of eating "days" with different families, and Kerler asks about the term and the word for beans. They discuss the one Sephardic (Hasidic) yeshiva and how it differed. They also cover prayer-text differences, student helpers who repeated the rabbi's lecture to younger students, and the prohibition on Hungarian books. Doman recalls a song learned from a Lithuanian-born student.

Gotlieb talks about her work in Budapest and her return home. She worked in a kosher community kitchen and went back and forth to her home town. She says she returned to live in Budapest in 1987 after her son died. At eighteen she worked in a factory, not in the kitchen.

Blobshteyn says his father David was a kosher butcher from Siltse, near Mukacheve, and his mother Sara Rivka a native of Mukacheve. His maternal grandfather came from Poland. He tells how his mother, in an earlier cholera outbreak, was said to have been hidden in an attic and sick people were burned alive, and how this gave her second name. He adds that his father, as a kosher butcher, depended on the rabbi, and that the family was large.

Blobshteyn lists Sabbath foods, such as cholent with stuffed stomach kugel, and explains where cholent was kept at the baker's. He describes the Jewish street where he lived and typical foods, including fish, cholent, kugel, a dish called refenik (?) and plain dumplings. He tells how the religious tutor ate with his family on certain days of the week, and discusses brandy and a Passover drink called slivovitz and its kashrut. He mentions wine at Passover.

Blobshteyn tells of a trip to America to see relatives. The passage includes his religiously observant sister, a visit to a relative named Mermershteyn (?), and a Sabbath with his brother after about fifty years apart. He also tells of a young man sent from America to Lithuania who ate non-kosher food. Kerler asks what Hungarians and Russians were called in Yiddish and whether Ukrainians had a name, and Blobshteyn answers. He then begins on the emigration of Jews from Mukacheve and Torah scrolls being taken away.

Blobshteyn explains several terms (golem, a non-Jewish house of worship, dybbuk) in answer to Kerler's questions. He goes on to compare Christian and Jewish teaching, including the weekly Torah reading and Sunday services. They then discuss the Christian claim to be the true Jews and the origin of the Arabs. Blobshteyn also recalls a Jewish butcher who was denounced and imprisoned, and a village man he knew as a child.

Reti begins a Passover song and does not recall "Khad gadyo" being sung. He says that as the youngest he asked the four questions, and discusses Passover customs: his father's hasidic avoidance of stuffed goose, avoidance of matzo flour in dishes, krimpl (?) dumplings, and the matzo baked under special supervision. The "mitzve matzos" baked on the eve of Passover were given to the poor or the community.

Answering Kerler, Reti says there were no Munkacs Hasidim in his area and that the Jews took no part in politics. He recalls the beit midrash in the courtyard as the meeting place, playing nuts at Sukkot, and every Jewish house having a sukkah, where his father slept. Kerler also asks about Yom Kippur night in the beit midrash on straw, the women's section, taking challah, and the salting of meat after slaughter.

Outdoors, Reti shows Kerler the former Jewish quarter: a rabbi's father's house and prayer house, the ritual slaughter house, a hall where hasidim stayed at Passover, and the beth midrash used all year, with the great synagogue for festivals. He describes kosher butchers, a bookshop and the mikvah, which is cold. He talks about a memorial stone with a board of antisemitic writing and a camera, and about vandals who broke in and set fire to the Torah ark, burning twenty Torah scrolls a few years ago. He names the chief Orthodox rabbi (Tshengeri, name uncertain) and describes the buildings around the synagogue.

Reti discusses the largest synagogue, which burned after the war, and S2 asks whether women also knew Yiddish. Reti mentions a Yiddish-speaking woman who lives near him and the town of Munkatsh, where even non-Jews knew Yiddish. They talk about the Munkatsher rebbe and the rebbe Chaim Elazar Shapira, whose film S2 mentions finding online. Reti also speaks about a rabbi who came to town and a kosher supervisor.

Reti and Kerler talk about a man named Goronvalgy(?) who recited a whole Purim play in Hungarian, and about a tailor and a baker who were tsadikim. S2 asks about Jewish life today, and Reti says there is kosher food, a shoykhet who comes from Pest and slaughters cattle, and a kosher shop, but no kosher milk. They also discuss a rabbi and a man who would not pray with a minyan, and Reti sings a snatch of a song.

Stern talks in Hungarian, with some Yiddish interpreting, about Jewish life today. She keeps kosher with the help of a woman who shops with her, and the meat comes from Budapest. One of her sons lives in Israel, where the household is kosher, and her daughter lives in Debrecen, where it is not. The other speaker asks questions about her children and where they live.

Galambos says he still makes his mother's dishes, such as gefilte fish and cholent. Kerler asks about Sabbath loaves, dumplings and the terms for them, and Galambos says he still has matzo meal. They discuss whether Jews drank palinka and whether it had to be kosher. They also cover wine, drinking on Passover and Purim, and toasts at kiddush in the synagogue. The recording has English and Russian fragments from others in the room.

Galambos says Vaja's Jews were craftsmen and merchants, with a shochet, a shamash, a gabbai and a rabbi who died in the early 1930s (?). He describes a nearby village with a beautiful synagogue where kosher wine was made. Kerler then asks about Shavuot dairy foods such as cheese pancakes and kreplach, and about goose fat, cholent, kugel, beans and Passover-style dishes, and the two compare Yiddish and Hungarian words for them.

Galambos talks about making kosher Kiddush in the synagogue and about keeping separate Passover dishes in the attic before the war. He describes Passover foods such as stuffed goose, matzo balls and potato kugel, and says that in Vaja the Orthodox did not eat soaked matzo (brak) except on the last day. Kerler then asks him to recite Purim plays again.

Faiershtein recalls going to synagogue as a child, with the women and men seated separately. She describes Sabbath observance: no work, no lighting fire, and a Moldovan slaughtering the chickens. Asked about Purim she cannot remember, and she says the war and beatings erased much of her childhood. Lemster then asks about her working years, and she answers about being invited to schools.

Bukshpun answers questions on Sabbath preparation, saying his mother cooked on Friday and a Christian came to light the candles. Kerler asks about the term for a Shabbes goy, which Bukshpun does not know. He recalls Sabbath food, gefilte fish, the shoykhet in Kurzhevits (?), Jewish tailors, Passover matzo, Sukkot, Purim and fasting. His uncle's tailor shop and its sewing machines are mentioned. He notes the Yiddish was spoken at home and he now has little chance to speak it.

Reizman says she attended Romanian school, not a Soviet one, and started work afterwards, as did all her siblings. She says she lights Sabbath candles only sometimes now and cannot recall Yiddish songs. She says women did not go to the synagogue regularly, then names Jewish dishes such as borscht, varenikes and krepelekh, and describes a meat dish. Lemster asks about kapores before Yom Kippur, the shoykhet, and cheder. She says the family could not afford religious schooling for the younger girls. She also covers Hanukkah money and latkes, and Passover customs including burning the chametz and the dishes kept in the attic, then Purim dishes.

Boltykh describes how his mother celebrated holidays: matzo and special food for the poor at Passover paid for by the rich, her separate Passover dishes and knife, gefilte fish, and Friday candle blessing. He mentions Purim visits with presents to neighbors, fasting, and a blessing from the rabbi of Bălți. He says his father could not pray while his mother was learned.

Goldberg describes Sabbath preparations and Passover customs: strictly kosher matzah, separate dishes, and foods her mother prepared. After her father's death the seder was held at her grandfather's, who lived downstairs in the same building. Her brother asked the four questions. She says she recalls little of Purim customs, such as masks, and describes building a sukkah.

Roif speaks about Yiddish writers who visited or came from the area: Yekhiel Shraybman, Yankl Yakir, who was arrested after the war in the campaign against Jewish writers, and Vaysman. His father subscribed to Sovetish Heymland. He describes Yakir's son visiting his kolkhoz, knowing Vaysman in Israel, and the shoykhet Ari Meir.

Roif answers Kerler's questions about prewar weddings in Bessarabia. He stresses that Bessarabian Jews were strictly observant and ate only kosher food at weddings. He talks about wedding music, the master of ceremonies (a kind of guide), matchmakers and their fees, the engagement contract, and the difficulty poor girls had in marrying.

Shpitalnik says there were no Yiddish shop signs in prewar Chișinău, only Romanian. Asked about Rabbi Tsirelson, she recalls her grandfather knowing him and describes him as a small man with a white beard, a member of the Romanian senate who tore up his mandate when the fascists came. She also mentions the slaughterhouse where her mother grew up, a street named after Tsirelson, excursions she led, and religious instruction in the Romanian gymnasium.

Abelsky talks about the situation of Jews today and about his own childhood in Moscow, where the family had to hide its religious observance. He recalls not eating dairy or meat and not building a sukkah in the courtyard. As boys he and his brother wanted to fast, and a Tatar caretaker was kind to them.

Lipovetskiy tells of his return to Chișinău in 1944 and the end of the war. He describes the many prewar synagogues by trade, including the cook's synagogue that gave out food on Passover. He recalls Rabbi Tsirelson, his visits to the talmud torah and the gifts of clothing he brought. He describes a ritual slaughterer's street and the yeshiva.

Answers Kerler's questions about his Yiddish school, which is called Vaysman after its director. Instruction was in Yiddish apart from one lesson in Romanian. The school and the talmud torah gave meals, kosher and paid by rich people. He explains the Romanian-derived word for money and its Hebrew equivalent, and cannot recall the poems studied.

Lipovetskiy remembers childhood games such as hiding games with a ball. He recites or sings a Yiddish song about a tailor and a Romanian cap. He then speaks about Jewish trades before the war, mentioning tailors' and butchers' synagogues and the difference between a butcher and a shoykhet for poultry, and the kosher marking of meat.

Kishlyansky recalls Briceni as a Jewish town, his observant mother who kept meat and milk separate, and the several ritual slaughterers and a rabbi. He recalls the circumcision custom of reading the Shema, and a few prayer words. He describes Friday and Sabbath at home, with challah, a blessing by his father, and cholent kept in the oven.

Mitlaeva talks about the Yiddish and Hebrew theater in Chișinău, including the Reidl Zal hall, and visiting actors and directors, with Kerler and others. The photographs then continue with a villa and the New Market. She describes the market's sections and Jewish shops, including a Litvak's store, the kosher butcher Grabois, and a non-kosher shop. A confectionery on the central street is also mentioned.

Kerler asks about salting meat, and Muchnik says her mother sent questions to a religious judge when something was doubtful. She then recalls Purim on the Jewish street, with a costumed procession stopping at her father's house. She says she does not recall a Purim play, and remembers neighbour children saying a Purim rhyme to get coins.

Abelsky contrasts Hasidim, who sing and are joyful, with Mitnagdim, who he says took their nigunim from Hasidim. He mentions disputes over customs such as the heated mikvah and the sharpened slaughter knife introduced by the Alter Rebbe. Kerler then asks about Purim in Chabad: Abelsky says there was no dressing up, and that drinking on Purim was limited to a measure, with stories of heavy drinking.

Benderskaia recalls weddings, Purim masking and shalakhmones, and her grandmothers. She describes Sabbath: large challahs, a visit to the shoykhet, her mother's koshering and lighting candles, and her two brothers. She mentions fish on Sabbath and holidays, and Yom Kippur spent in synagogue.

They talk about wine, with Lemster asking whether the family wine was kosher and what was drunk at Purim and Passover. They go on to Passover: her mother's koshering of dishes with fire, the seder, the four questions, and food during the week. Kerler asks about specific dishes.

Benderskij recalls Passover in the 1990s, when they received three kilos of matzo from the Hesed. Benderskaia then discusses her father and kosher meat, with Kerler asking about meat terms such as brisket. She tells of a stay in Iași, where doctors prescribed non-kosher meat when she was ill as a child.

Fershtman describes holidays at home before the war, including Sabbath, Passover and separate dishes for milk and meat. He talks about attending school on Sabbath or Sunday (he is unsure), going to the synagogue and kapores, and not having been taught to pray or recite blessings. He mentions that his relative Berl Fershtman wrote in Yiddish and studied in Odesa, and the interviewers suggest looking for his publications.

Gordin says his father prayed only on holidays, with tallit and tefillin, in the synagogue where the women sat upstairs, and that Florești had a shoykhet before and after the war. After the war the family returned to Florești and found their house wrecked. He was married in 1965 and has a son in Ashdod, who knows Hebrew and English and some Yiddish. He travelled to his grandson's bar mitzvah.

Kleyman answers Kerler's questions on food and holidays: her mother baking Sabbath challah, Sabbath dishes such as cholent, fish (kulen, chopped and gefilte fish), vinegar meat and the meal before Yom Kippur. She also recalls Hanukkah money, Purim noodle kugel, and baking at Passover in the oven. She remembers little of the Purim reading and the seder, and speaks of her sister asking the four questions and her mother lighting candles. Lemster and Kerler exchange words with a man from Israel about food terms.

Raisa says she met Iosif after both returned to Lipcani, and Iosif says he worked about forty years making Soviet-style sausage. Kerler tells them where the team members come from. Iosif describes how Jewish life continued after the war: a prayer house with a cantor, kosher meat, old people praying, and their traditional wedding with a chuppah and musicians.

Iosif is asked about his wedding food, then about making kosher and non-kosher sausages and pastrami; he keeps the recipe secret. Raisa tells of her children and the difficulties of life today, including fear of burglars and a daughter in Leningrad (?), a granddaughter in Israel, and a doctor son. Lemster discusses Yedinets and acquaintances with Iosif, and the team asks about the market.

Mundrian describes the family after the war: her mother's brother lived in Chișinău, her mother's sister became a doctor in Odessa and Moscow and traced the family in 1953, and cousins now live in Haifa. The family stayed in Susleny until 1956, and she married in 1957. She speaks of her husband's family, whose father was a cantor and whose family had a mill. She estimates the Jewish population of prewar Susleny at over 1,500 in a rich village, with a synagogue, kosher practice and a shoykhet. After the war everything was destroyed, and she tells how her mother studied in a Russian school and sang Yiddish songs.

Mundrian talks about holidays and food in her mother's time and after the war: Yom Kippur fasting, Sabbath candles and kiddush, and her mother's Hebrew. She also tells of baking matzo secretly and the difficulty of getting kosher meat. She describes dishes such as meat in vinegar sauce, and gives a detailed recipe for gefilte fish, a favourite of her uncle and her son. She mentions her 1957 wedding under a huppah, with the contract in Yiddish.

Mundrian answers questions about idioms and terms, and talks about religious life: her uncle going to synagogue in Kishinev, going to rebbes for blessings, cheder, slaughter of fowl before the holidays, and Passover dishes such as latkes, kugel, and potato and matzo meal dishes. She describes how a child's eye trouble was treated with spells and a village healer, and a doctor visit with a relative. Lemster also asks about sayings (a good place, praying on behalf of others, a bright paradise, not to be spoken of, rules about night-time knocking).

Asked about Kobylna, Grinshpun relates what her parents said about its many Jews, a village split in two, a single synagogue and a shoykhet. She says the family later moved to Kotozhan and Strășeni, where her father built a house. She recalls her grandmother milking a cow, and says relatives live in New York and Israel and that her late husband was a certain type of man.

Mirenburg talks about her family's observance, including Passover and the writing of a Torah scroll funded by a great-grandfather's gold chain. She describes Sguritzy before the war, saying there were fifteen thousand Jews and at least three synagogues; one on her street later became a school. The family kept separate dairy and meat dishes. Kerler asks about the Torah scroll and the synagogues.

Mirenburg describes religious life in Sguritzy: sending questions to the rabbi about whether meat was kosher, and trips to the Ştefăneşti rebbe (Shtefaneshter rebbe), about which she knows little. She answers questions about terms for a holy man and a holy place and about prayer at graves. She also answers questions about drinking, the blessing 'azgile'(?) and folk remedies for the evil eye.

Roif talks with Katz about Jewish observance and the Ştefăneşti rebbe. She describes her father-in-law, who spent six years in America and returned wealthy, and his wife's illness. The rebbe sent his gabbai to fetch the doctor. Roif also tells of their kashrut observance and the family's deportation to a camp.

She talks about customs such as striking Haman at Purim, a postwar encounter in a synagogue in Odessa (?), and the Rosh Hashanah custom of casting crumbs into water (tashlikh). She mentions kosher butchers before the war and the mixed streets of Jews and Christians in Soroca, as well as her present life.

Goldshteyn answers Lemster's questions about prewar holidays. He mentions Passover seders and matzo brought from a neighboring town, and the Passover dishes kept in the attic. He also recalls Purim with shalakhmones and masks, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah including kapores, tashlikh, Simchat Torah and Hanukkah money. He then describes Sabbath at home, including candles, cholent, and his mother's gefilte fish, kugel and other dishes.

Grinberg describes Talmaz as a Jewish town with many Jews. She mentions Purim and Passover, a rabbi with a beard, and her observant parents, her father going to the synagogue. In answer to Lemster, she says there was one synagogue, with separate sections for women, and there was a hospital. She recalls a shoykhet and kosher slaughter on Sabbath with a special knife, and says she has forgotten much Yiddish. She is the only one left of her family, as her sister is in Australia.

Elizaveta recalls holidays in poverty, including Passover, burning the chametz and Purim baking, and says there were no Purim players in the town. She says her mother did not make gefilte fish; she learned it herself. She describes buying on credit from a wealthy employer, the Sabbath hen and cholent, and how the family kept house after her mother's death.

David talks about his father's observance and his own lapse and later return to synagogue attendance as community president. He describes the weekly Sabbath kiddush and what Friday-night and Sabbath customs and food looked like in his mother's home, including fish, soup, challah and the koshering of meat. In answer to Kerler's questions he names his grandparents and gives their death years and ages.

David speaks about the prewar great rabbi Burshtein, whose son Motele later lived in Israel, and about a shoykhet. Lemster asks about the Stefanesti rebbe; David knows him only by hearsay from childhood. He mentions Hasidim and tsadikim, the prayer houses and monuments in the cemetery area where people go to pray, and cantors who came for the High Holidays.

Kraus describes prewar Passover: matzo baked at home from flour milled on stones, soup, meat, kneidlach (?), potato dishes and "ibergetsoygene matsos" coated with eggs and goose fat. He recalls his mother force-feeding geese for the fat, and a Christian who lit the fire for the family on Sabbath, whom he says was called a shabes goy (?) by the Jews in the village. Kerler also asks about turkey and a food term.

Kerler asks about Hanukkah in Bogata, and Hershkovich says few presents were given. Hershkovich describes the Shavuot rule of waiting after milk and meat, and the strict Passover custom of not eating gebrokts. Hershkovich asks Kerler where he is from, and Kerler says he was born in Russia.

Meir talks about his employer before the war, Dudl Horovitz, a pious man who did not work on Sabbath. Lemster asks about the Ștefănești rebbe, whom Meir did not visit though older people did, and about rabbis, ritual slaughterers and cantors in Dorohoi. Meir says only a few dozen Jews live in Dorohoi today.

Grimberg explains that as prayer-reader she says the tkhine for others at memorial prayers, since the others do not know how and only listen. She describes prewar Dorohoi as a Jewish town with some twenty-odd synagogues, a mikveh and a poultry slaughterhouse. Jews outnumbered non-Jews, and many non-Jews spoke some Yiddish.

Lipovici answers questions about his work as a shepherd, how far he took the sheep and where he grazed them. He says he worked as a shepherd for most of his life. He lists his surviving family, including a sister in Israel and brothers who have died. He says there are no Jews left in Mihăileni (?) and no shoykhet now, and that a lamb goes with Purim and Passover.

Lipovici discusses the Ceaușescu period and the shooting of Jews during the war. Lemster and Kerler ask about his life with sheep in the field. They also ask whether kosher certification was needed for cheese and milk, and how cheese is made from lamb's rennet.

Lipovici explains how cheese and brinza are made from milk and rennet from lambs, and how Passover milk and cheese were obtained under supervision. Lemster and Kerler ask about foods allowed on Passover (potatoes, cornmeal). They ask whether he ate lamb, and whether Jewish robbers also existed in the area.

In an informal chat Isidor tells at length how he met his non-Jewish wife, a young woman working at a hospital who came to Dorohoi from a village. He describes their meetings, her family, and his teaching her Jewish customs such as keeping milk and meat apart. He also talks about the life of his household, a daughter who now lives in Italy, and his cousins in Israel. Kerler and a second man join in.

Hirsch talks about his family. His father came from a village near Luduș and was a grain merchant. His mother, Sarah, was a housewife. His parents and sister went to Israel in 1960, and the sister died some years ago. He had two siblings, his mother came from a family of twelve children and his father's family was smaller, and he remembers his grandfathers' long lives. He also says Luduș had about 600 Jews, one rabbi and two shoykhets, and that the synagogue was blown up after the war.

Hirsch recalls his cheder, with a teacher named Kaufman (?), and the Jewish school, cheder and Talmud Torah housed in a single building in Luduș. He gives the town's population as about four thousand, half Hungarian and half Romanian, with about 600 Jews and some Roma, and touches on Romanian history. He mentions the Jewish pupils' gatherings, the rabbi, and a kosher restaurant in Târgu Mureș. He names the shoykhet (Mendel Berg (?)), says there was no yeshiva, and speaks about uncles and relatives named Berkovits. He ends with the distances from Luduș to Dej, Cluj and Turda.

Hirsch reflects on the future of Jewish life in Romania, in Yiddish with Hungarian asides, then describes Luduș before the war. He lists Jewish shoemakers, tailors and bakers, says there was much poverty and many children, and names a wealthy wine dealer, Heller Moshe, along with Aron Moritz. He speaks of Jewish pubs and drinking at the seder, and of poor Jews in the villages. He also mentions bochers from villages being fed in Jewish homes on assigned days, poor people eating maize porridge, and pellagra.

Chajim says he chose his wife as a poor girl, not a rich one, and gave wine at the wedding, with a shoykhet slaughtering for the meal. He describes his home today, with a vineyard, apples and a garden, and his wood for heating. He says he leaves enough money to his daughter, and mentions a relative in Germany.

Asked about kosher meat, Chajim says he buys meat slaughtered by a Jewish butcher and never ate from a Christian. His wife observed the same custom. He speaks about the mezuzah on every door and about blessing the Friday-night candles. He tells of an heirloom Hanukkah lamp from his father's father that an American wished to buy, and of going on errands before Rosh Hashanah.

The interviewee describes Hîrlău before the war as a Jewish town of merchants and tradesmen where earning a living was hard. He names his father, who was born in Hîrlău, as did his mother. He says his home was kosher and he keeps special Passover dishes today. Answering questions from Lemster and Kerler, he recalls his father leading the seder and himself, the youngest of four children, asking the four questions. He also recalls dressing up for Purim as a chimney sweep, small Jewish klezmer bands, and a Purim song that he and Kerler recall together.

Abramovich describes Jewish Hîrlău before the war: tailors, shoemakers and other craftsmen, only a few rich men, seven synagogues including a tailors' synagogue, a Jewish street, and several rabbis and shochtim. The synagogue was spared when the town was bombed. People travelled to rebbes in Belcești, Pașcani, Satu Mare, Transylvania and Ștefănești; as a child he went to the Ștefănești rebbe with his mother, who asked for blessings for livelihood and health. Iași, with some sixty thousand Jews, and a question about burial customs are also touched on.

Resh describes prewar holidays in his parents' home: a kosher household with pork not allowed inside, his father blowing the shofar and going to synagogue on holidays, his pious mother and her candle-blessing. He explains Sabbath food, including cholent kept warm, and gives the recipe for Jewish gefilte fish, which he still makes himself, as well as how his mother salted meat.

Shvartz names the local rabbi and the shoykhet, and a Hasidic-looking elder who prayed in the synagogue and read from the Torah. He says about a dozen Jews remain in Bîrlad. Asked about the expression "a good Jew", he says there were good Jews who helped his family, and he mentions a doctor who was president of the community. He describes the Jewish bathhouse, which non-Jews also used.

Kaizerman talks about kosher butchers, Sabbath morning breakfast with a little wine or brandy, and his mother's healing of the evil eye with water and coals and spoken words. He answers questions about the word for a cemetery and describes going to graves today, asking the dead to pray for the living and for Jewish soldiers. The passage ends with an invitation to eat.

Chirilau answers questions about prewar religious life: the rabbi, a cheder teacher and the town's ritual slaughterer. She is asked what the Jews called the town and recalls the names of nearby cities, such as Seret, Iași and Rădăuți(?). She says no synagogue buildings survive and that a Jewish bathhouse also stood in the town.

Chirilau recalls attending the synagogue and being asked to light Sabbath candles for a Jewish woman, and that some Jews were not observant. She lists Jewish foods and answers Lemster's and Kerler's questions about how gefilte fish was made, with bread, egg and a little sugar, and meat dumplings of beef. A short exchange about firefighters and the synagogue fire closes the passage.

Chirilau answers questions about foods that Jews cooked: fresh fish for memorial days, and Romanian dishes cooked by Jews, such as polenta and stuffed cabbage in several variants. She discusses terms for the stuffed cabbage in Romanian and Yiddish. She also mentions kosher meat, the slaughterhouse and that Romanians raised pigs but earlier Jews did not eat pork.

Leichtner describes his postwar work: purchasing for the cooperative, then supplying building material for people's houses, with a car for travelling. In answer to Lemster he says the village had one synagogue, a rabbi before the war, and a shoykhet. He is then asked about childhood friends and games.

Leichtner lists winter preparations: pickled cucumbers, preserves, compotes, jams and barrels, and says no sausage was made at home. They killed a lamb or calf and ate meat, and made goose fat, cracklings and liver. He is asked about Romanian songs and mentions that he has a cassette.

Asked to tell a story or sing, Leichtner instead says he still works a little as a cattle dealer, sending cattle to Cluj (Kolozsvár) and another town (unclear), though business is weak and he has lost money. He then discusses imported meat, eggs and whether they are kosher, and Yiddish terms for the "unslaughtered" or not properly salted.

Freundlich tells how his father, a Vizhnitz hasid, traveled a long way to visit the rebbe. He recounts an episode at the rebbe's Friday-night table, where his father was embarrassed. He mentions the rebbe's esteem among non-Jews. He then tells of a Friday ritual-slaughter incident in which a slaughtered bird was nearly declared not kosher, and compares religious life then with today.

Freund responds to Kerler's request to describe prewar Jewish life in his town: it was a beautiful life in which people helped each other. He lists institutions: a synagogue, rabbi, judge, two slaughterers, a cheder with a teacher, a Talmud Torah, a mikveh with bathhouse, and no yeshiva (the nearest was in Sighet or Satu Mare). He says difficulties came with the antisemitic regulations.

Macarie describes her mother's baking of challah and bread, using a peel and different shapes, and her salting and washing of meat as required by kosher rules. She recalls her mother making gefilte fish and, after Lemster's questions, begins to give the recipe: carp cleaned, skinned and boned, the flesh chopped.

Macarie says she cooks Romanian, Hungarian and Jewish food today, buying kosher meat. After the camp she returned home and married; her second husband has died. Her son is a school director with a good wife, and a daughter married a Jew from Johannesburg (?). She had no children with the second husband. Lemster asks about her first Jewish wedding.

Shwartz says the family on his side lived in Hungary and that he hardly knew his grandparents. Kerler then asks about his work today as a kashrut supervisor, and Shwartz begins to say that he checks that no blood remains.

Grinberg talks about present Jewish life in Rădăuți: prayer at the synagogue, a communal seder, Purim and Hanukkah observances, and Jews coming from Bucharest and elsewhere. Before Passover a shochet comes and she arranges kosher meat for Jews in Rădăuți and nearby towns. She says the community is old, with few young people, and mentions a young couple expecting a baby. Lemster asks where she learned her Yiddish.

Grinberg says she lived on good terms with Christian neighbors and keeps kosher. Kerler asks about words for sausage and money, including a Russian word, a German word and Yiddish words for money. S2 and Grinberg discuss S2's Romanian-accented Yiddish and the languages S2 speaks well.

Grinberg says visitors from Eretz Yisrael were rare but her father welcomed them, and mentions a cousin in America (Cleveland). Kerler asks how her mother made gefilte fish, and she describes the chopped fish stuffed into the skin and boiled with onion and a sweetish broth. They discuss terms for the fish broth. She also says that her family ate turkey on Passover rather than goose.

Cojocaru describes Simchat Torah celebration in the synagogues, with singing and drinking, and what people drank. She answers questions on stuffed goose neck and Passover goose fat. She lists the towns she travelled to, including Botoșani, Bucharest and Ștefănești, and towns with many Jews. She talks about the Yiddish names for Mihăileni. Kerler asks about her husband's Yiddish and about stories.

Marcus recalls that matzo was baked before the rebbe's death, and that the rebbe's remains were taken to Israel. He says he visited the grave at about the age of ten, when many people travelled from the region. He discusses his mother, who blessed the candles every Friday and baked challah at home. He mentions that kosher meat was bought and describes the town's shochet after the war. He had one brother, who is no longer alive and was two years younger.

The talk turns to quenching coals, a custom against the evil eye, which Petraru does not remember his mother doing. He says his grandmother died in America at age 105. Lemster asks about kosher meat, and Petraru says his wife makes it. Kerler asks to go into the large synagogue.

Galambos speaks about Sabbath kiddush wine and bread, and the term for the braided loaf, and about burning the challah portion as a commandment. Kerler asks about theater, and about the terms dybbuk and golem. Galambos explains the golem as a figure from the Haggadah.

In answer to Kerler's questions, Weinberger recalls Purim in Stropkov. The mailman dressed up, he himself delivered shalachmones to the rebbe, and he tells a matchmaking anecdote about a rebbe's payments and a groom who would not work. Kerler also asks about the Purim greeting, and Weinberger repeats it and tells jokes about a Purim rabbi's rulings. He says that about ten percent of the town's Jews were rich and many were poor.

Chaimovic talks about Rosh Hashanah prayer and building the sukkah, and about Purim customs: shalakhmones and fragments of a Purim play. He says the Joseph play was performed, lasting two or three hours, and that Jewish children acted in plays at Hanukkah and Purim in a large cheder room in Prešov. He also tells of four shochtim in Prešov who served as cantors.

Lokteva says her father did not return from the war, and her mother cooked and sold borscht to support the family. She is asked about Purim and recalls a short Purim song only partly. She recalls her mother baking matzo at home and answers questions about a shoykhet, weddings and a Yiddish theater before the war. She tells how a visitor photographed the house, and names her mother's siblings and her relatives in America and Israel.

Pivnik talks about how holidays were kept at home, with her mother and grandmother, Passover matzo and seder, Purim hamantashn baked by a neighbor and Simchat Torah dancing near the synagogue. She also recalls Jewish streets in Balta and Jewish officials, and the Soviet authorities not interfering. The interviewers ask about potato pancakes (tatshiklekh) and customs after the war: a shoykhet, and the old tailor Khoskl, who went to read prayers. A discussion of songs at the seder follows. The talk turns to Jewish weddings.

Khotenko answers questions about prewar Jewish holidays at home, saying that there was no synagogue in use. She mentions the shoykhet before and after the war, and describes Passover, Hanukkah and Purim foods and customs such as gifts and children's games. She also recalls that the family moved to Balta in 1932.

Khotenko recalls Yiddish theater coming from Odessa and her mother's candle-lighting. She says Yiddish was spoken at home, and recalls a non-Jewish friend, Pavlik, who spoke Yiddish with an accent. She talks about grandparents who prayed, one of whom died in 1932 (?); the other was shot on the road. She says there was little Jewish observance before the war and describes fasting on Yom Kippur.

Kerler asks about Jewish weddings in Balta before the war and Epelman answers questions about a wedding-related term. Epelman describes the postwar synagogues and kosher slaughter in Balta, and says he never learned to pray. He says he learned Yiddish from his grandfather and father and has two daughters who do not speak it. He recalls his grandfather's Yom Kippur gatherings, the rhymes he told to the grandchildren, and how he prayed with tefillin and tallit.

Borukaeva recalls her prewar childhood: playing with other children and going to the cinema, and the language of the home. Her father, born in Pyshchanka (?), worked as a baker and died in 1944; her mother died later. She names siblings, among them two brothers killed in the war and one who died in Israel, and a sister now living in Germany. She also tells of a husband or relative whose character and illness are hard to follow, and of her mother's illness, ritual slaughter and a trip to the Rybnitsa rebbe.

Miaskovskaia talks about Jewish life in Balta today, including Friday-evening prayers and a younger man who speaks Hebrew but no Yiddish. She recalls her mother-in-law's baking, a Russian Passover and Jewish baking, and a postwar shoykhet. She mentions the synagogue and her school, with children of various backgrounds.

Vaynman says her mother spoke Yiddish with her, in the dialect of her birthplace, and that nobody in Bar speaks it now. Her mother was learned and pious; on holidays, when there was no synagogue, Jewish women came to her home to pray with her. The mother wanted to teach her to pray but she refused. She is now alone, widowed and childless.

Zhovtis discusses non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, including Romanian soldiers, and their attitude to Jews. He recounts being beaten and the arbitrary violence under the occupation, and being made to wear a cross-like sign (?). There is talk of a mayor, of Purim fare and of Passover utensils, and of not eating pork.

Zhovtis answers Kerler's questions about kashrut: the use of fat, salting meat, the shoykhet and kosher slaughter. His account of the details is unclear.

Skobilitskii describes preparing for Sabbath at his parents' home. His mother lit the candles and put the cholent in the oven, sealing it with clay. She baked large round loaves herself, and there was white Sabbath bread (challah) alongside the dark weekday bread. He mentions that bread was also sold in shops.

Soyfer recalls his childhood. His mother died when he was eight, and he lived with her sister in a village not far from Zhytomyr during the famine. He gives his mother's name as Sara (?) and says he was named after his grandfather David. He lived with relatives, and his father was a shoykhet; Kerler and Lemster question how he could work in Berdychiv as one.

Soyfer and the interviewers discuss Jewish food: fish every Sabbath and a baked stuffed stomach dish, chicken soup, and the scarcity of kosher meat. They add carrot tsimes, Passover dishes, fruit brandies, and the Yiddish word for vodka, with Lemster comparing Moldova.

Berzon describes holidays at home before the war, especially the Passover seder led by her father with the whole family, and the four questions asked by the youngest. She says the family did not learn all the prayers. Her grandmother kept strict kashrut, and the household did not eat pork. She adds that after the war her mother prayed with other women in a place near the synagogue.

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.

Soyfer says his mother died before the war, in the year (as heard) before Hanukkah, and that he went to live with his grandmother Rukhl, his mother's mother. His mother was Sure and his father Yitskhak a shoykhet, born in Berdychiv, whose own father was connected with the synagogue. The family was not rich; he went to school, and when the war began he was in Kyiv.

Kerler asks what Soyfer remembers of his childhood home in Berdychiv before the war. He speaks of an old house and street name, whether he can fix the year of Passover 1930, and says he was not invited to Jewish weddings. His father the shoykhet kept the holidays and the Sabbath, and the passage ends with Kerler and others commenting on reading and eyesight.

Asked about Hanukkah, Soyfer speaks of holiday observance after the war, and says his father the shoykhet brought frozen kosher meat. Kerler asks about latkes, which were made of grated potatoes, and the others chat about the Yiddish way of eating.

Talk about bread and milk continues, with Sara on the phone. Visitors from America, who are recording people's stories, are mentioned. Mikhail mentions buying milk from a cow that is milked in front of him, to ensure it is kosher, and also varenyky and pelmeni.

Snook says there was no Yiddish theater in the village and going to town cost money. Jews who farmed had fields, hay, a cow and sheep and made cheese. She explains how cheese was made kosher with rennet from a slaughtered calf. She says there were few Jewish shepherds.

Snook says she went to the village synagogue with her parents, and that her father prayed at length. Her parents kept a cow and horses and worked the land. She describes cheese made kosher with rennet and meat salted at home, with a shoykhet. Kerler then works with her to reconstruct a childhood song about a girl who marries and eats up the household.

Bershadskaya recalls Chernyotka, where few Jews lived and several worked as tinsmiths, tailors and shoemakers serving the villagers. There was no synagogue, so people prayed in a private house, and kosher food and burials involved Bershad'. Kerler asks about the number of Jewish families (about fifteen) and about her friends, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Answering Kerler's questions about postwar Bershad', Sklyarskiy says the synagogue was used and many Jews attended, and that Yiddish was spoken in the streets. He says he was married in Bershad' with Jewish music and klezmer, and that kosher meat could be bought. Kerler then asks about his granddaughter Lena in Israel and begins asking for an address for correspondence.

She recalls going with her mother to the shoykhet for a chicken and running away as a child. She describes the long street of the shtetl, says she spoke Yiddish at home with her mother and father, and that she attended a Ukrainian rather than a Yiddish school. She names her parents' birthplaces again as Klein-Chernovits (?) and Yampil.

Kupershmidt speaks about his parents and siblings: his father Aharon, a Bratslav native with a horse and cart who carried loads to the mill, and his mother, from a village about twelve kilometers away. He says his mother's father, a miller there, and the grandparents were observant. The family later bought a cow, and he tells how the milk was kosher.

Kerler asks about the circumcision custom in prewar Bratslav. Kupershmidt says it was done by a shoykhet, and Kerler corrects this to mohel. He describes the evening reading of Shema with sweet cakes handed out to neighbours' children, nothing special for a girl but a name given in the synagogue, and mentions that he has two children.

Koifman says she spent the war in evacuation. She recalls Jewish Vapnyarka, where there was once a Jewish school but not in her time, and says she attended a Ukrainian school. She was born in 1928. She mentions that there was a shoykhet and that her mother took poultry to him, and says that at Passover matzo was eaten and there were separate dishes. Kerler asks about the cemetery there.

At Katz's request, Khavin remembers the holidays at his parents' home, beginning with Rosh Hashanah: the big challah, the festive table with fish and a fish head, apples with honey, and why his father did not eat gefilte fish. He recalls the candles his mother made for the Ten Days, and Yom Kippur eve with the chicken meal and the shoykhet. He says his father made his own wine and never bought it, and begins a story about his grandmother's wine.

Khavin names three rabbis in the town (the Trisk, Rybka and Chernobyl rabbis, the transcript is unclear) but does not know which was in which synagogue. He recalls an old, learned rabbi to whom his father took questions, and a shokhet from whose slaughter his father would not eat. Katz then asks for the Yiddish names of towns around Chernihiv.

Shames says that after the war there was still a synagogue and a shochet in Khmil'nyk and people prayed, but later that stopped and Jewish life faded. Few Jews remain today because many emigrated to Israel. Lemster asks about her memory of the Jewish holidays.

Gammer says the Jews kept the holidays before the war and that there were two or three ritual slaughterers in town. She notes the Soviet bans on religion and recalls a Yiddish theatre in Khmil'nyk, where traveling troupes also came. She mentions the actress Klara Young, and the theatre director's family being killed by the Germans. After the war there were only concerts with Yiddish songs and dances. Gammer says she herself does not know Yiddish songs.

Gammer answers Kerler's questions on food. Only kosher food was eaten, with animals taken to the shoykhet. She has not heard of Jews raising pigs to sell to non-Jews. The family kept no poultry in the yard. She says she is old and tired.

A discussion of a baked item (?) and food names with Gammer and a second voice, then questions on the word for a Lithuanian Jew and on Lithuanian Yiddish. Gammer recalls a Lithuanian man who lived in Belarus. Kerler and Lemster ask about a few Yiddish words, kosher meat preparation, the mother's blessings over baking, and the Yiddish word for vodka. The passage ends with a question about Yiddish-speakers' villages and Jews in the area before the ghetto.

Shames speaks about Jewish life in Khmil'nyk after the war: she and her mother worked and prayed there, a synagogue existed for a time and was later closed, and she cannot say when. Today there is no synagogue and she says few Jews remain. Kerler asks about a shoykhet, Yom Kippur fasting, whether she receives matzo or help from outside, her TV viewing and Israel, which she has never thought of visiting. She speaks of a Christian helper and her family.

Shekhovich briefly mentions a Yiddish song her husband sang to the children, then answers questions about words such as dybbuk and golem, which she does not know. She talks about attending cheder, her mother's candle blessing and the koshering of meat by soaking and salting, and says her mother baked challah. She describes the lack of Yiddish speakers today, even in the Hesed.

Bukshtein recalls organising a minyan for a rebbe's descendant at the grave of an ancestor near the Lviv border, then contrasts a rabbi (rov) with a hasidic rebbe, and describes the town rabbi inspecting the kashrut of a slaughtered hen. Kerler asks about terms such as good Jew, honest, a good place in the cemetery, misnaged, Litvak and badkhn. Bukshtein recalls Jewish weddings, klezmer music and tunes shared with Ukrainian and Romanian songs, whether Jews drank vodka, and the town's one Jewish drunkard. He explains the pastry fladn, gefilte versus chopped fish, a dybbuk and a golem, and begins to recall a funeral from sixty years earlier.

Katz recites or sings a quoted Sabbath greeting and dialogue from a play he saw, and talks about the Yiddish and Polish dramas performed in the town. A play title about a madman in a hospital is mentioned, with a name (Barishev?) that is unclear. He then answers Kerler's questions about the town's craftsmen (carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, tinsmiths, brewers, butchers, three ritual slaughterers), the many prayer houses, and the town's rabbi. He says his father was a brewer. The young rabbi was killed by the Germans.

Gelman gives his Yiddish name and birth date in 1921 and says he lived in Kam''yanets' until the war. He describes his parents and grandparents, including a maternal grandfather who traded in Kitaygorod (Ketaret), and names his three siblings. He then recalls his childhood: leaving a Jewish school after four grades during the 1933 hunger, selling coal he gathered at the station, and his father's hospitalisation. He tells at length of his Red Army service, from the first bombing in 1941 through hospitals, a long march and tank-unit service, to the advance on Berlin in 1945, and mentions a decoration, work in Germany afterwards, and his later work buying cattle. Kerler's questions then turn to prewar Sabbath and holiday life in a poor household: meat versus challah, the mother's blessings, driving for others on Sabbath, the town's trades, the Jewish street, ritual slaughter, Passover preparation, Jewish and non-Jewish friends and neighbours, Hanukkah foods and the bathhouse and mikveh. These parts include terminology for shops, trades and foods.

Outside Gelman's house and on the drive to the old town, a speaker (probably Gelman) with Kerler discusses a small prayer house and the old buildings of the Jewish district of Kamianets-Podilskyi, when they were demolished and when the synagogue was closed by the Bolsheviks. At the former Great Synagogue, now a restaurant, they talk about its origin under Turkish rule and its later history, and local Russian speakers describe its fires and restoration, the old town, the prison, the burnt archive and the church. The speaker (apparently Gelman) tells how his family fled in the war, the sister died on the way and the father died in 1943 (?), and he found his mother and a brother on returning in 1946. From about 26 minutes Kaplan, in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, tells Kerler about the Jewish museum, the community room, the old cemetery with its tzadikim and the synagogue's weekly and Passover events, and about Polish volunteers, the monuments to victims of the camps and ghetto (Pechora, Skazyntsi), his army service and communism, and how prayer continued in homes until a synagogue opened in 1948. He discusses prewar Jewish numbers, synagogues, hasidim and shoykhets, relations with the Baptists who took over a synagogue building, the community leadership, and a critical view of Joint, Hesed and Sochnut aid and of emigration.

Gaiviker and Sonya speak about Jewish theaters and cinemas before the war and the cheerful life; he mentions visiting artists and the audience that was mostly Jewish, and the kosher butchers. Lemster asks about Sholem Aleichem in the town.

Snook talks about her son (Katz and others say he knows Hebrew and Yiddish), her own advanced age, her health and her daily routine. She describes the hired help. She was not able to visit her grandchildren in Israel. Katz and Kerler press her for old Passover songs, including Chad Gadya, which she remembers from childhood but declines to sing, and a counting song, and she tells about the counting of the Omer. They ask her to repeat the song sung earlier.

Snook talks about Kaddish and a hired person saying it, while a visitor who has come by car (her son, per the catalogue) leaves. She talks about her health, her descendants, relatives in Israel and America, and keeping kosher. Kerler asks the Yiddish words for 'Jew' and for 'non-Jew' or 'fool', and the word for a crowd, which she explains. She offers the guests a drink made of grapes.

The team looks through Yiddish and Hebrew prayer books in Snook's apartment. Kerler and Katz examine a women's prayer book and a siddur, and Kerler reads out a prayer. They read the printing details (printed in Lemberg and in Vilna) and an inscription on a book's owner, who was a ritual slaughterer. Kerler then asks about where Jews lived and the Jewish street, which has shops and factories.

In the Khust synagogue Repkin explains its history in Russian: construction began in 1861, much of it is original, the paintings are original, the lions part came from Oleksandrivka, and the wiring was replaced two years before the visit. He recounts the Khust Jewish population in 1940 and its losses in the Holocaust, the ghetto from April 1944 and deportations to Auschwitz, and that Soviet authorities tried to close it for a club in about 1965–66 and a protest by women and children, apparently, saved it. He describes the books found there, with stamps from villages in the region and Yiddish, Hungarian and Slovak printings, and his catalogue of owners for a future museum. He also describes the repair of doors, donors from abroad, the mikveh-side rooms and a slaughtering knife found in the building, and talks about his own career at the shoe factory and the synagogue's upkeep, caretaker and minyan.

S2 asks what was eaten and cooked in the town, and Smelanskii describes Sabbath food and everyday dishes such as homemade noodles, kasha and potatoes. His father was a shoykhet who slaughtered only fowl. Smelanskii himself learned shehitah, kept his father's knife after his death, and slaughtered for those who came to him. Knife sharpness is discussed, and the transcript is partly garbled.

Derbaremdiker says Passover was observed in his family despite pressure, and that groups from the school were sent to check homes, though the Jews kept silent. He describes matzo from flour, a hidden box of Passover dishes, strict kashrut kept by his mother, and his father's search for hametz. After the war the family baked matzo in Kyiv themselves, and later queued for it. He then recalls a favourite mathematics teacher whose surname was Lemberg.

Rusakovskaia says her father the carpenter made windows and doors with fine decoration. She then describes Passover food, especially fish, and discusses with Kerler the terms for fried, chopped and stuffed fish (gefilte). In Chornobyl' fish was made without sugar. At Passover the shoykhet came, and after the war, when he died, one came from Ovruch.

Rusakovskaia talks about the shoykhet before and after the war, and about the 'Khabne seer' (?) whom people visited. Kerler asks about Hanukkah, and she recalls gifts of Hanukkah money from relatives, latkes, and her mother's fattening geese. She also describes Friday night with Sabbath candles and cholent in the Russian oven. Kerler asks for terms such as 'believer' and 'honest', and she tells about Tisha b'Av and children's games, including nuts at Hanukkah.

Vider performs a rhyming Purim-style play about a chimney-sweep and a girl, which he says he learned from his father, with Kerler prompting a restart. Kerler and Katz ask where it was performed, and Vider names Iași and Sighetu Marmatiei as his birthplace. He recounts his family: his father studied in a yeshiva and was a shoykhet but pitied the animals and became a cantor, and Vider also sang in the synagogue from age thirteen. His mother wore a wig and had been to America and returned.

Krotsh answers questions about his schooling. He attended cheder from about age three, then a Romanian school where half the day was Romanian and half Hebrew, then the yeshiva. He mentions the free bread and milk the school gave poor children and where out-of-town yeshiva boys lodged. He describes the rabbi's Sabbath speeches urging observance and the kosher food his master tailor insisted on for workers.

Katsman recalls Friday and Sabbath at the synagogue with his grandfather and says he knows little about the Baal Shem Tov. He mentions the Narolitcher (Narodichi) rebbe. Asked about prewar Passover, he first speaks of the army, where he did not know of Passover or Yom Kippur, and then of keeping a kosher home before it.

Skop recalls early childhood: his parents were very observant and not rich. He talks about paying for kosher meat, Sabbath and the holidays, and strangers coming. He loved going to synagogue with his father and was carried there as a small child. He did not attend cheder but a Jewish school.

At Kerler's request Kislinskaia gives the recipe for gefilte fish, which her granddaughter now makes, comparing her own use of sugar with her granddaughter's. She mentions an injury to her hand and that she keeps no pork in the house. Kerler then asks about her father's and grandfather's prayer; she calls them devout Jews. He begins to ask whether she remembers any Yiddish songs.

Groysman speaks about prewar Jewish holidays and food. He covers Passover (baking matzo at home, what was not eaten), baked goods and dishes such as kugel and sour meat, Shavuot dishes, Purim, Hanukkah and the dreidel. He answers questions on Yiddish theater and films, and recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, including a drunk and a Ukrainian woman at the market.

Gershtein describes Holoby's big synagogue and the ritual bath he visited with his father each Friday, and names two ritual slaughterers, Chaim Wolf Goldberg and Abba Sima. He says the nearby villages had only small prayer houses, and that the dead of Holoby were taken to Mel'nytsia for burial. He mentions a rebbe in Lutsk, childhood games, bathing in the river and a Polish ball game. His siblings were pioneers (khalutsim). He also recalls the Zionist youth club, where children danced and sang Yiddish songs.

Nisman reads a humorous poem from Eliezer Steinberg's book about a ritual slaughterer's knife and the rabbi who blesses it. She explains terms used in it and mentions that she keeps a magnifying glass for reading; Kerler praises the writer.

Leibel describes his family's observance, including his father saying Kaddish for the grandfather. Asked about antisemitism, he says it grew strong only before the war and especially in the late 1940s. He mentions Endek (National Democratic) agitation against Jews and the killing of a Jewish student in L'viv. He also recalls Jewish and non-Jewish children playing football on his street and against the gymnasium team.

Dorfman talks about postwar religious life in L'viv. He recalls a nationalist Jewish youth group whose papers he read in the KGB archive and the aid organisations Bricha and Chabad. He describes the postwar reopening of the synagogues, the 1945 accusation of ritual murder and closure, the synagogue's later unofficial closure and conversion into a sports hall, and the minyanim formed until perestroika. He recalls packed holiday services and the local community's way of keeping the synagogue going.

Dorfman and Kerler discuss the new rabbi and the local religious factions, including the Lubavitch. They then work out which shoykhet Kerler has spoken to, a man named Melekh(?), who lives on a certain street, and Dorfman gives his telephone details.

Answering Kerler, Meler explains that his grandmother held a few hectares of land and the father had no steady work. The father sometimes worked for a Jewish sausage maker. He also names Jewish firms in L'viv, including a chocolate factory.

Meler answers questions about Shavuot, when dairy foods such as cheese pastries were eaten, and about Hanukkah latkes. He then tells of an antiquarian who found a parchment in the L'viv archive recording a killing of Jews by Khmelnytsky. He talks about a kosher kitchen next to a synagogue today.

Brandler describes holiday and Sabbath food at home before the war. His mother made raisin wine and challah, and fish was a must, including fish dumplings; his mother's fish was not sweet, unlike his grandmother's. On Sabbath there was kugel and cholent, which he carried to and from the baker. He recalls an incident when the ritual slaughterer declared a fish treyf, and that the family ate plain food then.

Brandler answers whether prayer was possible in Peremyshlyany after the war. The synagogue was burned by the Germans, and nobody prayed except a doctor, Fridman, who went to L'viv. He talks about the lack of kosher meat and about a trip to L'viv to bring a Torah for a rabbi in Husakiv. Kerler compares this with the Carpathians, where kosher meat could be had.

The interview with Brandler ends and an informal talk with a second man (probably Dorfman) begins. He talks about the contemporary religious community in L'viv, its rabbi and shoykhet, the people who attend, the American connections and the two small synagogues. Kerler asks how the shoykhet learned the trade.

Asked what was drunk on Purim, Leibel says he does not remember, and talks about observing kosher rules and the words for dairy and meat. Kerler asks about differences between Yiddish in Lviv and in Rivne, and about kleyn and shayn. A second voice asks about songs with Hebrew and Yiddish words. Cake and drinks are also being offered.

She says all non-Jews in Trokhinbrod understood Yiddish, since Jews outnumbered others, and tells of a Polish man's son who learned Hebrew. She lists Jewish occupations: shoemaker, tailor, miller, tanner, teacher, bakers (the Bas family), butchers. She describes the bathhouse and mikveh as separate buildings, going on Friday before Sabbath, the shoykhet, a Polish policeman and the post office as the only non-Jewish offices, and also mentions balagulas.

Khaiut demonstrates making gefilte fish with the knife and newspaper, then answers Kerler on prewar Jewish life: the family's rented house, candle-blessing, a separate synagogue for each trade, guest cantors, Sidi Tal' and other visiting artists such as Kobzon, and Sholem Aleichem's 200,000. Kerler asks whether the Soviet Yiddish school was hostile to religion; she denies it and says the synagogues were closed in the 1930s. She recalls food and games for Shavuot, Hanukkah, Purim, Passover and Yom Kippur. Kerler then asks about fasting, language on the street, her son, Yiddish books, folk sayings and her son's circumcision. Later come the rabbi and melamed, burial places, then her wedding with the musician Moyshele the drummer, the badkhn (Berl Sanver, name unclear) and the chuppah, ending with a long run of vocabulary questions and recipes for tsimes and flodn.

Leger gives his name, patronymic, birth year and the names of his parents and grandparents. His father was a bookkeeper and his mother a nurse. He says he learned Yiddish in the ghetto, after the family had spoken Russian at home. He recalls trying to evacuate with his mother, her stillborn child in a nearby village, the return to the ghetto, overcrowding with Bukovinian and Bessarabian Jews, typhus, fear and hunger, and his mother's work in a hospital. He then describes language after the war, his work as an engineer, Soviet-era prayer, the destroyed synagogue, and the 300 or so Jews in the town today. In the final part Kerler and Lemster ask about songs, stories, folk customs and Yiddish writers, which he does not remember.

Vaisburd gives her name, birth year and birthplace and speaks of her parents, her father at a factory, her mother from a nearby village, and her grandparents. She was in the Pechera camp with her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother died there, and a cousin who buried the dead smuggled them out. She recalls hiding in Sharhorod and then in Mohyliv-Podil's'kyy, in a cellar kept by a Christian neighbor and in a one-room house shared with other children. She also recalls going to the market disguised. She then describes her grandmother's baking, Sabbath food, fattening geese, gefilte fish and Purim, and questions on devils, evil eye, songs and the one prewar wedding she remembers. After the war she studied in Tashkent and married a non-Jew; one daughter lives in Israel (Beit She'an) and one at home. Many of her answers respond to Kerler's and Lemster's questionnaire items.

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.

At the restaurant, Vider and Kerler exchange Yiddish farewell sayings. Vider says he returned in December 1946, after his brother's return in 1945, to a few remaining Jews; there was still a shoykhet. He describes meeting for prayer in a Romanian Jew's house (Leybovitsh), baking matzo there until about 1953, and the Leybovitsh grandsons today. He then answers a question about the men who came back from labor in Siberia.

Vider talks about his family: his father was an only son with many sisters, and his mother's brother married in Satu Mare and the relatives came to Mukacheve in summer. Kerler asks about a local kosher meat dealer, and Vider says only veal was sold. He mentions his children's studies and careers. He then describes his youth in Mizrachi and Betar, reading about Yosef Trumpeldor in Hungarian, and the evenings with singing, study and politics.

Nayman describes prewar village life: a stone synagogue, work on the land with cows and horses, two or three shoemakers and some tailors, doctors available only in Mukachevo, and a book and religious-goods peddler from Mukachevo. He also covers Zionist and other political groups, non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, and how Jews from different countries spoke. Kerler asks about terms for Hanukkah and Sabbath foods, Hebrew letters, wells, the oven, cemeteries, and the shoykhet, and Nayman recalls foods for Passover, Shavuot and before Yom Kippur.

Pasik describes religious life on the kolkhoz before the war: one synagogue, a rabbi and a ritual slaughterer, the keeping of animals and fowl, and fattening geese. Kerler asks about holiday and Sabbath foods (Hanukkah potato latkes, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Sabbath dishes, carp). She talks about a mother and grandfather blessing candles, and does not remember the morning prayer.

Tokar says prewar Zheludok had a community with a rabbi, ritual slaughterers and a cantor, but no slaughterer after the war. He recalls his father hiring a private tutor, studying Bible, putting on tefillin at thirteen, and later studying at a trade school in Lida. He then discusses the Jewish newspapers he reads in Odesa, including a Chabad paper, and what he knows of Israel from the press, while Lemster asks about Hershele Ostropolyer.

Vainbrand talks about Passover preparations in his childhood home: the mother baked matzo for other families, who brought their own flour, and the attic held the Passover dishes. He describes how utensils were made kosher with heated stones in a pit of water, and the burning of leavened bread by the rabbi at the synagogue. Kerler then asks about the rabbi and his cheder teacher, who was also a shoykhet from whom the mother had meat for Sabbath. Vainbrand recalls the teacher's face but not his name.

Vainbrand speaks about weddings and the wedding canopy during Soviet times, the shoykhet who was also a circumciser, and the study house with its tables and benches. Kerler asks questions about the words batlen, dybbuk and golem and about stories of the Valedniki rebbe, mostly answered with no recollection. The talk turns to the synagogue and the Sabbath routine of carrying a prayer book, to the sukkah built beside the house, and to the town bathhouse and mikveh near a small river. Lemster asks whether people feared the Communists.

Vainbrand speaks about how meat was salted and about his father buying a calf in the village and having it slaughtered in Valedniki. Kerler asks about his mother baking matzo for others, who brought their own flour, and about the perforating wheel. Vainbrand says his parents died before the war. He tells how he and his wife attended the same school and married in Valedniki, and he praises her.

Kerler thanks Vainbrand and invites a message for Yiddish students. He wishes them health and says Jews should remember they are Jews. Vainbrand says he is a Valedniki Jew and recalls going on Fridays to the shoykhet for his mother. Lemster asks about Israel; he says he would go but travel costs money, and that his son has to work. He thinks Jews should live in the Land of Israel. He adds that he reads the newspaper and hopes to live to a hundred and twenty.

Kipervaser describes prewar Berezdiv: everyone had a trade (shoemakers, tailors), people got along and knew each other, and the synagogue was near their home. She remembers a chuppah. Her parents kept a kosher home, and her grandmother lit Sabbath candles. Her husband, also from Berezdiv, went to cheder; they studied together at school. He was called up in 1940, served at the front and ended up in Germany, and learned German. They keep Yiddish books, observe holidays and light memorial candles. Their son speaks Yiddish and knows the holidays.

Dorfman recalls Passover before the war: baking matzo at home, his father's seder, the four questions, Elijah, stealing the afikoman and no chametz in the house. He recalls Yom Kippur and kapores. After the war there were several minyans that the militia dispersed, and kosher meat was available while a shoykhet lived, but none after his death.

Feldman talks about holiday food in his childhood home: Rosh Hashanah, the pre–Yom Kippur meal, Shavuot dairy dishes, and the Sabbath cholent with kugel. The interviewers ask what went into the cholent. He mentions walking to a river for tashlikh and his father bringing a shoykhet from Volednyk. Kerler also asks about Kol Nidre, and Feldman begins to describe the one Jewish family in his village.

Feldman talks about his hardships today: he receives no food parcels from the local Hesed, is a first-group war invalid with a small pension, and does not go to the canteen because it is not kosher. He asks the interviewers to write to the director of the Jewish center in Zhytomyr, and to a rabbi who has not replied to letters. Katz asks two dialect questions, the words for ceiling and floor.

Stotland speaks of prewar Jewish institutions in Ovruch: the rabbi, two ritual slaughterers (Shiman (?) and Kaptsan (?)), and the Yiddish periodicals Shtern and Emes that reached the school. Children borrowed Yiddish books and held discussions with teachers. The synagogues were demolished in 1937, after which Jews met in private houses. He also mentions Jews from Belarus and Moldova, and visits to Transcarpathia where the Yiddish differed.

Turovskaia talks about holiday observance and food. She did not eat bread on Passover even in Siberia, and she describes her mother's baking and foods for Rosh Hashanah and the Sabbath. Geese were fattened and their fat rendered for Passover, and matzo was bought in Opshtshina (?). Before the war the family kept their own cow, sold milk to the hospital and neighbors, churned butter, planted potatoes and made wine from currants and cherries.

Lemster asks whether she makes meat kosher today, and she says no, since her father, a shoykhet, died. She describes how the mother soaked meat and salted it. She then adds a remark about Roza's early death. Kerler asks about the Khapner Trefer.

Turovskaia describes how she prepares for Passover, with a candle, feather and bread crumbs for searching for chametz, which she burns. She keeps Passover dishes. She explains that she has not bought kosher meat since her father died, so as not to make the dishes treyf.

Kerler asks about the book her father wrote down; Turovskaia says he wrote the stories himself from memory and from what he heard, and used to read them to the children. She tells how he was falsely accused of a crime, and recalls his skill in judging cattle; he once wanted to become a shoykhet but his mother would not allow it.

Kerler begins his sociolinguistic questionnaire. Litvak says the Yiddish film Der dibek was not shown there, and recalls a song about a Jewish fiddler. The two then discuss words for tree and small tree and for cooking oil, the cross, and the idiom about a tzadik in felt. She also explains what going to slaughter means for people and for animals. She talks about the shoykhet and kosher meat, and about her mother, who would not eat meat unless a non-Jew made it kosher.

Her mother was a pious woman, often ill, and the rabbi permitted her to eat on Yom Kippur; her kitchen kept meat and milk separate. Her mother headed a committee helping poor families. She tells how she was kept from learning of her mother's death, which she heard of in Novohrad-Volynskyi only after her relatives told her much later.

Shvartzbroit speaks about her grandfather the rabbi, kosher Passover dishes kept in the attic, and her giving money to the poor for Passover. She mentions her husband's trade and travel to Romania and Moldova. She says her father arranged weddings for poor orphans in their home. She gives her birth year as 1928, though her papers say 1930, and says she came from Pechora aged about fourteen. Much of the passage is garbled and the sequence is unclear.

Shvartzbroit names her father Kalmen and her paternal grandfather (Tsalik), and says her grandfather the rabbi played the violin. Her grandmother Etl kept a shop, and she herself is named after her. Another grandfather was a ritual slaughterer, and the family numbered about four hundred. Her father had a sewing workshop for fine garments. Kerler asks about a women's Sabbath headdress (shterntikhl), which she does not recognise, and she describes the Sabbath headscarf and the sealing of the cholent oven with clay.

Shvartzbroit describes Sabbath cooking at home, including cholent, beans and fish kept in the cellar. She also describes Passover practice: separate kosher dishes, silver and clay pots kept in the attic, the first seder with candles, and the removal of all bread from the house.

Fish says the great synagogue on Shkolna street was open until 1955, when a Ukrainian local paper published an attack on the Jews, after which it was closed. He recalls a shoykhet until the Soviets, no Jewish schools, and that Yiddish and Ukrainian schools were not allowed under Soviet rule.

Kleiner says that prayer in prewar Soviet times was hidden: windows were covered and someone kept watch for the militia. She mentions the ritual slaughterers (Khayim and Nesi), a mohel, and the observance of all holidays and the Sabbath, including the cholent put into the oven on Friday, and Kerler asks about the word for it.

Kleiner describes Passover preparations in Shepetivka: making the dishes kosher, burning the chametz, and cooking Passover dishes such as potato and matzo-meal pancakes and kugels. She explains the term 'kuzlekh'(?) for berry-based kugels and says dairy was avoided on Passover. She says a special Passover cloth was put on the table and tells how the seder was held and who asked the questions. She and Kerler then move to Shavuot food (blintzes, green borscht) and a discussion of the sorrel/sour-dock plant.

Kleiner explains how gefilte fish was prepared and which fish was used, with questions about sweetness and pepper. She discusses latkes made from buckwheat flour for Hanukkah or from potatoes for Passover, her father's work as a sausage maker making kosher goose sausage, the removal of veins (trebern) and plum terms. She describes a baked dough dish with nuts, whether Jews drank brandy or beer, and homemade kvas.

Kleiner describes his cheder teacher, Pinkhes, and the books studied, from age seven to nine. He says he finished ten classes and speaks Ukrainian well. He recites Ukrainian verse by Shevchenko. In the army he did not eat non-kosher food. He also says there were three ritual slaughterers in Yampil'. The Pioneer question comes up again.

Krasner and Kerler discuss the Yiddish words for kitchen and a board. She describes how gefilte fish was prepared: cleaning the fish, the onions, eggs, pepper and matzo flour, and the pot. She then talks about the evil eye (nare) and an incident of three women. Finally she recalls Passover at home before the war: preparing the house, searching for and burning leavened bread, baking matzo with a stamp, and koshering with hot stones.

Murovanaia talks about the Soviet Yiddish school in Haysyn and some of its teachers, though she herself attended a Russian school. She recalls that there were three synagogues, which stood until the Germans came. After the war a shoykhet and a minyan existed, and the family held memorials for grandparents.

Shvartsburg speaks about religious life in Skvyra under the Soviets, when circumcisions and weddings were held quietly. He says most Jews do not speak Yiddish today, and that his own children and wife do not. Asked by a member of the team, he also discusses the town's shoykhet before the war.

Liberzon returns to the American rebbe who brings bread, and to the baker who sold challah after the war, when her father was alive. She describes making shmire matzo and fish, with Kerler adding remarks about bread in Russia.

Liberzon says she spoke only Yiddish at home and attended a Hebrew school; her father knew little Russian. She mentions making blintzes and describes holiday food: kreplekh with soup before Yom Kippur, and dairy dishes with blintzes on Shavuot. She notes that no beef was slaughtered in Slavuta then. Kerler ends by asking about the public library.

Kerler asks about gefilte fish and Liberzon describes the family way: the fish head with a worm-like bone, the special kosher knife, no sugar or pepper, and the custom for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. She explains how the family tested flour for being kosher by pressing it in the hand, with Russian asides, and mentions Passover without matzo kugel.

Klein explains why the Yiddish schools were closed, then speaks about the Yiddish press she read, her mother's piety (candle blessing until death), and Sabbath cooking such as cholent and gefilte fish. She says there was a rabbi's absence today but a synagogue and Hesed, and that the shoykhet died years ago. She notes that her parents were both from villages, Hrybenynka and Sakhnovtsy.

Klein describes Olt-Konstantin as a Jewish town with a fortress and castle of the Ostrogski family. She recalls weddings she attended as a child, including customs involving the bride and a cake and the 'malke's broyt'. She also speaks about her mother lighting Sabbath candles until her death, going to the shoykhet, and her Yad Vashem testimony.

Bivson talks about Jewish religious life before the war. She mentions the shoykhet, kapores, several synagogues, a large synagogue with a poorhouse, a rabbi and a minyan, and women attending. She describes Sabbath preparation and kosher meat. She also recalls building the sukkah with neighbors' help and sleeping in it.

Bivson tells that her husband was a Jewish hairdresser from Starokostyantyniv (?). They married through a matchmaker when she was about forty-eight, after his first wife died, and lived together for over thirty years. She says there was no chuppah at her wedding, discusses the local shoykhet and his death, and Kerler asks about Yiddish in Starokostyantyniv.

The guide gives the history of the synagogue in Lviv: built under Poland and not destroyed because of the nearby railway station; the Germans used it in 1941, and after the Soviets a sports club used it and the community got the building in about 1990. A new rabbi from New York came, whose wife heads the Jewish school. Kerler asks whether he is a Hasid; the guide says he is a Karliner Hasid, and speaks of Chabad in Ukraine, a kosher restaurant, a mikveh, and rabbis from Belz, and people leaving for Israel and Canada.

Tkach, born in 1935 in the small town of Chernivtsi ("Kleyn Tshernovits"), talks about her parents, grandparents and the traditional Jewish house with its mezuzah. She recalls her uncle the gabbai, the synagogue with its women's gallery, her aunt reading tkhines, and the killing of another aunt's family. She describes the war years, refugees and the ghetto, the postwar schools and her brother's studies, and her forty years as a journalist in Yampil'. She then covers food customs for Sabbath, Passover, Purim and Hanukkah, children's games, Yiddish-speaking neighbors and friends, and weddings with their dances and musicians. She also talks about non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, the postwar fear of speaking Yiddish and the antisemitism of the Doctors' Plot, and Ukrainian literature. The last part is a dialectological questionnaire: she is asked how various Russian words, phrases and sentences would be said in Yiddish (greetings, house and window words, colors, comparatives).

Interview with Sapozhnik in her yard. She describes how hard her life is now, living alone, not eating well and missing her teeth. She gives her name, birth in Tomashpol' in 1924, her parents Nusn and Rekhl and the family surname, and lists her brothers and sisters, with their birth years and where they ended up (Israel, Moscow, the Far East). She recalls the kolkhoz where her parents worked, the old house with mezuzahs, the Romanian occupation and the ghetto with refugees and killings, and her marriages and the deaths of her husband and son. She also describes Sabbath, Hanukkah and Passover food and fish dishes, the old synagogues and the Yiddish school she did not attend, Yiddish-speaking non-Jews, and a rabbi killed in the war. She tells of her garden and sea-buckthorn oil, and of her mother's folk healing and cupping.

Gingold is greeted at her door, and Kerler explains the university project. She says she is alone, her parents and brother having died, with two cousins in Israel. She gives her names, birth year, and her father's and mother's names and occupations. She also names her grandparents. She attended three years of Yiddish school before moving to a Russian one, and says she never worked and has a small pension. She recalls Sabbath, Passover, Shavuot and Purim customs, and the Tomashpol' ghetto. The interviewers then put questionnaire items: greetings, kosher salting, foods, and Russian words rendered into Yiddish such as 'spasibo', 'mouse' and 'poceluj'.

The interview with Guzman begins with her name, birth in Tomashpol' and her family: her father Bentsion, a shop worker beaten by the gendarmerie, her mother, and her brother. She recalls Yiddish and Ukrainian schooling, prewar holidays (Purim, Passover, Sukkot), food, the synagogues and the shoykhet, weddings and the library. She describes the ghetto, where non-Jewish villagers brought food, and forced labour in the fields. She mentions the famine and her stay with an aunt and uncle, as well as work after the war, photographs, relatives in Odessa, America and Israel, and Tul'chyn. Roughly the last quarter is word elicitation: greetings, colours, adverbs, 'pigeon', 'ear' and other items, which Guzman answers with difficulty.

Asked about Jewish holidays she remembers, Shveibish recalls that her grandfather Yekhiel was a trader and that there were ten synagogues in Tul'chyn, none of which remains. Candles were blessed, Sabbath and Passover were kept, and food was kosher; today there is no shoykhet. She speaks of the community's modest help for the sick and poor, and of paying for burials of lonely people. Kerler asks what is meant by erecting a memorial, and he also asks about her father, whom people called Nyune.

Shveibish answers dialectological questions on words for colours (blue and light blue), pigeon, 'also', near, late, ceiling, floor, face and cleanliness, and on the dreydl game. She also talks about Tul'chyn: its Jews, today's Jewish concerts, pensions for camp survivors and the religious revival. She describes the one postwar synagogue, the shoykhet, and prayer meetings broken up in the 1960s. Kerler and Katz ask about Jews in nearby towns (Mohyliv, Vinnytsia, Nemyriv, Bratslav, Uman, Sharhorod) and about the Romanian-run ghettos and Pechera during the war.

Shveibish tells about her husband Itsik's family from Horyshkivka. His father came from Tul'chyn after the pogroms, he was a craftsman, and there were six children. She describes the Romanian-era ghetto in the village club, a sister who was shot at and traumatised, the siblings who emigrated or have died, and the parents' graves in Tomashpil. She talks about Horyshkivka as the model for Sholem Aleichem's Kasrilevke, the Yiddish theatre troupe in which her husband's father acted, and pogroms in Tul'chyn and Khmelnytskyi's time. She then describes Jewish life in Tul'chyn today (the community's difficulties, no shoykhet, no minyan, a memorial, aged pensioners), and Jewish food and holiday customs, with a recipe for gefilte fish. The passage includes dialectological questions on words such as store, courtyard, well, potato dishes, thanks and please, and idioms.

Presler gives recipes for malai, a baked cornmeal-based dish, and for mamaliga, cooked in a pot with water and stirred until thick. Kerler asks about a word for a meat dish (petshe(?)), and Presler denies knowing it and says it is a non-Jewish word for oven. Presler then names cuts of meat and where they lie on the animal.

Kogan recites the text of his song 'Dos lagerl' about the Bershad' ghetto and the murder of the shoykhet Gedalye. He says the Romanians killed leading artisans and merchants. His home was shared with several families, and Jews from Chernivtsi stayed there; he mentions a refugee family who later went to Edinet in Moldova. Kogan recalls the lice and deaths among refugees and that he was called up at seventeen.

Kogan performs 'Dos lagerl' about the Bershad' camp and ghetto and the cemetery, and explains that Gedalye was a shoykhet and Dvoyre his wife. Asked when he wrote it, he says he composed it while the Germans were there. He then recites his song 'Aheym, briderlekh, aheym', which expresses hope that all Jews will be freed.

Kogan talks about the writer Boris Zitser (?), who is now in Israel and who took his notebook of songs when he left; Kogan met him in 1944 after demobilization. He mentions the market in the ghetto, where Bessarabian Jews traded, and answers Lemster's question about a rabbi, saying the slaughterer was killed. He speaks about his late brother and his brother's son, and says he met his wife in Obodivka through his sister who lived there.

Answering Lemster, Kogan talks about Rosh Hashanah and other holidays in the Bershad ghetto. He says the synagogue was open under the Romanians, a slaughterer named Gedalye Shulman was killed by the Romanians, and Jews were driven with sticks. He describes secret matzo baking and weddings among Bukovinian and Bessarabian refugees, with a rabbi of sorts officiating. Lemster mentions that his mother was from Burlivka, and the two talk about Bessarabia and Bukovina.

Shveibish says how many Jews remained in Tul'chyn after the war and describes her own wedding in 1958, which had music, a shochet and a rabbi but no huppah. Kerler and Lemster ask about wedding customs. She answers about the gifts called makhes (money-giving, with dancing), the in-law sides, the person who led the celebration, and the plain wedding gift.

Shveibish addresses today's Jewish community in Tul'chyn. She says there are few fully Jewish families, perhaps twenty or thirty, and describes help from Hesed, former food aid, and care for elderly people living alone. She also speaks of money and gifts, such as vitamins and Hanukkah candles, sent by a woman in America, and of her own community work.

Kogan recalls the Bershad' ghetto, an episode with police guarding a bridge near a monastery while he was getting food, and Bukovinian, Bessarabian and Hungarian Jews there. He speaks of the mass killing of Jews, including the shoykhet Gedalye, at the Komuna Voroshilov kolkhoz pit, and of the fate of that man's family. The visitors then take their leave.

Kogan speaks about Zhabokrych and Bershad' during the war, including killings in Zhabokrych and the Romanian occupation. He names local Jews such as the shoykhet Gedalye Shulman (?) and the hearse-driver Avrom'tse (?) and his wife, with Kerler asking who they were. He then recites parts of his songs 'Dos lagerl' and 'Aheym, briderlekh, aheym'.

Katsman gives personal information: her name in Yiddish and Russian, her maiden name Chechelniker, her birth date and the fact that she has always lived in Tul'chyn. She talks about her family, which includes her father, a brush maker, her mother Perl, and a brother who froze to death in the camp. Her father was taken into the army and died after the war, and the family spoke Yiddish at home. She says the family's house was lost when they were driven into the ghetto. She recounts being driven to the Pechera camp, with disinfection in a bath, a night on the floor among about fifty people, beatings by police and help from some local non-Jews. She also mentions the return home after the war and attempts to claim compensation. Her half-brother in New York, her son in Israel and her second husband come up, along with her work as a tailor for 39 years. She answers Kerler's questions on relations with non-Jews before and after the war, on non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, on the shoykhet Moshe, on Sabbath, Passover, Purim and Hanukkah food and recipes (gefilte fish, cholent, latkes, varenikes, cakes), on children's games at school and by the river, and on hardship in the postwar years. She also describes annual trips to the Pechera memorial, some arranged by an organizing group; the discussion then shifts to a neighbor Pesia, Kerler's explanation of the archive, and a closing exchange about the mezuzah.

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.

Efim and Motl describe Jewish Buki as a large town with many Jews, mostly locally born. It had one large synagogue with separate women's and men's sections, three shochets and a rabbi whose name is partly remembered (Zarnitski?). Kerler asks what the town was called in Yiddish, and the electric station is mentioned.

Efim says a memorial was erected after the war at the killing site of the town's Jews and offers to drive there. Kerler asks about words for tombstone and Jewish and non-Jewish cemeteries. Motl says his mother took him to synagogue as a child. The closing of the Yiddish school in Buki is discussed, along with the father's work as shochet until the war and kosher meat.

Rubin describes prewar religious life in Buki: Jews gathered in small groups in a house away from the centre to form a minyan, and quietly so as not to be seen. He recalls that his uncle Velvl, a butcher, brought kosher meat, and notes the word the Jews used for meat.

Shor names his father Yosl and mother Dobresh. His father was a ritual slaughterer who also led services, officiating as a cantor after the war in a Vinnytsya synagogue. Liudmila's father Yidl sold flour in a shop; in the 1930s the family was dispossessed and expelled from their home and moved to Verkhovka, where he learned hairdressing. Shor recalls his own mother and children being evicted in the rain and the creation of a Jewish kolkhoz.

Questionnaire items continue, covering the words for 'deaf', 'groats' and 'golem'. Kerler asks about the interviewee's father as shoykhet and about the bime, and about the words 'bentshn' and 'gomel'. A last item asks for the word for a well.

Chirkova states her Jewish identity and says Jews should observe holidays such as Shavuot and Passover, including kashrut and cleaning of the dishes and spoons. Kerler asks how Yiddish says 'cross' and about wearing a Star of David. She talks about the professor who served with her, and asks the interviewers to write to her, mentioning a letter from New York in Yiddish.

Kerler asks what was baked for Passover. Furer recalls his grandfather's geese kept in the attic and taken to the shoykhet before Passover, and matzah brought from Kyiv. Kerler then asks questionnaire items such as bald, young man, pot, book and near. Furer remarks that few of the fifteen people who go to synagogue today know Yiddish.

Barshteyn describes Jewish life in prewar Sharhorod: the many synagogues, the great synagogue that still stands, and the Romanian Jews who prayed there during the occupation. She recalls Passover at home, her six years at a Yiddish school, kosher meat and the shoykhet, and the two tsadikim's graves that the Jews refused to have moved.

Barshteyn speaks about the Yom Kippur kapores custom, in which women used a rooster or money, and about the old shoykhet. Her mother performed it. Katz and Kerler pursue the details, and the talk is interrupted by traffic and logistics in Russian. She also mentions a roundup in which people were seized on the street and taken to a monastery. Katz closes by asking when the synagogue was built.

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.

The man says in Russian that friends call him though he has no phone. He tells how he slaughtered chickens, lambs and calves for Jews and says he kept five hens and a rooster. He describes Jews bringing him matzo and recalls Yiddish names of meats, and he repeats a Yiddish saying about a Jew with a Jewish soul. Lemster and Kerler keep asking for a song and for Yiddish words; a recogniser loop mars part of the passage.

Barshteyn sings the Yiddish comic song 'Rebbe reb Shneyer', about a woman who asks the rabbi whether a dairy knife made meat can be made kosher. The rabbi answers with the remedy of burying it in the earth.

Sobol says that in Soviet times people were not allowed to pray freely, while her husband came from a Bukovinian Jewish life. She talks about cooking for her husband and about ritual slaughter: there was a shoykhet even under the Soviets, but later none, and she or her husband slaughtered chickens themselves. Lemster then asks whether she has children.

Fishman explains that he was sent from Odesa to Yampil after the institute and worked as a credit inspector at a bank. He lodged with an elderly Jewish couple and learned Yiddish from them. He recalls the synagogue near their house and a story about a Jewish elder in the ghetto under the Romanians. He estimates the Jewish population of Yampil after the war, notes there was a synagogue and a shoykhet but no rabbi, and mentions his grandmother taking chickens to the shoykhet.

Yatskova describes the Yiddish school, with seven classes and many Jewish children. Next to it stood a two-storey synagogue, men below and women above, where she liked to listen to the prayers. After the war the building was gone and the site held a village council. Her father, as a teacher, did not go to the synagogue but prayed at home, and the family kept the holidays, buying matzo brought from Mohyliv (?). She says a shoykhet lived in the town.

A guide speaks Russian about the building where the shoykhet worked, the bloodletting arrangements and the slaughter procedure. He says the quarter was Jewish before the war, with a yeshiva, rabbinate, shops, lawyers and doctors. Kerler and the guide discuss how ordinary Jews read Yiddish from cheder without always understanding it, and the speaker thanks the team.

Nayman gives her birth year, 1925, and birthplace Turya-Bystra, a village with only a few Jewish families, where she lived until the deportation in 1944. She names her father, a blacksmith and kohen, and her grandfather, and describes the beit midrash with separate women's and men's sections. She talks about her mother, the family's animals and kosher practice, listening in on cheder lessons without paying, and working the fields and the family's land.

Lebvol lists Zhovka's Jewish occupations: tailors, tinsmiths, butchers, glaziers and several ritual slaughterers. She says many Jews converted to Christianity and that she doesn't know of non-Jews becoming Jews, that neighbors were non-Jews with whom they got along, and that older non-Jews knew Yiddish. She describes her poor family: bread wrapped in newspaper, herring bought from a shop, and her father the glazier bartering glass for food in the villages.

Interview with Tsipe Partnaya (née Kamenir), who has lived in Zhytomyr since 1962. She recalls her grandmother's religious household, a small synagogue and a shoykhet, and her grandfather the shoemaker, who sang songs. She also says her daughter knows Yiddish and that the area was called the 'Jewish district'.

Burshtein tells anecdotes about his family in Poland. His father was waiting for a sister in the woods near a town, where he was followed by two silent figures. Another anecdote tells of a man in the woods in 1938 who predicted the war. His father and grandfather, both tailors, were fooled on the way to a fair by a sack of salt that proved to be a demon's trick. He mentions the religiosity of the family, where men slept in yarmulkes, and an incident in which his brothers entered a Polish sausage shop and the rabbi was told. He then begins to recall the start of the war, apparently in September 1939.

Geller names his maternal grandmother Etl and grandfather Mordechai, who was a ritual slaughterer. He tells of the Civil War attack on Pyatka around the eve of Rosh Hashanah, when the grandmother was shot, the family fled to Berdychiv, and the soldiers plundered the town. His father came from Khazhin near Berdychiv. The grandparents were from Pyatka.

Nibulskaia says kosher meat was bought from the shoykhet in Korosten. She then talks about her family: three sons-in-law, two good and one bad, and one who knows Jewish religion but not Yiddish. She names relatives, including a cousin Nobelman and a journalist and writer, and the group discusses writers.

Shraibman describes leaving the Communist Party in the 1980s by claiming to have lost his party card, and the pressure put on him. He says he was neither a real Communist nor an anti-Communist. He answers Kerler's questions about the campaign against cosmopolitanism and the Doctors' Plot in 1952 and about Jewish cadets. He recalls growing up in a Soviet family where his grandmother Gitl kept kosher and his grandfather was not deeply religious. He mentions his daughter in Haifa and a granddaughter in the Israeli army.

Bluvshtein describes life after the war: bread on ration cards, then work and good earnings as a painter. Kerler asks about a ritual slaughterer in the town.

Margolis speaks about his other grandfather, a ritual slaughterer who killed sheep and geese, and about kosher practice at home with special dishes. He and Kerler then go through Passover and festival foods, including a dish called akerts (?), kigenekh, and a fish dish his mother prepared by removing the bones and chopping the flesh. The interview ends with Kerler asking for the camera to be turned off.