6:05
Rezmovits addresses his religious school (talmud torah) education. Rezmovits published a book about this period of his life. He also gives a glimpse of local Jewish life in prewar Debrecen.
Topics › Community, politics and migration
Local Jewish history
The town's Jewish population, institutions, neighborhoods, history and sites: "prewar Jewish life in X", "Jewish life in Y", geography of the town.
932 passages on 474 tapes, 311 speakers · most often in Chișinău (66), Budapest (50), Zhytomyr (37), Cluj-Napoca (36), L'viv (32), Rivne (31)
932 passages
44:25
Rezmovits talks about his return to Debrecen in the 1953 and postwar Jewish life. He then shares an example of how his mother spoke Yiddish.
35:09
Rezmovits speaks about his aliyah. According to him, he became less observant during that period. He then talks about prewar religious life, including the Hasidic community, in Debrecen.
15:21
Galambos chants a prayer, before mentioning Purim shpiels. He then speaks about life in Vaja before the war. According to Galambos, fifty Jewish families lived there.
21:59
Galambos speaks about prewar Jewish life Vaja, including institutions. He then talks about his yeshiva education. Galambos explains that he spent the first three semesters in Kisvárda, where he studied with a khazer-bokher (repeater). Galambos explains that one semester included four months. In 1938, Galambos returned home and worked as carpenter until 1941. His father took him on as apprentice. Galambos continues that he was drafted into the army and was stationed in Košice, Slovakia, for two months.
40:32
Galambos answers questions about cultural terminology and speaks about regional geography. He then addresses prewar religious life and recalls the well-known Hasidic tune of the Kaliver rebbe "Szól a kakas már."
6:40
Galambos speaks about prewar Jewish life, including occupations, in Vaja. He points out that the prayer shawls were in the synagogue and not at home.
21:54
Smajovics addresses prewar Jewish life in Velyka Kopanya. According to him, sixty families lived in his hometown. He then speaks about his life in the late 1930s. Smajovics worked odd jobs, including coach man and field worker.
59:22
Smajovics speaks about Jewish life in the region in the late 1930s. He recalls Polish refugees. He then briefly addresses his time in the forced labor battalion of the Hungarian army.
0:00
Smajovics addresses his religious school (heder) education and teacher (melamed). He talks about prewar Jewish life in Transcarpathia and visits of a rebbe to Velyka Kopanya.
12:14
Smajovics talks about prewar Jewish life. He specifically touches upon a religious court case that took place in his hometown. Smajovics speaks about life and charity today.
4:52
Herbst discusses his childhood memories and his family. He grew up with four sisters and three brothers. According to him, approximately eleven families lived there.
55:16
Herbst speaks about languages spoken at home. He then addresses regional differences among communities, before talking about his religious education in Rakhiv. Herbst then describes Sabbath dinners at a rebbe's home.
6:38
Gotlieb talks about prewar Jewish life, including religious institutions, in Sátoraljaújhely. According to her, 3060 people lived there. She has relatives in Israel and America.
29:58
Gotlieb speaks about prewar Jewish life in Sátoraljaújhely. Gotlieb's brother studied at a yeshiva in Uzhhorod, where their uncle lived. She then talks about visiting the grave of Moshe Teitelbaum aka Yismach Moshe.
45:21
Gotlieb speaks about Sukkot celebrations before the war. In particular, she describes her family's sukkah. Gotlieb then speaks about prewar Jewish life in her hometown and addresses conversions to Christianity. She also recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish and the use of Hebrew terms among Jews.
50:36
Gotlieb talks about Jewish life before the war, including occupational structure. She also briefly touches upon school performances.
14:11
Rezmovits tells a couple of stories about "Froim der ganeydiker" (Froim the merciful) going to a restaurant and making a contract with a priest. He also addresses prewar Jewish life, particularly the local Jewish secondary school, and recalls antisemitism during his schooldays in Debrecen.
23:58
Herbst speaks about Jewish life in the region during German occupation in 1944. He then mentions how he always kept a prayer book (siddur) when traveling to Mauthausen.
33:39
Herbst speaks about Jewish life in his hometown Bornobash. In particular, he describes how the local inn produced wine for the community on Rosh Hashana. He then mentions a wealthy Jew from Rakhiv who gave out wine before Passover.
51:32
Herbst speaks about his life today and recalls a prayer. He then briefly addresses prewar Jewish life in Bornobash and shows his parents' photographs. Herbst also speaks about languages spoken at home.
30:56
Bergman speaks about the history of this synagogue, as well as other local synagogues.
27:56
Deutsch speaks about his parents' fate during the war. His father died in the Mauthausen concentration camp and his mother in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Deutsch then explains Jewish life at the beginning of the German occupation of Budapest. He mentions Hungarian helpers to protect local Jews, before returning to his family's fate during the war.
52:26
Deutsch answers questions about cultural terminology. He then addresses prewar Jewish life in the region.
4:16
Pearl addresses his life during World War II, in particular during 1942. According to Pearl, approximately two hundred Jews lived in Tállya; of whom 170 died during the war. His parents perished in Auschwitz. Pearl grew up with two sisters and one brother, who lives in France. He then speaks about his life as forced laborer. Pearl worked in a copper mine in the forced labor camp Bor, Yugoslavia. Pearl then describes the conditions in the camp of approxminately 6,000 prisoners, according to him.
10:43
Pearl speaks about his work as forced laborer. He then addresses Jewish life in Budapest in 1942. He specifically remembers Polish refugees and the return of the Mukachever Rebbe and Belzer Rebbe. Pearl recalls how the rebbe spoke about the fate of Jews in Western Europe.
37:26
Pearl speaks about prewar Jewish life in Tállya, particularly institutions. He recalls religious figures frequently going to the local bath house. Pearl then addresses their fate during the war.
57:14
Pearl speaks about attending synagogue services in 1942. He then addresses his encounter with the Belzer Rebbe, before talking about Jewish life in Budapest under German occupation in 1944.
17:00
Pearl talks about prewar Jewish life. He then addresses traditional weddings and compares it to contemporary weddings.
53:12
Doman talks about his life during World War II. He was a forced laborer. He then addresses his life and education after the war. Doman studied at the Rabbinical Theological Seminary, as well as university. Doman then speaks about postwar Jewish life.
0:00
Doman speaks about Jewish life before the war. The team then concludes the formal interview with Doman.
5:33
Gotlieb speaks about prewar Jewish life in Sátoraljaújhely. She also speaks about her religious life today.
40:58
Gotlieb talks about her family and prewar religious life in her hometown, including the difference between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews and local yeshivot. She then describes prewar Jewish life in Sátoraljaújhely. During his childhood, Gotlieb visited the grave of Yismach Moshe with her father, she explains.
27:48
Gotlieb addresses prewar life in Sátoraljaújhely. In particular, she remembers a visiting priest, who spoke Yiddish. She also addresses the Jewish occupational structure and institutions in town. Gotlieb then describes the local bath house.
42:10
Gotlieb speaks about healing customs during her childhood. They then discuss local geography, before she talks about contemporary Hasidic life.
14:16
Blobshteyn speaks about Jewish life in Ukraine during the war.
18:39
Blobshteyn speaks about his family and Jewish life under Czechoslovak rule. His father joined the labor battalion of the Hungarian army in 1939.
33:17
Blobshteyn addresses prewar Jewish life in Mukacheve. He recalls non-Jewish students in cheder. He then shares episodes from cheder routine and relationships between Jews and non-Jews.
44:13
Blobshteyn addresses prewar Jewish life, including religious institutions. He then recalls the Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira's son's wedding, as well as speaks about the Spira family.
53:16
Blobshteyn talks about Jewish communities in the surrounding villages. He then addresses food customs, including his mother's baking for Sabbath and fish dishes. Blobshteyn's family kept animals and therefore cooked meat during the week. Blobshteyn also mentions how his family obtained carp for the Sabbath meal.
2:18
Blobstheyn addresses Jewish life in the 1970s, when Jews from Mukacheve prepared emigration. He then answers questions about dialectology and cultural terminology.
23:16
Blobshteyn talks about prewar Jewish press in Mukacheve. He then addresses his life during the Soviet period.
2:00
Smajovics addresses prewar Jewish life in his hometown Velyka Kopanya (Groys Kopanye). There were about 60 Jewish families there ("zekhtsik talaysim"). In particular, he addresses the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic (= Hasidic) communities.
5:02
Smajovics shares an episode from Jewish life during the Hungarian occupation in 1939. He then returns to prewar Jewish life in his hometown and describes arguments regarding Ashkenazi or Sephardic teaching style in cheder. Smajovics then speaks about his life and education before the war, after his father was killed by his own horses. He also speaks about his family. He grew up with seven siblings. Smajovics' brother made aliyah after the war. His father was also born in Velyka Kopanya and his mother's family moved to Velyka Kopanya during her childhood. Smajovics recalls his grandmother's hospitality to strangers.
6:05
Smajovics talks about contemporary life in Velyka Kopanya, as well as contemporary Jewish life in Vynohradiv. He then answers questions about cultural terminology.
42:50
Smajovics speaks about postwar Jewish life and religious customs in Vynohradiv. According to him, three kosher butchers worked there after the war. Smajovics then speaks about his life today and mentions Yiddish gatherings.
34:59
Herbst speaks about prewar Jewish life, in particular traditional weddings and food customs.
46:13
Herbst speaks about prewar Jewish life in Berlabashe and explains how he learned Ukrainian and Hungarian. He then speaks about his return home from the concentration camp Mauthausen. Herbst explains how he was taken in a car from Mauthausen to Merikó,Hungary, which was under Red Army command. He then headed to Budapest, via Bratislava, Slovenia.
10:36
Doman talks about his life before the war and regional Yiddish dialects. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life in the region.
16:40
Doman speaks about his research and publications about jokes, Hungarian yeshivot, a Hungarian community, his father, his life as forced laborer and a translation study of the Talmud.
24:13
Reti speaks about prewar life in Rohod. He recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish. According to him, twenty Jewish families lived there. Reti speaks about his father's observance as Kosoner hasid and the Kosoner rebbe. Reti then talks about his family today.
49:47
Reti speaks about Jewish life in Nyírmada and the local rabbinical authority.
0:00
Reti speaks about prewar Jewish life in Rohod. He recalls how he played nuts during Sukkot and addresses holiday celebration, including food customs.
20:10
Reti speaks about prewar Jewish life in Rohod. He also lived in Fehérgyarmat and Balkány before the war. He then discusses his childhood memories. Reti attended a Hungarian school and religious school (cheder). Reti explains that he attended cheder in the mornings and evenings and primary school during the day.
27:21
Reti speaks about prewar Jewish life in the region. In particular, he describes cities he visited before the war, including Nyíregyháza, Debrecen and Kisvárda. Reti also addresses peddlers.
35:17
The interview moves outside and Reti gives a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood, including the mikvah. Reti also mentions antisemitic daub and that antisemites set the Torah ark on fire.
13:44
The team enters the Nyíregyháza synagogue and Miki Kiralyi gives a tour and provides historical background of the orthodox synagogue in Hebrew. He also addresses Jewish life in town after World War II, as well as contemporary Jewish life.
0:00
The team walks with Samadi to the synagogue to give a tour. He provides historical background about the synagogue, as well as about prewar and postwar religious life in Debrecen. According to Samadi, services in the Great Synagogue stopped in 1984. Other members, including Goronvalgy and Reti, join the conversation and inform about contemporary Jewish life in Hungarian and Yiddish.
35:20
The formal part of the interview begins. Samadi provides personal information and talks about prewar Jewish life in his hometown Bököny.
17:33
Reti speaks about his yeshiva education and prewar Jewish life.
38:04
Reti speaks about Jewish life in the region. He then discusses his childhood memories. He explains the game nuts, which was done on Sukkoth according to Reti. He also recalls a non-Jew who worked for his family and spoke Yiddish.
0:00
Stern provides personal information and speaks about prewar Jewish life in her hometown, as well as her family. Her mother was also born in Sonkad. Her father worked in agriculture. She grew up as an only child.
22:25
Galambos speaks about life today. He then speaks about Jewish life after the war. Galambos returned to Vaja in 1944. According to him, 184 Jews (out of 2,700) lived in prewar Vaja and 41 Jews returned after the war.
25:43
Galambos speaks about his family, particularly his brother. He then speaks about prewar life in Vaja and Jewish regional geography. He also touches upon prewar traditional weddings.
9:47
Galambos addresses prewar occupational structure in Jewish Vaja. He also mentions the local wine production, before talking about prewar Shavuot and Sabbath food customs.
19:05
Galambos talks about prewar Jewish life, as well as prayers and religious customs.
37:41
The second part of the recording is a formal interview with Malka Zelikovna Altman, nee Bluvshteyn, recorded in Bălți. She was born 1921 in Bălți. Altman provides personal information and talks about Jewish life before the war in Pervomaiscoe, Moldova. She recalls the kosher butcher and Avreymele, the mohel, the local fur factory, and Lipson’s mill.
52:42
Altman remembers prewar Jewish life in Bălți. She recalls a non-Jewish woman speaking Yiddish. Her father prayed in different synagogues, such as the cobbler and 53: 45 synagogue.
0:00
This recording is a continuation of a formal interview with Malka Zelikovna Altman. Altman continues telling the story about her husband Mordkhe and his encounter with the rebbe of Stefanesti. She then talks about prewar Jewish life and different synagogues 2:10, as well as Sabbath celebrations.
43:26
Altman talks about prewar Jewish life and recites a few lines of the song “Beltz, Mayn Shtetele Beltz.” She then answers questions about cultural terminology.
9:38
Dzigifker talks about prewar Jewish life in Gertop and her family. Her father was a merchant of 13:15. She explains why her family moved to Marculesti, because her father was warned of being robbed. They moved in 1927/28 and lived there for six years. In 1936, they lived in Capresti for four years.
22:48
Dzigifker discusses her childhood memories and Jewish life in Gertop. Dzigifker recalls how she fasted on Yom Kippur. She then describes how to kosher meat and discusses food customs, in particular challah. They remember how their mother kept kosher after the war.
37:34
The team meets Maryem in front of her home, who takes the team on a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood in Bălți. They are headed to the former synagogue.
40:07
Maryem, who was born in Bălți, talks about her life during the war. She explains that she fled from Bălți to Dnipropetrovsk on foot for six weeks. Maryem continues giving a tour, pointing out former synagogues. They are then headed to a former “Jewish street.” After the team drops Maryem off at home, they are headed to the synagogue.
5:01
Bukshpun discusses life before the war in Karkushany, where sixteen Jewish families lived. He also talks about his family. He attended a Moldovan school for five years. He has relatives in Israel.
24:01
Bukshpun talks about his life after the war. He worked the field. He then talks about surrounding towns with a Jewish population before the war. He addresses the relationship between Jews and non-Jews, before he describe his father’s general store. Bukshpun talks about synagogue services in his uncle’s town Briceni.
2:20
Reizman discusses postwar Jewish life. According to Reizman, every synagogue was destroyed, but a kosher butcher worked in town.
10:14
Meyer discusses prewar Jewish life and holiday celebrations, including food customs. He then briefly mentions prewar cultural life, in particular a Yiddish theater from Chişinău. When Meyer talks about Sukkot, he explains that they put up sukkah in the hallway of their home.
19:03
Meyer talks about prewar Jewish life and occupations, as well as mentions non-Jews who spoke Yiddish. Meyer then discusses his profession as a leather worker. He learned and worked with his father before the war. Meyer describes how he made a cap with ear flaps. Meyer briefly addresses prewar cultural and Hasidic life, before he talks about how people went to see the rebbe of Stefanesti with a coachman. Meyer went to see the rebbe of Rîbnita Chaim Zanvil (ben Mosha) Abramowitz after the war. He also remembers postwar Yiddish theater.
0:00
The tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Meyer Khaimovich Furman and his wife Tsipora Yankelevna Furman, nee Shtekhman. Tsipora provides personal information and talks about Jewish life in prewar Sîrbesti (Serbeshty) with roughly two hundred Jewish families. Tsipora explains that they set up a Jewish colony there in 1923. Tsipora then talks about her family. Her father, born in Capresti, was a merchant for wood 4:11. She grew up with one sister and three brothers. Her mother was born in Vadul-Rascov.
MDV 130Isaak (Itisk) Yakovlevich Boltykh; Semyon (Shimen) Semyonovich Katerberg; Tatyana (Tube) Yakovlevna KaterbergBriceni, 2005
13:28
Boltykh speaks about his mother's education. She attended a Romanian school. He then speaks about Jewish life in Briceni before the war, as he recalls it from his mother's telling.
36:55
Katerberg speaks about Jewish life in Berlintsy before the war. According to him, thirty Jewish families lived there.
22:02
Tatyana briefly speaks about her life during the war. She evacuated with her mother. They then speak about Jewish life before the war, in particular occupational structure.
26:34
Semyon speaks about prewar Jewish life, including the local mohel and doctor. He then states that his son was circumcised in Chernivtsi in 1949. Tatyana then speaks about Yiddish books at home.
0:00
Kalussky provides personal information and talks prewar Jewish life in Briceni. He then addresses his family. His father was a tailor and also born in Briceni. His mother was born Briceni. He grew up with four siblings. He lost two sisters in the ghetto and his two brothers moved to Israel after the war.
31:14
Kalussky recalls how his family went to see the Rîbniţa rebbe and describes the rebbe's place. He then addresses prewar Jewish life. According to Kalussky, 14,000 Jews lived in Briceni. He also mentions a visiting cantor from Kamyanets-Podilskyy. Kalussky then tells a story from a visiting rebbe from Khotyn, who wanted to eat fish and received advice-seeking people.
8:32
Goldberg talks about her family and prewar Jewish life in Călărași. Her mother worked odd jobs to support the family after her father died. Golderg states that she began working at the age of eleven.
37:04
Goldberg speaks about prewar Jewish life and her childhood memories. She then talks about her life after the war. She got married in 1949. She explains how she met her husband. During the war, Goldberg had medical trainding with the Red Cross and then worked in a hospital during and after the war.
57:50
Goldberg talks about prewar Jewish life and recalls the custom "shlugn kapores" on Yom Kippur. She then discusses her childhood and religious life after the war.
18:51
Roif speaks about prewar Jewish life in Duruitoarea, where Jews lived in a colony spread across three villages. He mentions that his father supported the village synagogue. According to him, 160 families lives there.
42:19
Roif provides personal information. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Duruitoarea, as well as his education. Roif attended a Romanian school and religious school (cheder), which was located in the local synagogue. Roif learned in cheder, except for the winter months, until the outbreak of World War II.
58:28
Roif discusses his childhood memories. He explains how his father arranged transportation to the neighboring village, where Shraybman lived, to invite him for Sabbath celebrations at Roif's home. He then addresses his father's financial support of the local community and describes prewar Jewish life and occupational structure in Duruitoarea.
20:41
Roif discusses his childhood memories of Jewish Duruitoarea. He recalls Hasidic visitors and describes how his father visited the Ştefăneşti rebbe when his mother was ill. Roif explains how the rebbe called for the doctor, who already gave up on his mother. The doctor eventually cured Roif's mother, according to him.
36:26
Roif addresses regional Yiddish dialects. He also mentions Adrian Popovich, who rescued Jews from Chernivtsi, and historians of local Jewish history during the war.
39:43
Roif speaks about prewar Jewish life and traditional weddings in his home village. He also mentions matchmakers.
7:24
They discuss Jewish history and local figures.
8:30
Roif speaks about prewar Jewish life in Duruitoarea. In particular, he mentions a girl who converted to Christianity. He then remembers a Yiddish song about this topic and local Christians who spoke Yiddish.
23:08
Roif addresses prewar Jewish life and sense of community in his home village.
28:50
Zelda and Roif talk prewar Jewish life in their hometown. In particular they recalls their homes. Roif then continues to answer dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire. Roif also speaks about his visits of the church on the kolkhoz, he ran.
47:38
Farber provides personal information. He then addresses prewar Jewish life in Vertiujeni, as well as life today.
25:08
Farber addresses Jewish life in Vertiujeni during the war. He explains that Jews were sent to the Urals to work in coal mines. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life and his family. Farber's mother was a seamstress.
35:53
Farber addresses prewar religious life in Vertiujeni, as well as his family's life before the war.
12:31
Shmid talks about prewar life in her home village. She recalls a local who converted to Christianity. Shmid also describes prewar religious life in the village. She explains that religious infrastructure existed in a neighboring village.
41:23
Shpitalnik speaks about her visits to Dumbrăveni before the war. She also addresses prewar Jewish life in Chişinău and Dumbrăveni. Shpitalnik then talks about her father, who traveled to neighboring villages at the age of twelve and worked as private religious teacher.
12:43
Shpitalnik speaks about Jewish life in Chişinău before the war. She mentions Judah Leib Zirelson, the chief rabbi of Chişinău.
21:52
Shpitalnik talks about prewar Jewish life, including traditional weddings, in Chişinău. She was married in 1951 and states that there was no wedding canopy at her wedding because she considered it old-fashioned.
27:40
Shpitalnik addresses prewar ethnic Jewish geography in Chişinău, as well as cultural life.
38:59
Shpitalnik talks about postwar religious life. She states that the only synagogue was closed down in the 1960s. She also addresses traditional weddings with performers. Shpitalnik then speaks about prewar Jewish occupational structure in Chişinău, particularly doctors and teachers.
43:50
Shpitalnik addresses the history and poverty of Jewish Chişinău. She then addresses Yiddish theater performances in the 1960s.
29:19
Mester answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire. She then speaks about her family. Mester's father was a tailor. She grew up with three sisters. Mester also addresses prewar Jewish life in Stolniceni and discusses songs.
32:21
Mester addresses prewar Passover celebrations and describes how she stole the afikoman. She then speaks about prewar Jewish life, including occupational structure, in her home village. According to Mester, seven families lived in Stolniceni.
MDV 146Sergo Bengelsdorf; Marina Mikhailovna Shraybman; Moisha Motylevich Lipovetskiy and 1 moreChișinău, 2005
54:52
Abelsky addresses contemporary Jewish life in Moldova, as well as his teachings.
15:49
Abelsky speaks about different Jewish groups in Moscow. He then talks about his family. Abelsky's maternal grandfather was the chief Hasidic rabbi of Moscow before the war. Abelsky's father was born in Vitebsk, Belorussia, and his mother was born in Chudey Bude?, Ukraine.
27:18
Abelsky shares episodes about prewar Jewish life and locals in Moscow. He also describes his grandfather's reputation within the community.
MDV 148Rabbi Zalman Abelsky; Sara Solomonovna Shpitalnik; Moisha Motylevich LipovetskiyChișinău, 2005
35:26
Lipovetskiy discusses prewar Jewish life, including institutions, in Chişinău. He also mentions the support of the Joint Distribution Committee before the war. Lipovetskiy then talks about life today.
14:06
Kishlyansky discusses his childhood memories of Jewish Briceni. He speaks about prewar religious life, prayer customs and his family's observance. In particular, he addresses Sabbath celebrations at home.
16:05
Kishlyansky speaks about his life during World War II. He recalls beatings and mentions the forced marches toward Ukraine. He then returns to Jewish life before the war. Kishlyansky attended a religious school (cheder). He also lists local synagogues.
21:34
Kishlyansky talks about prewar Jewish life in Briceni and recalls poverty. He then speaks about prewar Yom Kippur and Sukkot celebrations.
32:14
Kishlyansky addresses prewar Jewish life, including occupational structure, in Briceni. He then sings a Yiddish song about a kosher butcher. He then speaks about cultural life and recalls performances by Sidi Tal and Anna Gintsburg, before addressing Hasidic life.
8:06
Gordin discusses his childhood memories of Jewish life in prewar Velyka Kisnytsya. He also remembers food customs at a traditional wedding and talks about the local religious school (cheder). Gordin then speaks about prewar holiday celebration and recalls his parents going to services.
18:58
Gordin speaks about life and infrastructure in Florești. He then talks about his family.
26:28
Gordin talks about prewar life, including non-Jews who spoke Yiddish. He also addresses prewar Jewish life and healing customs. Gordin recalls a sick friend that was healed through healing practice.
27:30
Sherman addresses prewar Yiddish cultural life, particularly local drama circles. He also recalls performances by Sidi Tal. Sherman then talks about prewar religious life, particularly the synagogue structure in Telenești. Sherman also describes how he went to see a cantor in Orhei during his secondary education.
10:20
Diner talks about prewar Jewish life in Fălești. She then discusses her childhood memories, including games. Diner also talks about her Romanian secondary school education. She then recites a Romanian poem, before addressing prewar cultural life.
55:20
Diner speaks about prewar Jewish life in Fălești. She then addresses folk customs and describes how her mother went to a local healer at the beginning of the Soviet occupation.
8:36
Diner briefly sings "Itsik hot shoyn khasene gehat" (Itzik already got married). She then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Fălești, including occupational structure, drinking customs and religious institutions. Diner also recalls a Russian doctor who treated patients for free.
22:37
Diner speaks about Jewish life before the war and recalls the local village idiot. She then talks about local figures and mentions religious customs.
45:39
Mitlaeva speaks about prewar Chișinău, as well as explains photographs of city buildings and recalls local figures.
53:42
Mitlaeva talks about prewar Jewish cultural life, particularly Yiddish theater. She then returns to describing city buildings, as well as the central market.
8:29
Mitlaeva addresses her life and work after the war. Among other places, Mitlaeva taught at a school in Străşeni for approximately thirty years. She then mentions Jewish locals in Străşeni.
19:16
Abelsky addresses contemporary Jewish life in Chişinău, including financial support.
9:40
Goldman speaks about prewar Jewish life in Ialoveni. According to him, there were five synagogues.
20:15
Goldman speaks about his praying customs. He then talks about prewar Jewish life in his hometown and recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish. Goldman then remembers activities organized by Gordonia. According to him, twenty members were in the local Gordonia branch.
0:00
Goldman speaks about prewar Jewish life in Chişinău, particularly recalling a kosher butcher shop. Goldman also address different Yiddish dialects.
17:03
Benderskij addresses prewar Jewish life in Nisporeni. According to him there were two synagogues and approximately four hundred people lived there. Benderskij also addresses his grandfather's observance. Benderskij worked as economist and Benderskaia was an accountant.
23:57
Benderskaia speaks about prewar Jewish life and holiday celebration in Nisporeni. She also mentions her family and describes Sabbath celebrations and food customs at home. Benderskaia grew up with two brothers.
59:17
They briefly speak about Jewish life in Nisporeni after the war. Benderskij and Benderskaia also touch upon their lives during the war. He evacuated to Kazakhstan. They also talk about their family.
0:00
Benderskij addresses prewar Jewish life, as well as nature, in Nisporeni.
38:07
Dajch talks about prewar Jewish life in Nisporeni, including synagogue structure. She also addresses holiday celebration, occupational structure, locals and activities of the youth.
5:31
Rotner speaks about her life before the war. She worked as operator at a train station. Rotner then addresses prewar Jewish life in Chiperceni. According to her, approximately four hundred families lived there.
19:28
Rotner talks about prewar Jewish life, including occupational structure. Rotner's father owned a vineyeard and she recalls harvesting grapes in the summer time. Rotner remembers young chalutzim in town. Rotner then talks about her family and briefly addresses her leisure activities.
44:49
Rotner speaks about Jewish life in Chiperceni before the war. She particularly describes the local synagogue. She then answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire. Rotner then recalls how she collected charity for a poor local family.
12:52
Manevich speaks about prewar Jewish life in Tiraspol. She also discusses her childhood memories of attending the synagogue on holidays. Manevich then speaks about her education, including subjects, at a Yiddish school. Manevich also recites a Russian poem.
36:16
Manevich addresses her education at the Yiddish school and discusses Jewish life in prewar Tiraspol. She also briefly addresses her life after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
41:03
Manevich talks about her education, including teachers, at the Yiddish school. She then addresses prewar Jewish life in Tiraspol, including occupational structure. Manevich also recalls childhood friends and describes how she met her husband. She then remembers her wedding.
55:06
Manevich answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire. She also speaks about contemporary religious life and talks about Jewish life in Birobidzhan.
18:20
Fershtman speaks about Jewish life in Pishchanka before the war. He also remembers his childhood friends and languages of communication. Fershtman then talks about his family.
6:15
Rojtman speaks about her recent visit to Vadul Raşcov. She also addresses prewar Jewish life in town. She then returns to her family. Her paternal grandparents moved to Argentina before World War II. Rojtman also has relatives in Israel.
8:45
Rojtman discusses her childhood memories of her home and neighbors. She also addresses prewar Jewish life. According to Rojtman, there were three synagogues in town. Rojtman recalls positive relations between Jews and non-Jews.
19:52
Rojtman talks about prewar holiday celebration, including Purim and Simchat Torah. She then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Vadul Raşcov and mentions Jewish and non-Jewish locals.
52:15
Rojtman speaks about her life after World War II. She is physician. Rojtman then talks about her family and prewar Jewish life. Rojtman also describes her father's work as merchant.
5:44
Yaruskaya speaks about her life and childhood home before the war. She recalls poverty and describes her grandparent's observance. Yaruskaya then talks about prewar Jewish life and recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish.
36:22
Yaruskaya recalls Yiddish proverbs and songs. She then addresses her childhood memories of prewar Jewish Hâncești. Yaruskaya also talks about her family. She raised three sons. They live in Israel and America.
58:44
The concludes the formal part of the interview with Yaruskaya. She returns to prewar Jewish life in Hâncești and describes how she and her siblings brought food to poor families.
9:03
Shmid speaks about prewar Jewish life in Onitskan Orgeyev and describes her father's work. Shmid's family owned a shop. According to her, three families lived in the village. She then speaks about prewar Passover celebrations at home.
12:01
Leibelman talks about Jewish life in her hometown Libshen, Rezina district, where three Jewish families lived. She then discusses her education. Leibelman attended a Romanian school and then moved to Rezina in 1932, continuing her studies at another Romanian school and lived with her aunt. She remembers the local religious teacher (melamed). Leibelman talks about prewar Jewish life in Rezina, in particular recalls great poverty. She then discusses her aunt’s traditional wedding. Her aunt’s daughter lives in America. She then remembers parts of a wedding song. Leibelman returns to talking about her hometown and antisemitism in the 1930s during Easter.
25:21
Leibelman recites again the parody of the Four Questions for Passover, before she talks about her life after the war in Dubăsari, post-1956, and contemporary Jewish life.
29:03
Leibelman answers linguistic questions from the AHEYM Yiddish questionnaire. She also tells anecdotes about prewar Jewish life.
34:31
Kleyman discusses her childhood memories and prewar religious life in Starye Karkushany. According to her, there were forty Jewish families out of four hundred inhabitants. She then talks about religious service with rabbis from surrounding cities. Kleyman then talks about contemporary holiday celebration. She visited Chernivtsi for Sukkot celebrations. Kleyman briefly describes prewar holiday celebrations at home and talks about life today.
43:54
Kleyman talks prewar Hasidic life and rebbes, before she discusses her childhood memories. She then remembers an encounter after the war with a former boss of her father’s on a kolkhoz. Kleyman returns to the rebbe of Stefanesti and recalls another episode of an encounter with him. She then talks about the history of Jews in Stryy, Ukraine, during the war.
6:09
Kleyman discusses traditional weddings. She then recalls what her mother-in-law told her about prewar Jewish life in Lipcani. She also addresses Jewish culture. about cultural terminology.
MDV 187Maria Leibovna Kleyman; Iosif (Yosel) Matveyevich Shvartzman; Raisa Aizekovna ShvartzmanLipcani, 2005
17:13
Iosif addresses his childhood memories and prewar Jewish life. He then talks about his education and discusses holiday celebration. He attended a religious school (cheder) and a Moldavian school. He recalls a class conducted in Yiddish twice a week.
13:04
Raisa recalls Yiddish proverbs and talks about Yiddish culture. They recall performances by Sidi Tal. Seymour Rechtzeit (Rexite), Dina Slotaye* after the war. Raisa then talks about history writing about Lipcani by Fekhtman.
MDV 189Raisa Aizekovna Shvartzman; Iosif Matveyevich Shvartzman; Elena (Leyke) Haimovna AkkermanEdineț, 2005
30:36
Akkerman discusses her education. She attended a Romanian school in 30:40. She learned Russian together with her children until sixth grade. Akkerman then talks about her childhood memories. In particular, she recalls her step-mother and Jewish life in Edinet. Akkerman attended a religious school (cheder).
28:11
After the team concludes the formal interview with Akkerman, they briefly talk to her son Leyb Akkerman. He talks about prewar Jewish life in Edinet, which constituted the majority of the town’s population.
0:00
Mundrian talks about her family and prewar Jewish life in Susleny, which was a wealthy Jewish town according to her. Her mother worked in the hospital after the war.
4:16
Mundrian talks about her life after the war. She studied to become a wet nurse between 1953 and 1956 in Orhei and then worked as a nurse in a hospital. Mundrian then talks about prewar Jewish life and her family in Susleny.
28:15
Mundrian talks about prewar Jewish life in Susleny, in particular occupations. She also talks about life after the war.
21:02
Kigel talks about prewar Jewish life and occupations in Orhei. She recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish. Kigel then talks about Passover celebrations and remembers parts of the Four Questions, before discussing Sabbath celebrations and food customs.
0:00
Rapoport, the president of the Jewish community in Orhei, provides information about the history of the community. The majority, roughly seventy percent, of the population was Jewish before the war. He addresses prewar religous life and mentions figures from the Orhei. Rapoport then talks about contemporary religious life.
4:17
Rapoport talks about prewar Jewish life and then provides personal information, as well as talks about his family. He was born 1945. His father and brother were imprisoned in the Domanyovka concentration camp, near Zaporozhye. Rapoport had four half-sisters and one half-brother. His grandparents and sisters were killed during World War II in camps. His mother was imprisoned in the Rîbniţa ghetto.
12:17
Rapoport talks about religious life post-Soviet Moldova. Then the camera collects footage of the synagogue. Outside, Rapoport gives a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood. Rapoport worked as a regional economic planner. The team then concludes the interview and the camera collects outside footage of the synagogue.
21:02
Grinshpun talks about prewar Jewish life in the village Kobylna. After Grinshpun attended for years of school, her family moved to Kotozhan 22:16. Grinshphan then turns to discussing childhood memories and her family abroad.
0:00
Sharhorodskij talks about contemporary Jewish life in the region. The formal interview then begins and Sharhorodskij provides personal information. He also speaks about his family. His father, who was born in Rîbniţa, worked as tradesman. His mother was born in Rîbniţa. Sharhorodskij then talks about his grandparents, who lived in Tiraspol. Sharhorodskij grew up with two brothers, one of whom fell ill with scarlet fever in 1937, and a sister, who passed away in 1958. His oldest brother was drafted into the Red Army in 1939. Sharhorodskij continues that his brother was mortally wounded during the liberation of Crimea and died at a hospital in 1944.
23:01
Sharhorodskij talks about prewar Jewish life in Rîbniţa, in particular his neighbor. Sharhorodskij then recalls what he studied in Ukrainian literature class, German class and Yiddish literature class. He also speaks about Yiddish writers.
32:42
Sharhorodskij talks about prewar Jewish life in Rîbniţa. He states that the synagogues were closed down in the late 1930s. Sharhorodskij describes the activities of a Yiddish club in place of the synagogue. He mentions peaceful relations among ethnic minorities.
18:09
Kotliar describes prewar Jewish life in Rîbniţa. During the first few years of her childhood, Kotliar lived in the village Vărăncău, before her parents moved to Rîbniţa.Kotliar also recalls how her family moved to Rîbniţa.
9:01
Boiarskaia addresses her childhood memories, including her observant home. She states that her father had a Torah ark at home. According to her, five Jewish families lived in Ţîbuleuca and her father held secret services. Boiarskaia then explains how local Jews would join the neighboring community near Goian (former Jewish town Yergolik 11:15, Yiddish: Irnik) to celebrate holidays.
31:52
Boiarskaia speaks about Jewish life, including the local mohel, in the region before the war, as well as the Rîbniţa rebbe.
5:02
Boiarskaia speaks about prewar Jewish life and recalls a positive relationship between Jews and non-Jews. She then answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire.
17:03
Magetman talks about German compensation and life today. She worked as a chemistry and biology teacher for 43 years. Magetman then talks about prewar Jewish life, before she returns to discussing life today. She briefly attended the religious school (cheder).
19:22
Plotnik talks about her childhood memories and prewar life in Dumbraveno. According to Plotnik, there were five synagogues (e.g. tailor's and German synagogue) and five hundred houses in the village. Plotnik's father passed away in 1934. She then talks about commemorating her father and returns to discussing prewar Jewish life. Her parents hired a private religious tutor during her early childhood.
21:54
Rolshut briefly talks about her life during the war. She was imprisoned in the Rîbniţa ghetto. She then discusses prewar Jewish life in Soroca, in particular Yiddish cultural life. Specifically, Rolshut recalls a Yiddish library and concerts by Sidi Tal.
59:03
Rolshut talks about prewar Jewish life, specifically the local bathhouse and mikhvah.
MDV 205Meyer Khaimovich Furman; Tsipora Yankelevna Furman; Dina (Dine, Donye, Dosye, Dintse, Disele) Abramovna MirenburgBălți, Soroca, 2005
51:56
Mirenburg discusses about holiday celebrations, in particular Sabbath with her father. She then talks about prewar Jewish life in Sguritzy. According to Mirenburg, 15,000 Jews lived there before the war.
19:11
Mirenburg talks about prewar Jewish life and occupations. She remembers taking food, her mother prepared for Sabbath, to a less well-off family.
25:45
Mirenburg discusses prewar religious life in her hometown Sguritzy, including visits to the Ştefăneşti rebbe. She also addresses blessings and talks about folk customs.
3:27
Plotnik talks about prewar Jewish life in Dumbraveno and her family. She also addresses contemporary religious life. In particular, she talks about life after her father passed away in 1934. Her sister attended school in Soroca.
39:07
Plotnik talks about prewar Jewish life in Dumbraveno, in particular friends in the local Zionist youth organization. Her parents paid land workers. Her father produced wine for his inn.
3:54
Plotnik talks about her hometown before the war, including agriculture.
31:38
R. talks about her family. Her mother was a seamstress and helped out her father. She then discusses her childhood memories of Jewish Soroca. Her brother attended a Tarbut school. R. mentions the Jewish youth organization "Gordonye."
57:13
R. discusses folk customs and holiday celebration before and after the war. She then briefly talks about life today and prewar Jewish life in Soroca.
21:55
Nusbrokh talks about prewar religious and communal life in Zguriţa.
45:58
Nusbrokh talks about contemporary religious life, in comparison with prewar religious life. He then addresses the population structure of Zguriţa. According to Nusbrokh, eighty percent of the town's population was Jewish.
6:28
Dunaevskij recalls how his grandmother told him stories about life and the Ştefăneşti rebbe. He then returns to talking about his family and his life before the war. His family lived in Ştefăneşti, Romania, from 1928 to 1940, and Dunaevskij attended a religious school (cheder). He then addresses prewar Jewish life in Ştefăneşti.
19:27
Luminskaia discusses her childhood memories and acitivies. She then talks about prewar Jewish life in Chipovich. Luminskaia remembers attending synagogue services with his grandmother. She also addresses holiday celebration and explains how she helped her mother baking matzos.
26:00
Luminskaia recalls her grandfather's stories and describes prewar Jewish life and synagogues.
13:30
Grinberg talks about Jewish life in prewar Talmaz.
12:24
Butorski addresses prewar Jewish life in Tighina. There were fifteen synagogues in town, according to him.
1:45
The Ryzhoys provide personal information and talk about the modern history of the town Tighina, including the period under Soviet occupation.
35:39
Elizaveta discusses her childhood memories and talks about prewar Jewish life in Chimishliye. She worked as a seamstress before and as crane-operator immediately after the war. Until her retirement, Elizaveta worked as a milliner. She returns to her life before the war.
40:08
Elizaveta discusses holiday celebration and prewar Jewish life. She recalls Sabbath preparations at home.
30:56
David talks about prewar Jewish life in Botoșani. He then speaks about his work as a basketball coach and his contemporary activities as the head of the community, as well as contemporary Jewish life.
12:27
David talks about prewar Jewish life, including synagogues and mikvas. He then addresses contemporary religious life.
28:24
David talks about prewar Jewish life in Botoșani. According to him, approximately 19,000 Jews lived there. He then addresses contemporary Jewish life.
12:03
Finkel speaks about prewar religious life in Suliţa. According to her, three hundred Jewish families lived there. She then addresses holiday celebration.
21:06
Finkel talks about prewar Jewish life, including occupational structure. She also remembers traditional weddings. Finkel moved to Botoșani in 1951.
36:30
Finkel talks about Jewish life before the war.
5:51
Brief discusses prewar Jewish life in Chernivtsi. He then talks about his family. His father was a barber.
10:10
Brief briefly talks about Jewish life after the war and continues providing information about his family.
48:58
Brief talks about prewar Jewish life in Chernivtsi.
8:45
Brief speaks about the poet Shvartskop. He then tells an episode about the king visiting Chernivtsi and his encounter with a Jewish tailor. He also recalls the thief Hershele Feldhamer from prewar Chernivtsi.
40:52
Cohn speaks about prewar Jewish life in Suliţa. According to him, 150 Jewish families resided in town. He also lists the different local synagogues. He then talks about Passover and Purim celebrations, including food customs. Cohn briefly touches upon Purim shpiels and charity.
15:48
Cohn addresses Jewish life in Botoșani after the war.
MDV 232Iosif David; Sami (Shmiel) Kurtsberg; Iosif Kunovich BurgȘofrîncani, Botoșani, Chernivtsi, Siret, 2006
6:02
The team meets Sami Kurtsberg (see MDV 304, 305, 306 in Siret collection) in front of the synagogue.They then go inside in order to set up the interview with him, while he talks about contemporary Jewish life in Siret.
15:29
Kofmansky gives a tour of the synagogue and explains the history of the synagogue.
28:35
Grunfeld talks about Purim celebrations and Jewish life before the war. He maintains that twenty Jewish families lived in Zău. Grunfeld then describes how he dresses up as a Romanian child during Purim.
55:07
Grunfeld speaks about life today. He then turns to prewar Jewish life in Zău and occupational structure.
58:48
Grunfeld talks about his life after the war. He got married in 1949. He then mentions prewar Jewish life in Cluj-Napoca, including synagogue structure. According to Grunfeld, 18,000 Jews lived in Cluj before the war and approximately 2,000 Jews after the war.
0:00
Grunfeld talks about Jewish life of the region during World War II. He also addresses his family's fate during the war period. His parents were imprisoned in the Turda ghetto. His aunts were sent Auschwitz.
3:47
Grunfeld speaks about prewar Jewish life and Yiddish dialects.
3:31
Hershkovich discusses his childhood memories and education. He attended a religious school (cheder) and a Romanian school for four years in the village. According to Hershkovich, twelve Jewish families lived in Bogota de Sus.
5:41
Hershkovich talks about his family and prewar Jewish life. His father was born in Volovets, Ukraine. Hershkovich explains that his father's parents left for Israel when he was eleven years old and moved to his brother, who was a professor in Pest. His father studied at a yeshiva and worked as a religious teacher (melamed).
14:44
Hershkovich talks about prewar Jewish life in Bogota. He explains how religious teachers frequently came from Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.
30:58
Hershkovich speaks about his studies in prewar Dej for seven or eight years. He also addresses Jewish life in Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej in the 1930s and contemporary Jewish life.
37:04
Hershkovich speaks about Jewish life in the immediate postwar period. He turns to prewar political organizations, including Mizrahi, Hashomer Hatzair. He then speaks about his life in Israel, where he lived between 1985 and 1989 and worked at a hospital. Hershkovich has relatives in America.
46:30
Hershkovich speaks about prewar Jewish life, specifically different religious groups, in Dej and Cluj.
14:58
Grunfeld speaks about prewar Jewish life and surrounding towns. He also mentions how he dressed up as peasant on Purim and recalls Purim shpiels.
28:32
Grunfeld speaks about his family and his life during the war as forced laborer. His sister moved to Israel and lived a Hasidic life. Grunfeld also has Hasidic relatives in England. Grunfeld then addresses contemporary Jewish life in surrounding towns and the Satmar Hasidic dynasty.
41:33
Grunfeld speaks about food customs, in particular gefilte fish. He then speaks about contemporary Jewish life in Cluj-Napoca and answers a dialectological question.
14:00
Kraus speaks about prewar Jewish life in Zorein and Cîmpia Turzii. He then addresses his childhood memories. He attended a religious school (cheder). Kraus completed an apprenticeship between the age of 14 and 18 in Cîmpia Turzii.
32:04
Kraus speaks about food customs for Purim, before he recites the morning prayer "moyde ani." Kraus discusses prewar Jewish life in the surrounding towns.
43:56
Kraus addresses prewar Yiddish culture in Bukarest. He then talks about prewar Jewish life in Cluj-Napoca, including synagogues. He also addresses prewar Hasidism.
12:27
Freundlich provides personal information and speaks about contemporary Jewish life in her hometown Satu Mare. She then talks about her family. Her mother was born in Hungary. Her maternal grandfather was a Beltser hasid, Freundlich explains.
27:41
Freundlich talks about prewar religious life in Satu Mare. She then talks about her education. Freundlich attended a Hungarian school for ten years. She also received religious education from the brother of the chief rabbi of Budapest (after the war).
43:26
Freundlich discusses her childhood memories in an observant home. She also addresses prewar Jewish life, including kosher butchers. She then explains how to kosher meat. She then recites the prayer "Got fun Avrum."
0:00
Freundlich speaks about her family and postwar Jewish life in Cluj-Napoca and surrounding communities. In particular, she addresses different religious authorities before and after the war.
14:32
Hershkovich talks about his family and discusses his childhood memories of Bogata. He also addresses prewar Jewish life in Dej.
33:03
Hershkovich speaks about prewar Jewish life in Dej, including synagogues. He also addresses praying customs and Purim plays.
43:02
Hershkovich talks about Jewish life after World War II, as well as contemporary Jewish life. Hershkovich then talks about his life today and after the war. Hershkovich moved to Cluj-Napoca in 1969. He worked as revenue officer. According to Hershkovich, there were three active synagogues in town and traditional weddings taking place in the immediate postwar period.
19:41
Freundlich talks about contemporary Jewish in surrounding towns. She also addresses cultural terminology.
34:54
Freundlich answers questions about cultural terminology and speaks about life today. She also addresses Yiddish-speaking communities in the region before the war.
7:36
Grunfeld speaks about prewar Jewish life in Luduș. He then answers questions about cultural terminology and speaking Yiddish at home.
16:13
Hershkovich talks about his family and Grunfeld speaks about prewar Jewish life.
29:43
The formal interview with Miller begins. He provides personal information and discusses prewar Jewish life, including community structure, of Cluj-Napoca. According to Miller, 16,000 Jews lived in town.
6:29
Miller talks about prewar life, in particular the influence of German residents. Miller maintains that the cemetery has existed for more than ninety years.
7:59
Grunfeld addresses prewar Jewish life in Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Cluj-Napoca and Oradea.
49:32
Kraus recites a wedding prayer. They then talk about prewar Jewish life and answer questions about cultural terminology.
0:00
Grunfeld talks about the building of the community and prewar Jewish life, including community structures.
53:01
Kraus discusses his childhood memories, specifically traveling with his father. Kraus and Grunfeld then talk about Jewish life of the region during World War II. Their familys were deported to Auschwitz. They state that the region was divided between deportation and forced labor.
21:32
Meir talks about prewar Jewish life in Dorohoi. According to him, 8,000 Jews lived in town. He then talks about his life during World War II, in particular his train journeys toward Sharhorod, via Chernivtsi and Mohyliv-Podilskyy. He then addresses his family's life in the Sharhorod ghetto. After his parents died, Meir, his three siblings and aunt were sent to the village Kapostarnye 23:16, twenty kilometers from Sharhorod. He explains how Ukrainians welcomed them into their houses until they were taken to forced labor in the summer. Meir then talks about his work as forced laborer in Tulchyn. Meir states that he worked with 2,000 fellow Jews in construction. Meir returned to Dorohoi in December 1943.
39:09
Meir addresses prewar religious life in Dorohoi, including synagogues. He then talks about his family. He got married in 1951 and raised two son, who live in Israel and Iaşi. Meir maintains that his sons were circumcised by a local mohel. Meir then addresses postwar Jewish life in Dorohoi.
42:24
Meir talks about his work and boss Horovitz before the war. He then addresses prewar Jewish life, as well as contemporary Jewish life.
41:41
Isidor shares a prewar religious anecdote. He then addresses prewar Jewish life and contemporary Jewish life in Dorohoi.
36:23
The team chats with Isidor outside and then walk with him, while he talks about prewar Jewish life in Dorohoi. Isidor also addresses the Dorohoi pogrom in 1940.
40:20
The interview with Isidor continues in his home. He addresses Jewish life in the immediate postwar period. He then talks about the plans regarding a museum about the history of Moldovan Jews.
31:32
Gimberg explains her role as firzogerin. She then talks about prewar Jewish life in Dorohoi.
37:34
Lipovici talks about prewar Jewish life and his family.
56:02
Lipovici addresses prewar Jewish life in Dorohoi, including the Ştefăneşti rebbe. He then talks about his life today.
12:33
Lipovici talks about his work as shepherd and life during the postwar Soviet period. He also addresses Jewish life in the region during the war.
0:00
Isidor talks about the contemporary Jewish community of Dorohoi and his activities as the head of the community. Isidor states that he only spoke to his mother in Yiddish.
1:07
The formal part of the interview begins. Hirsch provides personal information and talks about prewar Jewish life in Luduș. According to him, 600 Jews lived there.
9:52
Hirsch addresses Jewish life in the region during World War II. He was forced into the Turda ghetto, before taken to forced labor.
16:43
Hirsch talks about prewar Jewish life in Luduș. He then addresses antisemitism. He grew up speaking Yiddish and Hungarian.
44:54
Hirsch speaks about his cheder education and prewar Jewish life in Luduș. He also addresses the population structure of the town with a majority of non-Jews. He also addresses his family.
53:53
Hirsch speaks about contemporary Jewish life in the region, as well as prewar Jewish life in Dej.
0:00
Hirsch speaks about contemporary Jewish life in Dej.
37:05
Hirsch addresses contemporary Jewish life. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Luduș, including occupational structure and wealthy people.
15:49
Hirsch answers questions about cultural terminology and addresses prewar Jewish life Luduș, including wealthy people.
2:31
Abramovich briefly talks about his life during World War II. He was confined to a ghetto in the Transnistria region. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Hîrlău, as well as his family. Abramovich's father and mother were both born in Hîrlău.
24:02
The team and Grinberg enter the synagogue, while she speaks about local Jewish history during World War II. Grinberg then talks about the history of the synagogue, including rabbis.
31:09
Grinberg shares information about her amibitions to establish a museum about the history of Bukovinian Jews in Rădăuţi. Grinberg then speaks about her family.
7:44
Finkelshteyn discusses prewar Jewish life and Sabbath celebration, including food customs. He then explains how his mother koshered meat and then returns to Sabbath celebrations. Particularly, Finkelshteyn addresses gefilte fish.
0:00
Finkelshteyn speaks about prewar Purim celebrations, as well as prewar Jewish life and transportation.
26:38
Finkelshteyn speaks about prewar Jewish life in his neighborhood in Iași. He also addresses childhood games and mentions that he built sleighs for the entire neighborhood. Finkelshteyn then explains how he built skates from a window frame.
0:00
The team drives through Iaşi with Finkelshteyn and he explains the former Jewish neighborhood.
6:41
The team and Finkelshteyn stop at a Jewish memorial. He also speaks about prewar Jewish buildings, particularly the theater.
9:37
The team and Finkelshteyn visit the Abraham Goldfaden memorial. Finkelshteyn speaks about prewar Jewish life.
13:39
Finkelshteyn tells a joke about a pregnant woman, who consulted the rebbe. He then speaks about locals and business in prewar Iaşi.
19:23
The team and Finkelshteyn stop at another memorial, which is located at the site of the former Jewish hospital, commemorating the murder of local Jews during the Iaşi pogrom. He then speaks about the former hospital, as well as orphanage, and answers questions about cultural terminology. Finkelshteyn explains that he completed jobs at the hospital during his carpenter apprenticeship.
0:00
The team chats with community members. Beno (Berl) Hoyshe, born in Cerviceşti 00:05, talks about prewar Jewish life, including holiay celebration, in his hometown. According to him, seventeen Jewish families lived there. The interviewee attended a Romanian primary and secondary schools and received religious education through a private tutor.
22:05
Karuel speaks about prewar Jewish life in Iași, including schools and organizations. He then talks about holiday celebration, including Passover, Shavuot and Sabbath, as well as food customs at home. Karuel also remembers how his mother koshered meat.
38:14
Karuel speaks about theater performances in the Iaşi ghetto. He also addresses local Jewish life during World War II.
28:58
Ruti speaks about postwar Jewish life in Siret. She recalls how Jews buried people and tells episodes from ghetto life, including how she encountered a German doctor. Iakob then complements this story.
49:43
Iakob speaks about Passover celebrations. He then speaks about postwar Jewish life in Botoșani. Iakob and Pnina joined the youth Zionist organizations Bnei Akiva and Gordonya. Iakob also lists Havat HaNoar HaTzioni and Hashomer Hatzair. Pnina then describes meetings.
19:38
Rozenblat provides background history on the Meransky Synagogue.
21:12
The team and Rozenblat enter the building of the former Meransky Synagogue of Iaşi and Rozenblat gives a tour.
20:43
Resh talks about his life during World War II. He was confined to the Mohyliv-Podilskyy (Yiddish: Mohlev Podolsk) ghetto. He then speaks about his life and work after the war, before addressing postwar Jewish life in Iaşi. In particular, Resh describes his oldest sister's difficult journey to Palestine in 1948.
27:54
Resh speaks about Jewish life in Chernivtsi during the war. He was confined to the Chernivtsi ghetto, before his deportation to Transnistria. Resh then speaks about the local sports organization Maccabi, where his father was actively involved as referee and general secretary of the club. Resh also lists the soccer clubs of other ethnic minorities.
33:57
Resh speaks about Jewish life before the war and recalls Polish refugees to Chernivtsi in 1939. He then addresses different regional Yiddish dialects and his family.
24:26
Resh speaks about contemporary Jewish, as well as religious life in Iaşi. He also mentions the local cemetery.
4:38
Shtaigman speaks about contemporary Jewish and religious life in Iaşi. He also speaks about his family, including his parents-in-law.
15:30
Shtaigman talks about his family's arrival in Rădăuţi in 1944. Shtaigman lived in Rădăuţi from 1944 to 1952. He mentions that his mother planned to make aliyah with him, but ended up remarrying instead. Shtaigman then talks about postwar Jewish life in Rădăuţi. Shtaigman moved to Iaşi in 1966.
22:38
Shtaigman talks about postwar religious life in Rădăuţi, specifically active synagogues. He also speaks about his family, as well as a contemporary film project about the Jews of Rădăuţi.
5:20
Shvartz speaks about his family and then his life before the war. He raised one daughter. Shvartz attended a Romanian school and then a Romanian Jewish school for four years until 1941. He recalls his Yiddish and Hebrew classes. Shvartz then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Bîrlad.
10:07
Shvartz addresses his school education, as well as prewar Jewish life in Bîrlad, including synagogue structure. He then speaks about holiday celebration at home before and after the war. Shvartz also addresses food customs on Sabbath and recalls the kosher butcher.
22:23
Shvartz speaks about prewar religious life in Bîrlad, including important local figures and institutions. He briefly addresses contemporary Jewish life in Bîrlad and answers questions about cultural terminology. Shvartz recalls how Jews and non-Jews would attend the local Jewish bathhouse.
8:29
Kaizerman speaks about prewar Jewish and religious life, as well as poverty in Iaşi. Kaizerman recalls unemployment on the street he lived on. According to Kaizerman, more than half of the population was Jewish. He also remembers local rebbes.
26:48
Kaizerman speaks about prewar Jewish life, including occupational structure and Zionist organizations. He lists Hashomer Hatzair, Dror and Gordonia. Kaizerman also recalls activities of the Maccabi sport club and talks about local cultural life.
34:15
Kaizerman talks about prewar Jewish life and foodways. He then speaks about healing and religious customs.
20:03
Chirilau speaks about Jewish life before the war, particularly theater performances and synagogues. Chirilau remembers when the wooden synagogue burned down.
36:57
Chirilau speaks about prewar Jewish life. She tells an espisode about a poor from her hometown man who gets married. According to her, wealthy and poor Jews were equally represented. She then speaks about other locals.
46:32
Chirilau speaks about prewar religious life, in particular religious authorities. She then addresses geography and prewar buildings in Mihăileni.
58:21
Chirilau speaks about her work after the war. She is a tailor and worked the fields. She then provides personal information and addresses prewar Jewish life.
11:10
Chirilau answers questions about cultural terminology. She then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Mihăileni, including Sabbath celebrations.
16:18
Chirilau answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire. She also addresses prewar kosher butchers and matchmakers, as well as geography.
17:37
Chirilau speaks about her life before the war. She attended a Romanian school. Chirilau also addresses prewar Jewish life and explains how to kosher meat. She also recalls the peaceful relations between the ethnic minorities.
3:40
The formal part of the interview begins. Leichtner provides personal information and speaks about prewar Jewish life. According to him, twenty-five Jewish families lived in Ocna Şugatag. Leichtner was a soldier doing forced labor during World War II.
8:34
Leichtner speaks about his family's life during the war. His father and two brothers returned from Auschwitz. Both of Leichtner's brothers emigrated; one moved to Israel and the other to America. He then speaks about Jewish life before the war, including occupational structure, as well as about his family.
11:53
Leichtner speaks about his life and work after the war. He worked in an agricultural cooperative and provided building material. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life.
16:20
Leichtner addresses prewar Jewish life in Ocna Şugatag, including occupational structure. He then speaks about his family.
40:25
Leichtner speaks about Sukkot celebrations and prewar populational structure in Ocna Şugatag.
57:46
Leichtner speaks about prewar Jewish life, as well as his life as an adolescent. Leichtner married a Christian for the first time in 1952.
1:55
Leichtner speaks about Jewish life after the war. He states that his father and two brothers were the only family members who returned from World War II.
10:30
Leichtner speaks about prewar Jewish life and answers questions about cultural terminology.
19:18
Shwartz talks about prewar Jewish life, in particular prayer houses and occupational structure, in Valumihei. According to Shwartz, approximately two thousand Jews lived there. He then talks about the Kaliver rebbe.
8:19
The camera records footage of the Oradea synagogue. The team then meets Gershun Shwartz and sets up an interview with him. He has lived in Oradea (Yiddish: Groysvardeyn) for forty years. The team then chats with community members about prewar Jewish life in Oradea.
15:47
The formal interview with Freundlich, who is the cousin of Elizabeta Freundlich's late husband, begins. He speaks about Oradea and then provides personal information, before talking about his family. His father was a wood merchant. He grew up with three brothers and three sisters. Freundlich also addresses his family's fate during World War II. His mother was born Baia Sprie and his father near Jibou.
29:48
Freundlich talks about his work as merchant and then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Baia Mare. According to him, eight hundred Jews lived there. Freundlich also recalls enmity between Hasidim and Ashkenazim. He then talks about his father and different Yiddish dialects.
51:16
Freundlich speaks about prewar Jewish life in the Maramureş region, where poorest Jewish families lived according to Freundlich. He then continues to answer dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire.
0:00
Freundlich speaks about contemporary Jewish life, as well as history of the region.
26:04
Freund speaks about his religious education and prewar Jewish life in Baia Mare. He then addresses holiday celebration before and after the war. Freund also talks about postwar circumcision until the 1960s.
31:16
Freund speaks about prewar Jewish life and institutions in Baia Mare.
0:00
Freundlich speaks about contemporary Jewish life, as well as history of the region.
26:04
Freund speaks about his religious education and prewar Jewish life in Baia Mare. He then addresses holiday celebration before and after the war. Freund also talks about postwar circumcision until the 1960s.
31:16
Freund speaks about prewar Jewish life and institutions in Baia Mare.
0:00
Macarie provides personal information and talks about prewar Jewish life in Cardo. According to Macarie the majority of the population was Jewish.
25:19
He also addresses his childhood memories and prewar Jewish life in his hometown. According to Shvartz, approximately 2,000 Jews lived there.
37:06
Shwartz speaks about prewar Jewish life, in particular different denominations and prayer houses. He also explains how he became a yeshiva student, after his father passed away in 1926.
15:28
Mezei explains her school grade photo of 1939. She then speaks about her school education at a Romanian school and prewar Jewish life in Sighetu Marmaţiei. Mezei also addresses her activities as adolescent, including dancing and attending meetings Hashomer Hatzair, Hanoar Hatzioni and Trumpeldor. Mezei then speaks about her husband's family. Her husband held a doctorate in law and worked as lawyer.
25:31
Mezei speaks about prewar Jewish life in Sighetu Marmaţiei and addresses holiday celebration, including Sabbath. According to Mezei, fifty percent of the population was Jewish. She then addresses Sabbath food customs and recalls how strictly her grandmother observed kashrut. She then talks about her husband's life during the war. He was a laborer serving in the Second Hungarian Army and Mezei explains how he was not identified as a Jew and worked at a stone factory.
0:00
Freundlich speaks about social geography and languages of the region in the prewar period. In particular, he recalls poor visitors (mainly peasants) from the Maramureş region to Baia Mare on Sabbath.
8:49
Freundlich talks about contemporary Jewish life in Oradea. He also addresses food customs, particularly pickles.
0:00
Grinberg speaks about contemporary Jewish life in Rădăuţi. She also speaks about her activities as the head of the community.
4:29
Grinberg speaks about Jewish life in Fălticeni during and after the war. She states that Fălticeni Jews were not deported to Transnistria. Grinberg then addresses Jewish life in Rădăuţi after the war.
25:34
The camera then records footage of the Rădăuţi synagogue. Grinberg speaks about contemporary Jewish life and events. She also mentions her academic activities.
9:15
Grinberg discusses her childhood memories and addresses prewar Jewish life in Fălticeni. She then addresses her education. She attended a Romanian Jewish school and was taught by a private tutor. She also speaks about her life today.
3:27
Grinberg addresses prewar Jewish life, including the activities of the younger generation, and healing customs.
12:52
Cojocaru briefly touches upon life today and then her life during the war. She also addresses postwar Jewish life Dorohoi.
24:05
Cojocaru answers questions about cultural terminology and speaks about prewar Jewish life. She also addresses contemporary antisemitism.
43:33
Cojocaru talks about prewar Jewish life, including celebration. Cojocaru then mentions food customs and speaks about the towns she visited.
4:31
Marcus speaks about Jewish life in Săveni after the war, including his childhood memories. He attended a Romanian school. Marcus states that five synagogues were active after the war. He also addresses postwar religious and cultural life. Marcus also describes his religious education.
25:12
He speaks about Jewish life after the war, including non-Jews who spoke Yiddish.
29:11
Marcus speaks about his family and addresses his return to Saveni from Israel. He then speaks about Jewish life after the war and recalls Jews who converted.
35:34
Marcus speaks about the occupational structure in Săveni, including prewar synagogues. Marcus also addresses postware religious life and food customs and recalls Jewish drunks and someone who collaborated with the Germans during the war.
14:51
The team travels with Marcus to the next interview with Golda Salamon. He discusses prewar Jewish life in Sighetu Marmației (Yiddish: Siget). They pass Elie Wiesel's birth house. Marcus also addresses the destruction of local synagogues during World War II.
46:48
Salamon speaks about her family, specifically her uncle who was a wedding jester. She also addresses prewar Jewish life, including Purim celebrations. Salamon remembers the custom Mishlo'ah Manot (shelakhmones).
1:01:04
Salamon speaks about Jewish life in Sighetu Marmației after her return in 1946.
21:50
Salamon speaks about her family. She then talks about prewar Jewish life, as well as her education. Salamon also speaks about contemporary hasidic visitors. Salamon mentions that her grandmothers were sisters.
44:00
Kurtsberg speaks about local Jewish life today. He also recalls how his grandfather criticized Polish Yiddish. Kurtsberg then shares an anecdote about a rebbe and his wife Sure, before telling another anecdote about a worried mother, whose son is about to be drafted. Kurtsberg remembers the stories from his grandfather.
17:58
Kurtsberg speaks about Jewish life before the war, including non-Jews who spoke Yiddish and the Zionist organizations Yichud and Comitetul Democratic Evreiesc (Jewish Democratic Committee). Kurtsberg also addresses prewar cultural life.
5:00
Kurtsberg shares more episodes about "meshige Shots" (crazy Suceava). He also addresses contemporary Jewish life in Suceava and speaks about Shoyl Petraru (Suceava MDV 307).
16:33
Kurtsberg speaks about prewar Jewish life in Siret, in particular episodes about the daily business routine. According to him, thirty-eight percent of the population was Jewish. Kurtsberg also touches upon prewar Jewish life in Mihăileni and shares episodes about locals' business life.
10:06
Petraru speaks about the history of the Suceava synagogues. He recalls how the synagogues were closed in 1957. Petraru then speaks about Jewish life in Suceava.
12:30
Petraru provides personal information and speaks about his family. He moved to Suceava from Dorohoi in 1953. His mother died during the war in a Transnistrian ghetto and his father made aliyah after the war. They were both born in Dorohoi. Petraru then addresses Jewish life in Dorohoi and contemporary Jewish life in Suceava.
33:48
Mehler touches upon about her life in Iaşi. She also speaks about Jews in the region.
52:13
Mehler speaks about postwar Jewish life in Vatra Dornei.
55:12
The camera briefly collects synagogue footage and then Mehler speaks about contemporary Jewish life.
4:24
Mehler speaks about her family. Her mother was born in Iaşi. She grew up as an only child and raised one daughter. Mehler then speaks about Jewish life in the region.
8:03
Mehler speaks about Jewish life after the war in Vatra Dornei, where she moved in 1955. She also addresses the fate of the Jews in the region during and Jewish life after the war.
22:45
Mehler speaks about contemporary Jewish life in the region.
36:37
Bercovici discusses her childhood memories and prewar Jewish life in Vatra Dornei. According to Bercovici, four thousand Jews lived in Vatra Dornei. She attended a Romanian school. After the war, Bercovici was a physics and chemistry teacher at a high school.
44:27
Bercovici talks about prewar Jewish life in Vatra Dornei. She recalls visits of the Vizhnitzer rebbe to the local spa during summers.
2:02
Galambos talks about the Vaja synagogue. He then talks about his life after World War II, before addressing prewar Jewish life in Vaja. Galambos returned with a sister and two brothers. Galambos recalls book peddlers.
3:53
The interview continues inside and Steiner reads from the community book of Michalovce.
41:02
Weinberger shows a book about the Stropkov Jewish community. He remembers several of the photographed people, including the local tailor. Weinberger maintains that he was a forced laborer near Sered' during his military service.
5:25
Weinberger discusses his childhood memories and prewar Jewish life in Stropkov. He then speaks about his life during the war. Weinberger states that he used "Christian" documents and worked as coachman in Stropkov, before he was taken to the Sered' ghetto in 1942. Weinberger then explains how he fled to Pest, Hungary, via Snina and Stakcín during the winter. He maintains that because deportations to forced labor camps stopped in 1942, he decided to escape to Hungary in 1943/44 to avoid death. In Stakcín, he continues, Weinberger stayed at a cemetery overnight, before he stayed in his driver's coop. Weinberger describes the rest of the journey on a sleigh to Ubla and then on foot to Bereznyi, Ukraine, before taking a car to Uzhhorod, Ukraine. In Uzhhorod, Weinberger explains, he stayed at a full-functioning yeshiva, before taking the train to Pest, Hungary. He then describes the train journey and his encounter with a generous man, as well as the arrival in Pest.
32:18
Weinberger talks about Jewish life in the region during the war, as well as how Jewish history was treated after the war.
12:43
Weinberger speaks about prewar Jewish life in Stropkov, including occupational structure. He recalls great poverty.
23:52
Weinberger speaks about prewar Jewish life in Stropkov and Košice. He then addresses food customs and answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire.
1:10
The formal interview begins. Chaimović talks about his hometown Hanušovce nad Topl'ou and antisemitic attacks in 1938. According to him, fifty Jewish families lived there before the war.
20:31
Chaimović addresses holiday celebrations and food customs. He then speaks about his cheder education, including his teachers (melamdim). When Chaimović was ten years old, he moved to Prešov and attended cheder there. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Prešov, including synagogues.
27:43
Chaimović talks about his education. After he finished his school education in Prešov after three years, he attended a yeshiva in Hanušovce . He then addresses prewar religious life in Prešov. According to Chaimović, approximately 6,000 Jews lived there.
31:19
Chaimović speaks about contemporary Jewish life in Košice, before addressing prewar Jewish life in Prešov. Chaimović did not have any relatives Prešov and ate food with different families.
5:12
Steiner speaks about his hometown Zlaté Moravce and then his life in Israel. His father was also born in Zlaté Moravce. According to Steiner, fifty Jewish families lived there. He made aliyah in 1949. Steiner studied Yiddish and went to two yeshivot in Israel. Steiner has been the rabbi of the Košice community for five years.
10:02
Steiner speaks about contemporary communities in Košice and the region, as well as religious life. He also addresses his teachings and regional geography.
44:05
Steiner reads from a book about the Košice community and talks about the local synagogues, as well as shows pictures.
10:53
Chaimović addresses life and people in Prešov before the war. He also recalls Jews who converted to Christianity and Christians who converted to Judaism.
15:10
Chaimović speaks about his life during the war. After he was caught in 1944, Chaimović explains, he was sent to the Sered' ghetto, where he witnessed the shooting of the Prešov Rabbi, Katz. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Košice.
17:14
Klimenko discusses her childhood memories and talks about her family. Her father worked at the sewing factory in Balta. Klimenko, who did not go through formal schooling, worked as a cleaner for twenty-eight years. She then talks about prewar Jewish life, when she attended the synagogue with her parents regularly. Klimenko raised a son, who lives in the Odesa region.
42:06
Klimenko recalls Jewish life before the war, in particular Purim celebrations.
47:28
Milchenko talks about Jewish life after the war. She remembers how people danced on the street in the evenings in the 1950s/60s. Milchenko then talks about her life and the beatings in the Balta ghetto. Her mother was sent to forced labor. Her brother Fime frequently snuck out of the ghetto to beg for food in the town center. She then talks about her family.
3:47
Milchenko talks about postwar Jewish life, and about the closing of the synagogue after the war. According to her, the kosher butcher worked until the 1980s in Balta. He slaughtered chickens and would also circumcise children in the early years after the war. Milchenko then talks about life today and her family. She explains that she was afraid to arrange a circumcision for her son, who was born in 1957. Milchenko has family in Israel.
6:16
Lokteva discusses Yiddish songs and talks about postwar Jewish life in Balta. She then recalls a Yiddish song that her uncle taught her and talks about her family.
19:44
Lokteva talks about holiday celebrations and her family. Her mother cooked and sold borshtch. She then talks about Purim celebrations and remembers a Yiddish song about Purim. She also recalls her mother baking matzah in the oven at home. She then discusses postwar Jewish life, when people gathered in private homes for services. Lokteva remembers her own wedding and talks about their family, in particular their mother’s family. Their cousins live in America and Israel.
7:45
Pivnik discusses prewar Jewish life in Balta. She addresses the negative relationship to her neighbors before the war and the positive ones today. Pivnik remembers the beautiful voice of the cantor Slivke and his family. Slivke would put on concerts after the service in the synagogue. Pivnik addresses prewar Jewish occupations.
14:11
Pivnik talks about prewar holiday celebrations at home, in particular Purim. She recalls how people would go to a neighbor’s house to get hamantashn (cookies for Purim). Pivnik talks about prewar Jewish life under the Soviets, as well as food customs. She remembers her tailor friend, Khoskl.
17:09
Khotenko discusses Jewish life before the war and her education. She attended a Yiddish school for five years. Khotenko discusses Yiddish songs.
23:04
Khotenko talks about prewar holiday celebrations and Jewish life before the war. Khotenko moved to Balta in 1932. She also recalls food customs at home.
8:22
Khotenko talks about prewar Jewish life. She then talks about contemporary Jewish life and her different last names; before she talks about her family. She remembers her mother writing in Yiddish.
59:44
Epelman talks about postwar Jewish life. Epelman recalls a kosher butcher working until 1967.
26:29
Borukaeva talks about prewar Jewish life in Balta. She then discusses holiday customs and talks about her family. His father was born in Kharkiv.
22:48
Miaskovskaia talks about contemporary Jewish life in Balta, before speaking about her life after the war. In particular, she recalls her mother-in-law's baking and addresses postwar religious life.
27:47
Miaskovskaia addresses prewar Jewish life and talks about the Balta ghetto. She then briefly discusses her childhood memories, including games, before reciting a Russian poem.
49:51
Angelova talks about prewar Jewish life in Topole. According to her, approximately fifteen families lived there. She then addresses the period of collectivization in the 1930s when the state expropriated her parents. Angelova then speaks about her family. Her father worked at a manufactory and Angelova on a kolkhoz during this period. Angelova grew up with four siblings. They moved to Kotovsk in 1939, where her parents worked in shops.
18:45
ife before the war. Kazakevich does not remember much of her life before the war. Her father used to attend the only synagogue in Lityn. There were a lot of Jews in Lityn, all of whom she says were killed. Kazakevich has only vague memories of Jewish practice, her father’s praying, and other accoutrement of Jewish religious life. There was a Rabbi in Lityn.
3:02
Berman talks about his involvement in Jewish cultural life in the late 1980s. Before the war, the town had a Jewish population of 30.000, of which 8000 returned. Berman set up the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Society in 1989 and supports local educational efforts. Moreover, he was one of the initiators of the Yiddish cultural society in Kyiv that was set up in 1988.
24:45
The conversation moves to Berman's childhood memories. He did not grow up speaking Yiddish, but learned the language reading Yiddish journalism and sports magazines. He studied at a Hebrew-language school, organized by the Tarbut movement, before he switched to a Polish school. In ninth and tenth grade, Berman studied at a Russian school. He then talks about the ceremony he attended commemorating the fifty year anniversary of the Warsaw uprising, where he gave a speech in Polish. The conversation returns to his childhood years and prewar Jewish life in Rivne. He mentions different Jewish institutions, which produced a lively Jewish community in Rivne. The institutions include Jewish parties, a Yiddish and a Hebrew school, and three Jewish sport clubs. Berman traveled to Kyiv to see his relatives in 1939, one week before the war broke out.
35:22
He discusses the history of Yiddish cultural life in Bila Tserkva, with reference to the Bund and Poale Zion.
37:01
Berman talks about prewar religious life in Bila Tserkva, which had at the time eighteen synagogues. Berman talks about the Rebbe of Skvyra. He then discusses the meaning of “shvartstime,” the Yiddish nickname for Bila Tserkva.
47:19
Berman provides information about Jewish buildings and streets, such as the former Great Synagogue in Bila Tserkva, which the team will visit with Berman’s son. He then provides information about religious life today in the Lubavitcher community. According to Berman, there were two Jewish streets and one street was called Peretz Street until World War II.
9:40
Isaak addresses his childhood memories of Jewish Berdychiv. He also speaks about his mother's observance. Isaak attended a Yiddish school for four years until 1938. He explains how he continued to study in the same building, which was turned into a Russian school.
15:12
Bella and Isaac briefly speak about their lives during the war. Bella then talks about her family, including her father's religious education. She grew up with two sisters. She then turns to her childhood memories of her father's fiddl playing and holiday celebrations at home. They then discuss Jewish life in Berdychiv during the war and mention Vasily Grossman.
18:16
Isaac talks about prewar Jewish life in Berdychiv and states that Party members were not allowed to attend synagogue. According to Bella, her father refused to join the Party. Bella then talks about holiday celebrations at home before the war, including food customs. In particular, she recalls Passover and Sabbath, as well as the local kosher butcher. Bella remembers her father's story telling about Jewish history, before she describes her family's oven where they cooked latkes (potato pancake).
34:39
Bella and Isaak speak about prewar Jewish life in Berdychiv, as well as mention Yiddish newspapers and writers. They recall Yiddish spoken on the street. According to Isaak, 60,000 Jews lived in Berdychiv out of a total population of 80,000. Bella then speaks about family letters, written in Yiddish.
0:00
Bella and Isaak chat informally, before they speak about locals in prewar Berdychiv and their fate during World War II.
21:35
Jewish cultural life in Cracow before the war
28:25
Skobilitskii speaks about his family's fate and local Jewish fate during World War II. He also addresses local memorialization.
28:13
Skobilitskii speaks about his education before the war. He also addresses prewar Jewish life in Berdychiv, before talking about his career in the Red Army during World War II. His division went all the way to Berlin.
32:08
The formal interview with Skobilitskii begins. Skobilitskii mentions a book about Jews of Berdychiv, which includes an article about him. He then mentions Yiddish writers.
34:33
Skobilitskii discusses prewar Jewish life in Berdychiv, as well as answers questions about cultural terminology and linguistic questions.
MDV 344Efim Grigoryevich Skobilitskii; Raisa Iosifovna Chukh; David Zelikovich FurmanBerdychiv, 2002
16:57
Skobilitskii addresses prewar cultural life, including theater performances, in Berdychiv. He then speaks about cultural life after the war. Skobilitskii explains how the community collected money to hire an opera singer from Kyiv to perform after synagogue services.
23:44
The team enters the synagogue with Skobilitskii. He describes prewar religious life in Berdychiv, as well as his career in the Red Army during World War II. Skobilitskii then gives a tour of the synagogue and provides historical background of the more than hundred-year old building.
55:30
Skobilitskii addresses prewar Jewish life, including occupations and alcohol consumption. He then recalls prewar Purim celebrations and cultural life. Skobilitskii also describes a Yiddish singer from Kyiv in postwar Berdychiv. He then returns to prewar Jewish life and recalls Polish Jewish migrants.
23:31
Jewish religious life in Berdychiv today
26:52
Berdychiv and Zhitomir before the war
7:20
Jewish life in Berdychiv before the war
20:08
Jewish life in Berdychiv today
10:36
Vainshelboim speaks about prewar Jewish life, including the synagogue structure and occupations. He explains how his father was a prisoner of war during World War I. Vainshelboim then talks about his family.
51:58
Vainshelboim speaks about prewar Jewish life and remembers locals in Berdychiv. He then addresses prewar religious life and speaks about his own observance.
1:00:04
Vainshelboim returns to talking about his life in the 1930s in Berdychiv, before addressing prewar cultural life. He remembers a Yiddish theater, before talking about historical studies on Jewish life in Berdychiv. Vainshelboim then briefly recalls his mother's traditional cooking.
8:06
Vanshelboim discusses his childhood education, before talking about prewar Jewish Berdychiv. He also speaks about Sholem Aleichem's works.
10:26
Vanshelboim speaks about his family. He has relatives in America. He then talks about prewar Jewish life on a nearby kolkhoz.
33:25
Jewish Berdychiv from the past and family
45:08
Vanshelboim addresses prewar Jewish life Berdychiv, particularly occupational synagogues. He then remembers the local kosher slaughter after the war. According to Vanshelboim, 60,000 Jews lived in prewar Berdychiv out of a total population of 80,000. He then speaks about prewar synagogues, before he addresses contemporary Jewish life and charity.
MDV 359Rita Davidovna Shveibish; Aleksandr (Sasha) Shayevich Kolodenker; Mikhail Aronovich Vainshelboim and 1 moreBerdychiv, Pechera, 2009
1:01:11
Jewish cultural life in Berdychiv
20:42
Town footage with Vainshelboim who shows Berdychiv and talks about his personal experience during the war
19:56
Prewar life in Selish and family. He discusses prewar Jewish Vynohradiv: there were five synagogues in Selish. His father worked in a mill, carrying sacks of flour; he also worked as a porter, carrying luggage for travelers at the railway station. His father was born in Ilnytsya and his mother was born in Pryslip.
41:17
Prewar and postwar Jewish Berehove. Between two and three thousand Jews returned after the war, but the majority of those who returned then left for Israel and America. There was still an active Jewish community in Berehove after the war, including a kosher butcher, and a number a Jewish businesses.
57:28
Prewar Jewish life and life today. Hodinger briefly addresses prewar Jewish life and speaking Yiddish in Berehove. He then talks about his life today: he has a vineyard, and makes his own wine.
9:45
Kozak speaks about prewar religious life in Bershad. She describes the local rabbi's family.
10:25
Bershadskaya joins the conversation and provides personal information. They chat about regional geography, as well as prewar religious life.
18:01
Bershadskaya addresses prewar Jewish life in Bershad and also talks about her family. She raised a son. She then speaks about her education and work. Bershadskaya attended a Russian secondary school and worked as teacher at a Ukrainian school. She also speaks about her life before the war.
30:06
The team briefly interviews an unidentified passer-by from Bratslav. He talks about contemporary religious life in Bratslav. They then talk about the contemporary community.
34:57
Bershadskaya provides personal information and talks about the location of her home village Chernyatka. Her family moved to Bershad when she was thirteen years old. Bershadskaya talks about her family. Her father was also born in Chernyatka and was a barber. According to Bershadskaya, between fifteen and twenty Jewish families lived in Chernyatka. Bershadskaya's mother was born in Bershad.
14:43
Bershadskaya speaks about prewar Jewish life in her home village. The team then concludes the formal part of the interview with Bershadskaya and the camera records footage of her apartment.
16:25
Vygodner and the team drive through Bershad, while he points out the former Jewish neighborhood.
13:33
They talk about the contemporary community in the region, before the team returns with Vygodner to the van and drives to the Bershad synagogue. The camera collects footage of the former Jewish neighborhood.
25:20
An unidentified community member talks about prewar Jewish life in Tomashpil. He was born 1945 in Tomashpil. They also discuss Yiddish sayings. The camera then continues to collect synagogue footage and they discuss contemporary religious life.
33:10
Vygodner talks about the history of the synagogue, particularly its restoration and use after the war. It was the tailor's synagogue. He also recalls his grandfather's attending of services.
36:02
The camera collects synagogue footage, while Vygodner gives a tour. They then move the conversation outside. Kozak and Vygodner speak about prewar Jewish life.
39:39
Gvinter speaks about his family, as well as prewar Jewish life in Bershad. He recalls how his mother baked bread in a local synagogue. Gvinter then talks about contemporary commemoration and religious life. He also addresses prayer customs today.
3:21
Feldman speaks contemporary Jewish life in Bershad. She also addresses contemporary relations between Jews and non-Jews.
8:34
They discuss local geography. Then the formal interview begins. Feldman provides personal information and talks about her family. Feldman's father died during World War II. She also addresses her mother's work after the war. Feldman's father worked with ropes.
30:34
Feldman addresses contemporary religious life, before talking about prewar Jewish life, including occupational structure, in Bershad.
39:50
Feldman talks about holiday celebration, particularly Passover. She then returns to traditional weddings, before addressing prewar Jewish life. Feldman recalls the local kosher butcher. She also speaks about her family.
1:01:05
Feldman talks about prewar Jewish life in Bershad. She recalls the local water carrier.
44:30
Listengurt speaks prewar Jewish buildings, as well as Jewish life in Odesa during World War II. She mentions, in particular, an event of forced gathering and execution of the local community. Listengurt also speaks about a specific family who escaped.
5:45
Sklyarskiy talks about his hometown Zhornyshche, including prewar Jewish life. He states that the synagogue was turned into a kolkhoz during Soviet times. He then speaks about Christian locals who collaborated with the German during the war.
59:42
Sklyarskiy addresses Jewish life in Zhornyshche during World War II.
23:38
Sklyarskiy addresses postwar Jewish life in Bershad. He recalls synagogue services. Sklyarskiy then mentions his traditional wedding in Bershad in 1951. He then returns to his family.
30:20
Sklyarskiy describes the local geography and life today. He then talks about his family and shows letters.
40:49
The team finishes the official part of the interview with Sklyarskiy and he speaks about contemporary, including Jewish, life. Sklyarskiy also speaks about life during the postwar Soviet period, as well as local geography.
0:00
The first part of the recording is a continuation of a formal interview with Alfred Benovich Schreier, in Yiddish recorded in Drogobych. (Part 3 of 3. See Accession # 09-010.14-F MDV 432 and MDV 433). Schreier presents recordings of him. He then addresses postwar Jewish life in Drogobych. Schreier, Alfred Benovich. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Drohobych.
26:00
Loyf speaks about her family. She then addresses prewar Jewish life and childhood memories of Dzegovka. She recalls the frequent synagogue attendance of her mother. Loyf, Polina Enikovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
29:02
Loyf talks about holiday celebration and food customs at home. She then speaks about Jewish life after the war. Loyf moved to Boryslav in 1953 and got married Dzegovka in 1956. Loyf, Polina Enikovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
34:20
Loyf talks about his family, in particular her husband. She also speaks about contemporary Jewish life and literature. Loyf, Polina Enikovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
37:51
Loyf speaks about prewar Jewish life, specifically food customs. She describes how her mother koshered meat. Loyf, Polina Enikovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
40:04
Loyf talks about her family and postwar Jewish life. She recalls Yiddish theater performances and describes Jewish occupations. Loyf, Polina Enikovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
48:53
Loyf speaks about postwar Jewish life in Dzegovka. She then addresses contemporary Jewish life and food customs. Loyf, Polina Enikovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
55:52
Loyf addresses postwar Jewish life in Boryslav. According to her, 13,000 Boryslav Jews were killed during the war. Loyf, Polina Enikovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
13:42
Berkovich addresses prewar Jewish life in Berehove. According to him, 7,000 Jews lived there. Berkovich joined the Zionist organization Hashomer Hatzair. He speaks about its youth activities. Berkovich also addresses prewar cultural life.
52:48
Hodinger joins the conversation and they discuss prewar religious life in Berehove.
58:21
Pustilnik talks about prewar Jewish life in Yaruga. Her mother worked on the local kolkhoz. She then talks about her family's life during the war. They were imprisoned in the Sharapanivka ghetto and then deported to the Pechera concentration camp.
59:23
Pustilnik provides personal information. She then talks about prewar Jewish life on the kolkhoz in Yaruga, as she remembers it from her mother's stories. Pustilnik explains that the kolkhoz was divided into a Jewish and a non-Jewish one. The kolkhoz was called Petrovsk and then Lenin. Pustilnik then describes the farm production, including wine and fruit production. She also briefly addresses food customs.
5:11
Miaskovskaia discusses her childhood memories of Dzegovka. She also talks about her family and prewar Jewish life. She attended a Ukrainian school. Miaskovskaia, Polina Ruvinovna; Pustilnik, Frida Moiseyevna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
39:08
Miaskovskaia speaks about prewar Jewish life in her hometown. She also talks about her life today and her family. Miaskovskaia, Polina Ruvinovna; Pustilnik, Frida Moiseyevna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster. 6/8/2007. Ukraine, L'vivs'ka Oblast', Boryslav.
4:48
Kupershmidt talks about prewar Jewish life in Bratslav. He then provides personal information.
5:31
Kupershmidt addresses prewar Jewish life in Bratslav, including Hasidic visitors from Uman. He attended a Yiddish school for four years. Kupershmidt also addresse holiday celebration in town.
7:34
Kupershmidt talks about postwar Jewish life. He then mentions his oldest brother who was active in Zionist circles.
30:45
Rakhil provides personal information and talks about her family's fate during World War II. She grew up with two sisters. She then briefly talks about her life during the war when she evacuated to Kyrgyzstan. Rakhil then discusses her childhood memories of Jewish Bratslav, as well as her home. She attended a Ukrainian school. Rakhil also speaks about ther family and her father's religious teachings.
MDV 394Musya Moiseevna Vaynshteyn; Sofia (Sime-Leye; David (Dovid) Geller and 1 moreUman', Bratslav, 2005
34:46
The formal interview with the Gellers begins. They provide personal information, before David discusses his childhood memories of Jewish Zhmerynka.
40:31
Geller talks about prewar Jewish life in Zhmerynka. He recalls leisure activities in town. David then addresses his family's life at the beginning of the war, when they evacuated. His father was a barber and a communist, according to David. David describes his evacuation in a heated goods train toward Tashkent, Uzbekistan, traveling for one month. David continues that they evacuated further to Samarqand Shahri, where he worked on a kolkhoz in the Panjakent region.
15:14
Sofia speaks about her life today and the relationship with her non-Jewish neighbors. She discusses her childhood memories of Jewish Bratslav and her family. Sofia's father was a coachman. She also mentions her mother's observance.
21:21
Sofia speaks about her family, before she addresses prewar Jewish life and religion in Bratslav. She also speaks about the fate of the local Jews during the war. Sofia then recalls her mother's praying customs.
23:53
Sofia addresses her family's return to Bratslav in 1944 and their life after the war. She grew up with five siblings. Sofia then returns to prewar Jewish life and culture. She recalls traditional weddings.
30:31
Sofia speaks about postwar Jewish life in the region. She returns to her wedding in 1953, as well as addresses her life today. Sofia then speaks about her family.
20:19
The interview with Kupershmidt begins. He talks about prewar Jewish life in Bratslav, including the synagogue and occupational structure. He also addresses local charity.
19:09
Kupershmidt addresses Jewish life in Bratslav during the Great Hunger in 1932 and 33. Kupershmidt traveled to Odesa to earn money. In 1935, Kupershmidt explains, he practiced driving in Odesa. Kupershmidt returned to Bratslav in 1936 and worked as driving instructor. Kupershmidt states that was already married and his child was born in 1940.
MDV 398Dora (Dvoyre) Iosifovna Yatskova; Tsilya Yakovlevna Koifman; cemetery caretaker (unnamed)Kopayhorod, Bratslav, 2008
14:56
The team speaks with the caretaker, who provides information on locals.
32:20
Koifman briefly talks about her life during World War II, which she spent in evacuation. Koifman then discusses her childhood memories of Jewish Vapnyarka. She attended a Ukrainian school. Koifman also shortly addresses prewar holiday celebration at home.
41:43
Koifman talks about postwar Jewish life in Vapnyarka. Koifman lived in Bershad in 1972. She also addresses local geography.
1:00:14
Kelmenson speaks about prewar and postwar Jewish life in Bratslav She then turns to her life after the war. Kelmenson finished ten years of high school and then studied at the pedagogical institute in Vinnytsya. Kelmenson explains how she moved to Central Asia due to her husband's work assignment.
0:00
Kelmenson briefly speaks about Bratslav locals and life today. She then addresses her family. Kelmenson has family in Israel. She then speaks about her life after the war, specifically her wedding. Kelmenson states that the local kosher butcher gave the blessing. Kelmenson also explains why her son was not circumcised.
9:56
Kelmenson speaks about Jewish life after the war, as well as Bratslav locals.
11:50
Kelmenson speaks about the local community.
28:13
Kelmenson answers questions about cultural terminology. She also speaks about her mother's work as writer, as well as prewar Jewish buildings in Bratslav.
21:13
Religious anecdotes and prewar Jewish life.
46:03
Walking along the Jewish street.
21:53
Surrounding towns.
25:18
Jewish life in towns and villages.
34:32
Surrounding towns/villages.
50:34
Pre-war Jewish Chernivtsi and Mohyliv-Podilskyy.
6:29
Burg talks about his home town Vyzhnytsya. According to Burg, 92% of the 6,800 inhabitants were Jewish before World War II. Burg explains contemporary efforts to memorialize prewar Jewish life of Vyzhnytsya. He then talks about contemporary and postwar Jewish life in Chernivtsi with a population of roughly 2000 today, according to Burg. After the war, Burg states approximately 93,000 Jews lived in Chernivtsi. Burg then talks about his activities, giving lectures and publications at Israeli universities in the 1990s.
17:26
Burg talks about prewar Jewish life in Chernivtsi, which was divided between the assimilated German-speaking Jews and Yiddish-speaking Jews. Burg states that the Yiddish-speaking population was divided between Litvish and Bessarabian Yiddish.
49:11
Burg talks about his religious education, when he attended religious school (cheder) for seven years. Burg attended a Romanian school, before cheder every day. He then attended the Vyzhnytsya yeshiva. He then talks about Jewish life in prewar Vyzhnytsya and childhood memories of his grandfather. According to Burg, the majority of Jews were Hasidic. He recalls an episode about a Jewish barber who received non-Jewish customers on Sabbath. He covered the windows and locked the door in fear of rebuke from the Hasidic community. However, Burg stresses that the Hasidic community were moderate in his hometown. Burg remembers the time when his father told him stories about the Baal Shem Tov, when his family sat around the fire during the winter.
59:32
Burg talks about his and Jewish life in general in prewar Chernivtsi. His family moved from Vyzhnytsya to the city when he was twelve years old. His father continued in his profession and traveled to Vyzhnytsya every day. He passed away at 38. According to Burg, there were 76 prayer houses in Chernivtsi.
0:00
Burg discusses prewar Jewish life in Chernivtsi. He then talks about his travels to Zurich, Switzerland, when he spent time at a reform community there. He recounts the differences in religious service. Burg then discusses the modernization of Jewish life during the Enlightenment period.
16:55
Burg briefly talks about prewar Jewish life in Vyzhnytsya and discusses the connotation of “geyen in bod arayn.” He then talks about Eliezer Steinberg and the stories Burg remembers him telling. Burg then discusses his young adult life. He was a member of the youth organization Hashomer Hatzair. He then joined the “Yiddisher Shulfarayn” (Yiddish School Union), headed by Steinberg. He recalls various Yiddish writers, such as Itzik Manger, Shloyme Bikl, and Moyshe Altman, who would attend evening events. He then talks about contemporary academic events in Chernivtsi, before Burg discusses prewar Yiddish culture and theater, as well as cultural events organized by the Yiddish School Union. In particular, Burg talks about the second Czernowitz Yiddish conference, held in 1928, and publication of the Czernowitzer Bleter. The publication was closed down in 1938. Burg remembers the well-attended funeral of Eliezer Steinberg in 1932.
0:00
Burg explains the former Jewish neighborhood of Chernivtsi on the way to the Jewish charity organization (chesed).
10:11
The second part of the tape includes a brief formal discussion about contemporary Jewish life in Chernivtsi with Iosif Burg and the head of the hesed, Isaak Yakovlevich Beznos and his assistant Shaiia Davidovich Kleiman. Shaiia Davidovich Kleiman talks about postwar Jewish life in Chernivtsi. In particular, he mentions the Yiddish writer Moyshe Altman. They then talk about contemporary Jewish life.
0:00
Kleiman introduces the Shushana Hesed of Chernivtsi and talks about the contemporary Jewish community. He then briefly talks about prewar Jewish life.
9:25
Kleiman talks about Jewish life and childhood memories before the war in his hometown Vadrashkov. He attended a Romanian school. His parents hired a private religious tutor, who taught Kleiman in the afternoons. He describes the studies with the tutor. According to Kleiman, he was fairly well-versed in religious texts at the age of nine. Kleiman recalls how he learned Yiddish from a Communist newspaper, “Der veg” (the path).
17:10
Kleiman talks about his family and describes the old Jewish cemetery in Chernivtsi, including well-known figures.
20:41
Kleiman talks about his life after the war. He studied mathematics at the Chernivtsi University. He taught at various schools for forty-five years in Ukraine and Moldova. He then talks about Jewish life in postwar Chernivtsi. Kleiman states that the Soviet government permitted one active synagogue.
34:52
Kleiman talks about his father’s religiosity and discusses prewar holiday celebrations at home, in particular Passover and Purim. He recalls that he joined his father to go to the rebbe during holidays. Kleiman discusses prewar Jewish life in Vadrashkov, including Yiddish culture and political organizations. He then talks prewar weddings.
0:00
Kleiman answers a number of dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish questionnaire. Kleiman briefly talks about the history and language of Bessarabian Jews. The second part of the tape includes town footage of Chernivtsi.
20:55
The camera collects town footage and Kleiman gives a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood, headed towards the plaque of the Yiddish writer Moyshe Altman.
0:00
Shternberg shows family photographs and talks about her family. Her son lives in America. Shternberg then talks about prewar Jewish life in Khotyn and childhood games, as well as political organizations. Shternberg remembers how she attended meetings of political organization on Sabbath because school was not on. She then discusses Yiddish literature.
14:45
Ziselis briefly recalls the beginnings of German occupation. He then talks about prewar Jewish life in Khotyn. In particular, Ziselis describes how his father traveled to the rebbe of Chortkov to receive blessings for his family. Ziselis grew up with a sister and a brother.
31:36
Ziselis talks about prewar Khotyn, as well as about his work as a kosher butcher after the war. Ziselis worked with the kosher butcher and mohel Moyshe from Berdychiva and traveled to neighboring towns. He then talks about contemporary religious life.
0:00
Shternberg talks about her family and her hometown Khotyn, including a non-Jewish tailor who spoke Yiddish. Shternberg then sings a number of Yiddish songs about drinking in the tavern, living a Jewish life, and life in the Kopayhorod ghetto Shternberg wrote herself. The ghetto song deals with a girl who sits next to her dying mother.
3:50
Yanoshpil before the war
9:21
Jewish life after the war in Khmil'nyk
10:24
Celebrating Jewish holidays and Yanoshpil
13:05
Jewish life before the war and presenting material about Jewish life
26:49
Jewish life after the war in Khmil'nyk and life today (Israel)
16:09
Srulova describes the poverty of her family life before the war, stating that her large family lived in a one room house. During the war, her family was evacuated and those who were not sent to the front worked on a kolkhoz. She then talks about Jewish life in Novohrad-Volyns’kyy. She mentions that in her shtetl before the war there were many non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, including many of her father’s coworkers. Srulova moved to Chortkiv in 1953, at which time there were many Jews in the town, although now most of them have emigrated. Srulova describes a few sites of Jewish interest in the town, including an old, non-operational synagogue, a Tsadik’s (righteous holy man's) grave (which many people have come to visit from abroad) and several mass graves.
51:57
Weiss shows a couple of photographs of his school class and the synagogue, taken before the war. He then talks about contemporary Jewish life and antisemitism. In particular, he mentions the second local synagogue, which functioned until 1995. It was closed down that year due to four antisemitic attacks, according to Weiss. It was set on fire in 1998. Weiss explains the efforts of the community to rebuild the synagogue. Weiss continues talking about contemporary Jewish life and Yiddish-speakers of the region.
1:00:14
Weiss talks about prewar Jewish life in Drohobych with approximately 19,500 people. According to Weiss, there were two synagogues and twenty prayer houses.
0:00
The first part of the tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Mosei Leonovich Weiss. Weiss discusses childhood memories and talks about his family. His father worked as a merchant. His mother helped out in the pastry shop, owned by his grandmother, before she helped out with his father’s business. He has relatives in America. Weiss shows a picture of his paternal grandmother and a book about Jewish life in prewar Drohobych. He then talks about Jewish political life before the war. He was the administrator of the local youth Zionist organization, HaNoar Hatzioni and describes the organization with 150 boys and girls. Weiss lists other political organizations, including Hashomer Hatzair, Betar, and Bund.
11:06
Weiss recalls holiday celebrations and Jewish life in general before the war. He went to the Shpandorf synagogue with his father on every holiday. He then mentions his religious education. Weiss received his religious education from a private tutor when he was twelve years old. The mayor of Drohobych was Tetlboym.
30:10
Shekhovich talks about prewar Sambor, with Jews as the majority population according to her. Shekhovich briefly addresses childhood memories. She then talks about prewar Jewish life there, before addressing Jewish life in Drohobych.
11:47
Shekhovich talks about Jewish life in prewar Sambor and holiday celebration at home. She left Sambor in 1944. She then talks about contemporary Jewish life and discusses holidays before the war.
52:21
Shekhovich talks about Jewish life in prewar Sambor, as well as her life after the war.
10:22
Schreier talks about prewar Drohobych and its population structure. He recalls the positive relations among the different ethnic groups. He then talks about the religious education at the Polish school. Schreier recalls how religious instructors from different confessions came in to teach Jewish, Ukrainian, and Polish students. Schreier was taught by his uncle.
14:49
Schreier talks about contemporary life in Drohobych, as well as Jewish life. He then talks about the Choral (Great) Synagogue in Drohobych, which was built in 1865 and was the largest synagogue in prewar Poland. Schreier then talks about life and work during the Soviet period.
19:29
Schreier talks about Jewish life before the war. He then talks about the languages he spoke at home, including Polish and Hebrew for Schreier’s bar mitzvah. Schreier’s father grew up in Yiddish and his mother in Polish. He studied with his uncle for his bar mitzvah, who told him to recite part of his parsha in Polish. Schreier then talks about the poor Jewish neighborhood of Drohobych. He recalls how he visited this neighborhood with his teacher Bruno Schulz, who drew sketches of the buildings there. Schulz worked at Schreier’s school since 1924 without an official teacher’s permit. Only after Schulz passed his exams in 1936 at Cracow University, he received an official permit. Schreier continues to talk about Schulz, who studied drawing and carpentry, including his life during the war and legacy.
8:15
Shekhter talks about his life before the war. He addresses his bar mitzvah and his education at a religious school (cheder) and Polish school. He then talks about prewar Jewish life and lists different local synagogues, including cobbler, tailor, and the Great Synagogue. Shekhter also recalls non-Jews speaking Yiddish.
24:23
Shekther talks about Jewish life after the war, when he lived in Zolotonosha from 1971 to 1998. Before he moved to Zolotonosha, Shekhter lived in Artyomovsk (Russia).
43:57
Shekhter talks about life today and prewar Jewish life in Nadvirna.
19:55
Khasidovich talks about holiday celebration and prewar Jewish life in Fastiv. She then talks about life today and holiday food customs.
37:16
Khasidovich talks about reading books and her family. She then talks about Yiddish songs, before discussing Jewish life in postwar Fastiv.
36:17
Burshtein speaks about prewar Jewish life and emigration from Sobolivka. According to him, five hundred Jews lived there. He then addresses postwar Jewish life in Sobolivka, as well as contemporary Jewish life in Teplyk.
4:31
Burshtein discusses his childhood memories of Jewish Sobolivka, including occupational structure. According to him, the non-Jews lived in the countryside around town. Burshtein then speaks about Passover celebrations and describes how he carried the dough for matzo baking. He then addresses prewar religious life during the 1930s. Burshtein specifically talks about secret private services after the synagogue was closed down.
44:13
Bukshtein talks about his family and contemporary religious life. Bukhstein serves as assistant rabbi. He then discusses the history of the region and prewar Jewish life in Novoselitsa. Bukhshtein recalls many non-Jews speaking Yiddish. He then lists Zionists organizations, including Hashomer Hatzair, Betar, and Poale Zion. Bukshtein was a member of the youth organization Hashomer Hatzair and recalls its activities to prepare chalutzim (young pioneers preparing aliyah to live in agricultural settlements). Bukhstein’s cousin made aliyah in 1935.
28:06
Bukshtein discusses prewar Jewish life and holiday celebrations in Novoselitsa. He describes synagogue activities and holiday celebrations, in particular for Passover and Purim.
MDV 448Froim Kalmanovich Bukshtein; Genrikh (Hersh bereb Moyshe akoyen, Hesye) Moiseevich KatzIvano-Frankivs'k, 2003
3:32
The second part of the tape includes a formal interview with Genrikh (Hersh bereb Moyshe akoyen, Hesye) Moiseevich Katz, born 1912 in Tlumach. Katz provides personal information and talks about prewar Jewish life in Tlumach with a population of 9000. In particular, Katz recalls cattle trading and two kosher butchers. His grandfather traded in cattle. He then recites a prayer.
40:51
Prewar Jewish life in Pyatka.
30:25
Jewish life in prewar Iziaslav
12:55
Jewish life before the war and family
18:06
Jewish life before the war in Kornitze and Iziaslav
16:09
Prewar Jewish Kuzmin
2:33
Prewar Jewish cultural life in Kuznim and family
23:49
Kraidman briefly speaks about the liquidation of Yiddish organizations in Babruysk in 1939. She also talks about the town’s prewar Yiddish library in Babruysk and how she helped Hesed order and organize their Yiddish books today, despite the fact that no one reads them.
23:43
Gaiviker compares the demographics of Berdychiv to Khmel’nyts’kyy, and also discusses his contemporary health problems.
25:26
Gaiviker briefly describes prewar Khmel’nyts’kyy’s rabbis and distinctive characters and types.
32:31
Naum Gaiviker knew prayers and liturgy well in his youth, but also played pranks on the teacher. He further describes the town’s prewar Jewish atmosphere with its bakeries, artisans etc.
9:09
Yarmolnik briefly discusses pre-war Khmel'nytskyy. There were Yiddish schools in the town, but they were already closed by the time Yarmolnik could attend, so she was educated in a Russian-language institution. After the war, Yarmolnik found the house she had lived in ruined. She then talks about the reparation funds she tried to receive from Switzerland. Yarmolnik worked 51 years as an economist and accountant after the war.
18:32
Yarmolnik’s husband was from Medzhibozh. She talks about the one remaining Jew in the town, who recently passed away. She comments on the tourist infrastructure that is now in place there with new hotels and rebuilt synagogues. Yarmolnik was once taken to Medzhibozh by her husband to see the Besht’s grave.
5:06
Kaviner describes prewar Derazhnya as a "yidishe shtut” (Jewish town) full of artisans and craftspeople. Kaviner completed a Soviet Yiddish school in 1939 just before it was closed. At the same time, he learned in a yeshiva, stating he had “no childhood” because he spent so much time studying. The yeshiva was an open secret that the authorities “pretended not to know about,” according to Kaviner. Once the yeshiva was closed down in 1934-5, it went underground and continued to function clandestinely until 1939. The director and teachers were able to receive successful employment after the school was closed because they were very intelligent, educated people. There were also semi-secret “kheyder” schools (religious schools for young children) that operated in the town until approximately 1932. After this, melamdim (religious teachers) continued to teach children in private homes. The yeshiva was Hasidic, but associated with no particular rebbe, except the Baal Shem Tov. Kaviner states that the shtetl had about 5000 Jews. He also lists all the significant rebbes that were active in the region.
59:24
Kaviner talks about the other Yiddish writers he has read, including Mendele Moykher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, Y. L. Perets and numerous Soviet Yiddish writers. Prewar Derazhnya had a Yiddish library for the town, as well as another, larger collection in the synagogue. These books were burned during the war along with the town’s Torah scrolls.
23:14
Kaviner shares his memories of prewar Jewish weddings that were celebrated in a traditional manner. The town’s rabbi was Mikhl Rozhanski, a very learned and handsome man, who spoke several languages and played the fiddle. He was arrested three times by Soviet authorities, but always quickly released. He was later killed during the war. The rabbi’s children went to the Ukrainian-language school instead of the Yiddish school because of a wider conflict within the town’s Jewish community. Kaviner states that he remembers many anti-religious songs from those years, but would prefer not to sing them.
51:34
When asked about the stories and folktales about the Jews of his shtetl, Kaviner recalls the tales about the great peasant thief Karmaliuk, who would hide from the authorities in Jewish homes. The Jews of Derazhnya were thus call “Karmalyukes.”
56:05
Kaviner states that every Jew in his town had a nickname and shares several examples.
27:49
Kaviner comments on the various shtetl types and characters in his town, including scholars, rich and poor people, actors, card players and water carriers.
31:50
Kaviner briefly describes postwar Khmel'nyts'kyy where he settled in 1947. He comments that Jews from shtetlekh moved to bigger cities after the war seeking economic opportunities. Since mass emigration was allowed, there are few Jews left, only “narunim, kaptsunim in goyishe makhetunim” (lit., fools, paupers, and non-Jewish relatives).
9:03
Vaisblai then describes his hometown of Chemerivtsi in the years before the war. According to Vaisblai, there was a synagogue in his family’s house because his father was crippled by an injury he received in a Petliura-led pogrom. Vaisblai describes the poverty and hardships of his youth, stating that although his father remarried a rich woman who bought food for shabes (the Sabbath), he and his two siblings often went hungry.
49:50
Vaisblai returns to the subject of prewar Chemerivtsi, describing the town's butchers, synagogues, rabbis and teachers, as well as its Yiddish School. Vaisblai also briefly describes his childhood home life and how his family spoke Yiddish at home.
7:47
Vaisblai discusses Khmel'nyts'kyy’s remaining Yiddish speakers and other Jews. He also talks about life in the postwar Soviet Union, specifically detailing the troubles he had with housing. Vaisblai also comments on his contemporary health and financial problems.
51:32
Kramer describes prewar Berezdov. He mentions that his father worked in a brick factory. Describing his prewar educations, Kramer states that he finished four years in a Yiddish school before attending a Ukrainian-language institution. He describes the town’s butchers, its rabbi, and the town synagogue that operated until 1939.
34:12
Kaviner speaks about the continued existence of anti-Semitism after the war and the postwar Jewish community in Khmel'nyts'kyy that consisted of demobilized soldiers and internal migrants from the surrounding shtetlekh. Although many of these Jews eventually moved to other cities in the USSR, Kaviner reports that there was still a significant community in the town until mass emigration began in later decades.
38:50
Kaviner tells the history of Khmel'nyts'kyy’s synagogues before and after the war. In the postwar period, only two of the town’s original eight synagogues remained, and only one was available for Jewish use. In 1951, this was closed down by the authorities, and all of the community’s important figures were arrested on accusations of spying during the war.
45:12
Kaviner discusses the contemporary Jewish community in Khmel'nyts'kyy, recalling the history of its reestablishment, and its internal politics.
1:04
The camera then cuts to a formal interview with Semyon (Yisrul) Aronovich Vaisblai (b. 1930 in Chemerivtsi). He describes prewar Chemerivtsi and also talks about how there was a synagogue in his childhood home. Vaisblai also describes the Jewish kolkhoz that was found in the town.
10:16
Vaisblai came to Khmel'nyts'kyy in 1977. Before that, he lived in the town of Horodok where, he explains, there were many Jews after the war. Vaisblai then describes postwar Jewish life in this town and the postwar period in the Soviet Union in general, focusing specifically on the housing troubles with which he dealt.
6:29
Kaviner talks about the types of people who lived in his hometown of Derazhnya. He tells a story about a village madman named Shmil-Leyb and how he once cured a dying young woman from tuberculosis.
41:55
Snook discusses life after World War II. Shloyme, Snook’s son, explains that they owned animals. She then talks about Jewish life of the 1950s in Khust.
47:30
Snook recalls prayers and discusses postwar Jewish life.
9:01
Katz provides personal information and talks about his family. He grew up with six siblings. His father was a coachman with two horses. Katz then talks about prewar Jewish life and childhood memories. He attended religious school (cheder) until his bar mitzvah. Katz then discusses his father’s work as a coachman, transporting wood. Katz supported his father’s work during vacation. In 1939, when his father was "drafted" into the Hungarian army forced labor battalion, Katz continued his father’s work with the help of an assistant. His parents received a plot of land after their marriage.
18:06
Katz recalls childhood memories in a town of roughly sixty Jewish families. Katz attended cheder in the mornings and afternoons. Katz then remembers a wedding and discusses Sabbath celebrations at home.
41:27
Katz discusses Jewish life and religious activity in Khust after the war, where he moved in 1954. The community was supposed to pay taxes for the synagogue in 1953. Katz then turns to the post-Soviet period and explains how a tavern was built near the site of the former synagogue, where the mikva once was. He expresses frustration that the community members were willing to sign over this property to the tavern.
26:17
Zinger discusses Jewish life before the war, in particular Jewish occupations. He recites blessings. He remembers the praying of the local shoykhet (kosher butcher).
23:54
Shloyme Snook goes on a tour with the team to the former Jewish neighborhood, headed to the synagogue.
27:17
The team enters the synagogue and the camera collects footage. Shimen Repkin explains the history of the synagogue in Russian. The synagogue was built in 1861 and closed down in the 1960s as part of the anti-religious Soviet decrees. The building was used as a social space for the adjacent factory. Repkin then talks about the prayer books in the synagogue and maintaining the building.
26:58
Location of Smila.
14:21
Synagogues in Vinnytsya.
17:15
Family and Jewish life in Zhmerynka.
29:31
Market in Ozarinets.
MDV 514David (Duvid-Hersh, or sometimes Duvid-Tsvi when called up to the Torah) Abramovich ViderKolomyya, 2003
45:20
Vider talks about his prewar family life, focusing on his mother and father’s work, the family house in Hîrlau, and that town’s geography. He comments on the Yiddish dialect differences in the places he lived in his youth, and speaks about Kolomyya’s synagogue and contemporary Jewish community. Vider reports that he reads and writes in Yiddish. He shares his attitudes towards different dialects and talks about different people in Kolomyya with whom he speaks in Yiddish.
11:06
Vider briefly shares the history of the Kolomyya synagogue and how these pilgrimages began. He also talks about his two marriages: Vider’s first marriage was to a Communist Jewish woman; he is now married to a Christian woman from Kolomyya. Vider had no children with his first wife, nor did they get married under a "khipe” (wedding canopy) as she was a committed Communist. He shares some details of his difficult relationship with his first wife. Vider also mentions that he enthusiastically listens to records of cantorial music.
0:00
This tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Iosef (Yosl) Grigoryevich Grayf (b. 1922 in Kolomyya). He speaks generally about prewar Jewish life in Kolomyya, and mentions that there is another Jew in the town who knows the history better than he does, but not Yiddish. Noting that this person is Jewish only on his father’s side, Grayf shares his negative views of Jewish law vis-à-vis the question of matrilineal or patrilineal descent. He comments on shabes (Sabbath) observances from before the war, focusing on the foods they would eat, including gefilte fish.
8:52
Grayf details other holiday observances and traditional foods, and speaks about Yiddish dialects and Kolomyya’s contemporary Jewish community. He briefly returns to the subject of general prewar Jewish life, noting the different Jewish professions and many Jewish artisans in the town.
17:42
Grayf discusses the non-Jews who spoke Yiddish in Kolomyya before the war, and speaks more broadly about anti-Semitism and Jewish-Christian relations in that period. He comments on contemporary economic conditions and the drastic changes in the town in the prewar, postwar and post-Soviet periods.
24:36
Grayf notes that Kolomyya had many Jewish political youth groups in the prewar period including Zionist and Bundist factions.
36:42
Krotsh discusses prewar Jewish life in his shtetl, describing the Rebbe’s court and the town’s synagogues. He relates how the Rebbe solved the town’s problems and disputes, and recalls prewar Jewish wedding customs.
5:25
Krotsh details his experiences during the war years: he went to the Soviet Union and was evacuated from the town of Rîbnita to the Caucasus region of Russia, where he worked on a kolkhoz (collective farm). From there, he was evacuated further into Azerbaijan, and then drafted into the Red Army from 1942 to 1947. Krotsh went to Kolomyya after the war at the suggestion of a friend from the army since it was near Romania, but by the time he got there the border was closed and so he stayed in the town. Krotsh then briefly comments on postwar Jewish life in Kolomyya and how the town’s synagogue was repaired in the 1990s.
0:00
Iosef (Yosl) Grigoryevich Grayf (b. 1922 in Kolomyya). He speaks about prewar Jewish life in Kolomyya and his education in a supplemental twice weekly Hebrew school. He also talks about his parents and Jewish religious life in the town, describing its numerous synagogues. He also makes several comparisons with the much reduced Jewish life in Kolomyya today and how the contemporary synagogue often has trouble securing a "minyen” (minyan, prayer quorum of ten men).
0:00
This tape consists of a formal interview with Semyon Semyonovich Krotsh (b. 1922 in Stefanesti). He speaks about his visit to Botoșani in Romania in the postwar period where his father lived after the war. Krotsh visited the town again most recently about five years ago, and reports that there are no Jews left there or in any other small towns. Krotsh also speaks in general about Romanian Jewry after the war and their mass emigration to Israel.
47:35
Krotsh shares his views on fate, G-d and religion. He discusses postwar Jewish religious life in Kolomyya, mentioning the clandestine prayer groups that would come together in private homes on holidays and important communal dates. He then speaks about the history of Kolomyya’s various synagogues.
15:48
Formal interview begins with Aron (Urn) Kalmanovich Biter (b. 1918 in Popel’niki). He discusses the prewar history of the village and its eighteen Jewish families. He also talks about his education in a "kheyder” (traditional Jewish religious boys’ school) and a Polish-language gymnasium. Biter shares his memories of prewar family life, noting that his father served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War and how his family changed their surname from "Shafir” to the less Jewish-sounding "Biter”.
12:10
Krotsh speaks about prewar Jewish life in Ştefăneşti, particularly about the Rabbi Avrohom Mattisyohu Friedman. He states that he remembers the time when the Ştefăneşti rebbe passed away in 1933.
58:27
Krotsh speaks about Jewish life in the immediate postwar period in Kolomyya. He recalls secret services on holidays and importing matzos from Odesa and Chişinău. In Kolomyya, Krotsh worked for a military auction 59:00. He also mentions Romanian songs.
0:00
Krotsh speaks about prewar Jewish life in Ştefăneşti. He then talks about his life during World War II and family. His father was a cobbler and also born in Ştefăneşti. Krotsh's mother was born in Săveni.
8:43
Krotsh talks about prewar Jewish life in Ştefăneşti, including the wealthy and his master craftsman. He also speaks about his education at a yeshiva and his family.
43:47
Krotsh addresses prewar Jewish life and wine production. He then sings a Yiddish song about drinking.
58:28
Krotsh talks about contemporary Jewish life in the region. The camera then collects outside footage of the synagogue, while the team walks with Krotsh to Vider's home.
16:02
Krotsh discusses his childhood memories. He then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Ştefăneşti. Krotsh describes how the community remembers the victims of World War I and repeats the story about Kroth's master craftsman's encounter with the Ştefăneşti rebbe.
34:16
Krotsh speaks about postwar Jewish life, including a brief history on synagogue buildings. He states that the synagogue the interview is conducted in was used as gymnasium.
39:21
Krotsh addresses his visit to Ştefăneşti and they address books regarding the Jewish history of Ştefăneşti.
45:34
Krotsh speaks about postwar Jewish life in Kolomyya. Krotsh moved to Kolomyya in 1949. In particular, he describes secret Purim services and mentions Yiddish theater performances.
53:44
Shabbat celebration before the war and religious life in prewar Korosten
0:00
The first part of the tape is a tour through the former Jewish town of Bila Tserkva with Khariton Berman’s son.
8:18
They arrive at the former home of Sholem Aleichem, which has a plaque identifying the house. Berman’s son talks about how one wooden white prayer house survived the fire.
20:37
The team gets out of the van in order to meet community members in front of the community center. Petr Rashkovsky talks about the Jewish population of Korsun before the war. Five thousand Jews lived prewar Korsun and today only 130 remained.
28:14
The team meets Tsadik Naumovich Groysman, born in Tarashcha. He moved to Korsun in 1952. They continue chatting at the community center and are given a tour of the Korsun Museum of Regional Association of Jewish Shtetls in Ukraine. The museum includes material from Korsun, as well surrounding towns.
26:19
Ocheretianyi discusses his childhood memories and Jewish life in prewar Korsun. According to him, the synagogue was closed down before the war. Ocheretianyi refers to postwar prayer services in private homes. He then talks about his observant father.
39:36
Ocheretianyi compares prewar and contemporary Jewish life. According to him, Korsun had a Jewish population of 2,500. He then continues to recall Hanukkah and Passover celebrations. Ocheretianyi also remembers non-Jews speaking Yiddish, in particular a wagon driver called Ivan Nahayets. Ocheretianyi explains how Nahayets was mistaken for a Jew at first during German occupation.
51:42
Ocheretianyi answers a series of dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire. He then talks about life today and his family in Israel, as well as Jewish life in prewar Korsun.
MDV 544Mikhail Zakharovich Ocheretianyi; Samuil (Shmiel) Borisovich BelobrovKorsun'-Shevchenkivs'kyy, 2005
0:00
The first part of the tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Mikhail Zakharovich Ocheretianyi. Ocheretianyi talks about prewar Jewish life and addresses the synagogues. He then describes childhood games and talks about the observance of his father, who was imprisoned before the Revolution.
2:49
The camera collects town footage on the way to the next interview with Tsili (Tseytl) Davidovna Kislinskaia. The unnamed woman provides information about the former Jewish neighborhood.
25:13
Kislinskaia discusses her childhood memories and prewar Jewish life. She recalls the poverty in her family. She then talks about her life during the war, when her family evacuated. Kislinskaia describes how they evacuated and lived in evacuation:I was 17 years old when the war broke out. And my brother was 15 years old. When the war broke out we were walking to the train station. What could have possibly taken with us?! Nothing. To put on some clothes. We couldn't even take a pillow because it would have been too heavy to carry. It was five kilometers away. [...] We needed to walk five kilometers there. When we arrived there and the rail car was standing there, in which we should... We were sitting down and they would take us. Where to and when and with whom we didn't know. The money for the amount of work we did wouldn't be paid off. Everybody would take their own and we tried to get out. We were passing through quite a few stations and then they would take us off the train and they would take us to a canteen and gave us something to eat. This is how we traveled for I don't remember how long. It was not a passenger train, but a freight train. [...] Then they would take us off the train and would set up for us to work in a kolkhoz. They gave us a cart with two bulls and they would take us to the kolkhoz. [The kolkhoz was] in the Rostov region. This is where we worked and there was a German kolkhoz. We would understand them a little what they talked about and they would understand us a little. Yet (mayn?) we spoke in Russian and not Yiddish. Then the Germans came when we had stayed there until winter. And then we had to continue to travel. They gave us the two bulls with the cart. [...] And it was still at this kolkhoz where there was someone with five children. Her husband was drafted for the war. She was sitting with the children and we had to walk by foot after the bulls. Here we were traveling and the German came toward us. So, we had to turn around, to continue on a different side. The bulls had no more strength to lead us. But we managed to escape. We arrived in ? where were sitting and sitting. Then they would give us a ship and we would travel. And we arrived in Shkalov. There the Germans wouldn't get there. There I worked, the brother worked and my mother worked. My mother was a janitor in the factory and my brother was taught to be a locksmith. And I would not struggle (?) in the factory. I left for Shkalov where they told me. I went to work in a ? factory. When I worked at a ?, I received products. I would receive flower with a piece of bread, a piece of soap - whatever one didn't need I received. And I lived where my mother was with my brother. We were there until the war was over.
38:09
Kislinskaia discusses her childhood memories. She specifically addresses the transition of artisans’ occupation, working from home to factories in the 1930s. She then talks about her family and prewar Jewish life. Her parents were born in Korsun. Her maternal grandmother worked as a shammeste (synagogue caretaker). She recalls how she went to the synagogue with her mother.
MDV 548Tsili Davidovna Kislinskaia; Tsadik (Tsolik) Naumovich GroysmanKorsun'-Shevchenkivs'kyy, 2005
15:03
The third part of the tape includes a formal interview with Tsadik (Tsolik) Naumovich Groysman, born 1923 in Tarashcha. Groysman provides personal information and talks about prewar Jewish life in his hometown. In particular, he recalls how he attended synagogue with his father. Groysman then talks about his family. His parents were born in Tarashcha. His father, a watchmaker, descends from a family dynasty of watchmakers. Groysman’s father had four brothers, who were also watchmakers. His sister married a watchmaker. He grew up with two sisters. He also addresses his mother’s cooking. Groysman’s wife was also born in Tarashcha and he met her there before the war.
51:51
Groysman talks about prewar Jewish life and holiday celebrations, as well as food customs at home. He also addresses prewar Yiddish culture and cinema. He then recalls non-Jews speaking Yiddish.
0:00
Groysman talks about his work as a watchmaker and mentions watchmaking terms in Yiddish. He then talks about prewar Jewish life, in particular occupations and literature.
21:27
Angelova speaks about her life after the war. She also addresses postwar Jewish life in Kotovsk. She worked as bookkeeper in the Krasnoyarsky district, Russia [00:22:00]. Angelova was married in 1965, which took place in Kotovsk. She also talks about her family. Angelova raised a son and a daughter.
6:45
Leiderman talks about prewar Jewish life in Pishchanka, as well as her family. Her father was born in Obodovka and was a laborer 9:58. Her mother was born in Sobolivka. Obodovskii also talks about his family and describes his parent's work on a kolkhoz near Kotovsk. His family moved to Kotovsk in 1939.
48:58
Obodovskii speaks about prewar and postwar Jewish life in Kotovsk, as well his family. He recalls a small synagogue in 1944. They then address contemporary Jewish life and recall a kosher butcher after the war. Obodovskii also describes his work as construction worker.
11:42
Prewar Jewish life in Holoby.
15:01
Prewar Jewish life and childhood memories.
23:21
Holidays and prewar Jewish life.
44:12
Village Rozhyshche and childhood memories.
11:52
Pensatii talks about prewar Jewish life in Odesa. He mentions the positive relations between Jews and non-Jews and recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish.
8:05
The formal interview with Dorfman begins. He provides personal information and talks about his hometown Cahul.
43:02
Dorfman speaks about prewar cultural and political life in Chişinău.
15:30
Lebvol, Dorfman and the team drive around Zhovka. The camera then collects footage, while Lebvol gives a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood.
27:02
The team continues to drive around Zhovka with Lebvol and Dorfman, while she explains the former Jewish neighborhood of Zhovka.
29:35
They stop in the Zhovka town center and Lebvol describes the buildings. The team then bids farewell to Lebvol.
21:37
Nisman talks about postwar Jewish life in the region. She then discusses her childhood memories in an observant home, as well as her parents. Her father was a caretaker in a forest. Nisman recalls poverty at home. She also answers questions about cultural terminology.
46:45
Leibel recalls a Yiddish song his sister would sing in the kindergarten. He then speaks about prewar life in Rivne, including local institutions and figures.
15:38
Leibel discusses his childhood memories of Jewish life in Lviv. He also speaks about literature/press and cultural institutions, including a Polish library.
MDV 565Professor Iakov Samoilovich Khonigsman; Isaak (Itche, Itskhok-Avigdor) Moseevich MelerL'viv, 2003
54:37
Meler addresses prewar religious life in his hometown, particularly the synagogue and the local rebbe. According to him, approximately forty Jewish families lived in Glina Navariya. Meler then speaks about prewar occupational structure. His father and grandfather were kosher butchers.
11:42
Meler talks about his family. His father worked odd jobs, including with sausage dealer. Meler also speaks about prewar Jewish life, including occupational structure.
15:25
Meler speaks about his hometown Glina Navariya and its geographic location. He recalls the bath house and mill. He also discusses his childhood memories.
0:00
The team and Dorfman travel to the new cemetery. He provides historical background information on the cemetery, as well as regional Jewish life before the war.
3:38
The team and Dorfman arrive at the cemetery and take a tour, while Dorfman explains how the Jewish and non-Jewish cemeteries were combined. They were combined in 1962, after the synagogue was closed down, Dorfman explains.
9:44
They arrive at the old part of the cemetery from the prewar Polish era, before visiting Alexander Lizen's grave, a Soviet Yiddish Writer.
14:46
The camera collects footage of the cemetery, while Dorfman talks about local figures.
38:01
The team and Dorfman travel to the site of the former Lviv ghetto, while Dorfman points out buildings of the former ghetto. They then visit the former ghetto site and camera collects footage. Dorfman then explains how the community built memorials to remember the sufferings in the former ghetto. He also speaks about postwar Jewish life in Lviv and the high unemployment rate.
53:09
The team and Dorfman continue the tour of the former Jewish neighborhood, while he points out memorials and individual buildings.
1:58
The team and Dorfman walk around the former Jewish neighborhood, while he talks about prewar Jewish life. Dorfman also shows books about Jewish Lviv.
5:57
The team and Dorfman drive around Lviv, while Dorfman points out former Jewish buildings, including the Yiddish theater, the building, where Sholem Aleichem lived and the old cemetery.
15:07
Dorfman speaks about Jewish and non-Jewish relations in the sixteenth century. Jews funded the building of a church. The team and Dorfman continue their tour on foot along a former Jewish street, before the camera collects town footage.
55:23
Brandler speaks about prewar Jewish life and relationship with non-Jews. In particular, Brandler addresses his neighbors, before describing the town's occupational structure.
4:16
Brandler speaks about prewar Jewish life and communists. He states that communists were frequently arrested on Christian holidays. Brandler then mentions prewar organizations, including Poale Zion, before addressing the Israeli Yiddish journal "Lebensfragn" (life questions).
36:55
Brandler addresses postwar Jewish life in Peremyshlyany.
41:28
Leibel provides personal information. He also talks about prewar Jewish life in his hometown Rivne. Leibel also addresses his childhood memories and family. Leibel's father was a scrap dealer. Leibel attended a Polish school until 1939, before attending the university for two years.
38:26
The camera cuts to Dorfman speaking about the contemporary Lviv community and institutions.
20:08
Early childhood memories and prewar Jewish Sofievka
30:00
Origins of Yiddish name for town Sofievka and family
32:22
Prewar Jewish life and dialectology
48:58
Jewish life after the war in Lutsk
3:32
Jewish life in Derazhnya
12:42
Driving from the community center to the Jewish cemetery, Kaplan indicates different points of interest around town, such as where another potential interviewee lives.
16:44
Kaplan leads Professor Kerler on a tour of the Mohyliv-Podil’s’kyy Jewish cemetery, pointing out different matseyves (gravestones) and the meyloyl [the building used by the burial society to ritually clean the dead].
21:56
Kaplan shows Professor Kerler the oldest stones in the cemetery, some of which are over 400 years old.
25:22
While on the road back into town from the cemetery, Kaplan again points out different sites.
4:20
She then demonstrates how to make gefilte fish, using a knife and newspaper. Khaiut also explains some aspects of pre-war Jewish life in the town, including how each profession had its own synagogue and brought in guest cantors from time to time. Khaiut remembers Sidi Tal’ and various Yiddish theater troupes that came to Mohyliv-Podil’s’kyy before the war, putting on plays such as Sholem Aleichem’s 200,000. After the war, Jewish artists, such as Iosif Kobzon, also visited the town. Professor Kerler asks the interviewee about how she dealt with the potential contradiction of attending a Soviet Yiddish school, while maintaining a religious practice at home. She states that it's a lie that they made fun of religion and/or religious people in the schools. Nevertheless, in the 1930s, Khaiut reports, many of the synagogues in Mohyliv-Podil’s’kyy were closed down. Khaiut then recalls several food and gaming customs associated with holidays, such as Shavuot, Chanukah, Purim, Passover, Sukkot and Yom Kippur. Khaiut can still read in Yiddish, and even reads Professor Kerler’s interview notes out loud. Her son Sema understands and speaks some Yiddish. Khaiut then shares some Yiddish idioms and sayings. Both of her sons are circumcised. When her second son was born in 1946, she got a moyl (mohel) from Chernivtsi to come and circumcise him. The interviewee also answers a series of questions related to linguistics and dialectology. Khaiut also talks in detail about her own pre-war Jewish wedding, which featured Jewish klezmorim led by “Moyshele der Puker mit der Muzike” (Moshe the drummer with the music). At her wedding, as at others, there was a chuppah, and the bride circled the groom accompanied by her parents. Berl Sanver presided over the occasion as a kind of master of ceremonies/badkhn, and spoke with rhymes and songs. Khaiut also shares more of her linguistic knowledge as well as recipes for tsimes (stew) and fludn (dessert).
MDV 586Mikhel-Shmiel (Misha) Gilevich Leger; Berta (Betya) Aronovna VaisburdMohyliv-Podil's'kyy, 2005
0:30
The next part of the tape consists of a formal interview with Mikhel-Shmiel (Misha) Gilevich Leger (b. 1935). He is officially registered, i.e. legally named “Mikhel-Shmiel”, although Misha is his nickname. His father Gilel worked as an accountant/bookkeeper, while his mother Faye worked as a nurse. He was born in Feburary 1935 in Mohyliv-Podil’s’kyy. Leger claims to have learned to speak Yiddish in the wartime ghetto, because before that his family spoke to him only in Russian. During the war, his father was on the front, while he and his mother tried to escape to the nearby village of Chernivtsi (Kleyn Tshernovits), but Germans had already captured it. Leger recalls how his mother gave birth to a stillborn daughter in that town. After a few months there, his father found them there, and they all went back to Mohyliv-Podil’s’kyy, ending up in the ghetto. With upwards of 30-40 people living in one room in the ghetto— including Bukovinan and Bessarabian Jews— there was great fear of a typhus outbreak and so Leger was moved with a cousin into another house with fewer people. The children would hide when the Romanians and Germans would come rounding up Jews for work, but his parents had to labor. After the war, Leger continued to speak Yiddish with his parents and other children. The interviewee also describes his Russian-language schooling and how, although he is illiterate in Yiddish, he is now trying to learn how to read Hebrew characters. Leger reminisces about traditional celebrations of holidays such as Passover and Simkhes Toyre (Simchat Torah) (audio problems: 13:50-14:01; 14:09-14:12). At the conclusion of the interview, Leger addresses post-war and contemporary Jewish life in Mohyliv-Podil’s’kyy. In the Soviet period, according to Leger, prayer was legal and took place in private homes, but only older people went to services since most people were afraid of the consequences. His father, for example, would go only on yortsaytn (commemoration of a relative's death). Today, in Leger’s estimation, there are 300 Jews in the town, a figure which includes families of mixed backgrounds
50:57
The team travels to the next interview with Hershel Ylyevich Vider in Mukacheve. After they enter his apartment, the team sets up the formal interview with Vider, born in Mukacheve in 1922. He provides personal information and talks about his family. His three brothers moved to Canada after the war. Vider then sings a Hasidic song in Hungarian, before he talks about Jewish life in Mukacheve today. Vider laments that Yiddish is not passed on to the next generation.
58:55
Vider recalls prewar Jewish life in his home town. He attended religious school (cheder). At home, he spoke Yiddish with his grandparents and Hungarian with his parents. Vider then talks about his family. His father served in the Austro-Hungarian army.
0:00
Vider talks about his family and prewar Jewish life. Vider’s daughter lives in Hungary and his son is a Canadian citizen. His father was born in Sighetu Marma?iei. Vider recalls the wedding of Eluzer Spira’s daughter in 1934, as well as the rebbe’s funeral. He then talks about religious life today, praying in Russian. According to Vider, people called prewar Mukacheve “little Jerusalem.” He claims that even half of the non-Jews in the city spoke Yiddish. Vider explains that the former director of the local Hebrew school, Dr. Haim Kugel, became the mayor of Kholoniv after the war.
17:57
Vider talks about the wedding of Chaim Elazar Spira’s daughter and shows several illustrated books about the history of Mukacheve. Vider then shows a Hungarian Jewish newspaper from the 1930s that reports on Hasidic life, before he shows photographs of the wedding and funeral of Eluzer Spira, as well as other photos of prewar Jewish life.
30:10
Vider talks about Frume’s (Spira’s daughter) wedding. He also sings Yiddish songs. He then talks about his family. Vider put up a canopy for his wedding in 1949. His son was circumcised in 1955. He then shows a book on the Holocaust of the Transcarpathian region and other illustrated books about Mukacheve. Vider then talks about food customs and shows a video of a relative, playing music.
6:21
Vider remembers prewar Sabbath celebrations. He sings a Sabbath song in Hungarian. Vider learned some Hebrew from friends who attended the Hebrew school. He then describes prewar Jewish life. Vider explains that he had at one point joined the Mizrachi movement and later joined Betar, where he once saw Zeev Jabotinsky speak. He then joined the Hashomer Hatzair movement, thereby switching from the extreme right to the extreme left within the Zionist spectrum. He laughs that he went wherever the girls were.
12:37
The camera records his family photographs. The team goes with Vider on a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood. They arrive at the former Jewish tekhnikum and go inside. Vider remembers Jewish football clubs before the war. Outside the former Jewish tekhnikum, Vider talks about prewar Jewish life.
20:06
Vider and the team are headed to a former synagogue. Vider explains former Jewish buildings. The next stop includes the old Jewish cemetery. They visit graves of rebbes.
14:41
Vider explains different greeting customs. He then talks about contemporary Jewish life in Budapest.
31:18
Nayman talks about his childhood memories of Klyachanovo (Yiddish: Klitshanif), where eighty Jewish families resided. He attended religious school (cheder) until the age of thirteen. Nayman then recites prayers. His parents farmed land and owned six cows. They produced butter and cheese and distributed it among the surrounding villages. Nayman helped out his parents. He then talks about his yeshiva education and recites prayers.
42:40
Nayman talks about prewar Jewish life in Klyachanovo, including occupations and political organizations. He remembers book peddlers from Mukacheve. Nayman then discusses prewar holiday celebrations and remembers non-Jews who spoke Yiddish. Nayman then answers terminological questions and recalls food customs.
0:00
Nayman talks about childhood friends and Jewish life before the war. He remembers the Yiddish names of surrounding towns and answers questions about cultural terminology. Nayman then recites prayers.
11:30
Nayman talks about prewar Jewish life, in particular the wedding of Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira's daughter in Mukacheve. He then remembers his studies with the rebbe of Mukacheve and describes several prayer houses.
49:34
Snook discusses her family and Jewish life in her home town of roughly sixty families. Her father transported items with his horse. Snook grew up with five siblings, who were all killed in 1943 in Poland.
41:02
Pasik addresses prewar holiday celebrations and remembers how non-Jews spoke Yiddish. She then talks about Jewish life on the kolkhoz and lists towns of Jewish kolkhozy, including Novopoltavka Bereznehuvate, Dobre, and Romanovka.
53:09
Pasik talks about Jewish life in Mykolayiv, where she moved to in 1965. Her mother’s father-in-law worked as a kosher butcher in the 1960s. Pasik’s sister mentions how her family acquired matzos after the war. Pasik then discusses faith and her best moments in life. She also addresses contemporary Jewish life and episodes about prewar antisemitism.
2:32
Endelshtein provides personal information and talks about his hometown Bolhrad, Odesa District, with a Jewish population of approximately 5000 out of 28,000. According to Endelshtein, one thousand Jews were killed in the synagogue in 1938.
21:54
Endelshtein talks about prewar Jewish life in Bolgrad and contemporary Jewish life.
31:38
Endelshtein talks about his family. His mother’s family lived in Odessa. He then discusses his childhood memories and recalls the beginnings of Romanian fascist rule. Endelshtein describes how he and his classmates had to go to the barber, who shaved a cross on their head. Endelsthein describes the population structure, consisting of Jews, Bulgarians (the majority), Romanians, Moldavians, and Roma. He studied with Bulgarian students at a Romanian school and addresses the positive relationship among the students. He remembers non-Jews who spoke Yiddish.
41:56
Endelshtein discusses prewar life Bolgrad. He recalls how his non-Jewish classmates attended synagogue services with him. Endelshtein then talks about Jewish life, including occupations and education.
10:34
Endelshtein talks about contemporary Jewish life in Mykolayiv.
25:06
Endelshtein talks about contemporary Jewish life in Voznesenski, as well as during the Soviet period. He then discusses the idea of Communism itself and in relation to Jewishness.
32:12
Endelshtein talks about his family and prewar Jewish life Bolgrad, in particular halutzim. He grew up as an only child. Endelshtein also mentions meeting a Jewish girl, who gave him a prayer book. The girl took the book from her grandmother after a mass shooting.
43:12
Endelshtein discusses Yiddish cultural life in prewar Bolgrad.
0:34
The formal part of the interview begins. Tzentziper provides personal information and talks about the Jewish agricultural colony in Dobroye, where he was born. Jews worked together with a minority of Germans and Russians. He distinguishes the colony as the place to live and the kolkhoz as the place to work. His family lived in Dobroye until 1940, when his father received a work assignment in Mykolayiv. He grew up with one brother.
23:44
Tzentziper talks about his education at the Yiddish school, which was part of the colony. In primary school, he skipped one grade. He then talks about his life in the Jewish agricultural colony, which included two kolkhozy, one of which was called “Forward.” Tzentziper attended a Yiddish school for nine years and recalls how Russian and German students studied in the surrounding villages.
31:17
Tzentziper talks about prewar Yiddish culture, including a theater. The theater building was turned into a Yiddish club in the 1930s. He then discusses holiday celebrations and Jewish life in the colony. Tzentziper remembers how his school made excursion to the bigger Jewish settlement in the Kherson region.
35:38
Tzentziper sings the well-known Yiddish song “Lomir zikh iberbetn” (Let’s make up). He then talks about Jewish life in the colony, in particular a kosher butcher. Tzentziper then discusses holiday celebration, which became more difficult in the late 1930s according to him.
43:32
Tzentziper talks about Jewish life in Mykolayiv in 1940. He then discusses Jewish life in Mykolayiv after the war, including Yiddish cultural life and the visit of an Israeli politician in 1949. Tzentziper mentions the kosher butcher and synagogue closures.
11:54
Tzentziper talks about his life in Mykolayiv after the war. He states that the Jewish school in town closed down in the 1950s. He then sings his own song about Jewish fate, which he wrote a couple of years ago.
46:12
Prewar Jewish Dzhurin and family
12:13
Kenin discusses his childhood memories, including holiday celebration and Jewish life in Nizhyn. He lists different local synagogues, including Lubavitcher, 13:35, Schneersohn’s, and occupational synagogues. He was the brother of Shmuel and Yehuda Leib Schneersohn.
22:16
Kenin talks about prewar religious life in Nizhyn. He then addresses his education at the Yiddish school, including teachers. He recalls how he participated in theater productions and the school choir.
30:56
Kenin talks about prewar Jewish life Nizhyn with, according to him, approximately 6000 people. Kenin maintains that most synagogues were closed down in the late 1930s. He recalls a Jewish bathhouse with a mikva.
34:31
Kenin talks about holiday celebration, in particular Passover. His family requested matzos at a bakery. He then talks about contemporary Jewish life and his family. He raised a daughter, who lives in Israel.
41:27
Masovich mentions his education at a Russian school and talks about Jewish life in Chernihiv.
51:05
Masovich talks about prewar Jewish life in Nizhyn and answers questions about cultural terminology and a series of dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire. He also mentions how he was not raised religiously during the Soviet period.
0:00
The team sets up the formal interview with Trachtenberg and walks toward his home. He briefly talks about his during the war, when he was imprisoned in the Mykolayiv ghetto. He then addresses prewar Jewish life in Novoseltsy with approximately 10,000 people. He then talks about his family and provides personal information. He raised two sons, one of whom lives in Israel.
2:12
Trachtenberg talks about his life during the war. He states that one thousand Jews were murdered within one night during a mass shooting. He hid during the shooting. Trachtenberg continues that in 1941 he was forced to march to the Kosharyntsi ghetto. When the Germans arrived at the ghetto, he was taken to forced labor. He then talks about prewar Jewish life.
32:16
Trachtenberg talks about prewar Jewish life, including the different synagogues. He then talks about the devastations of Novoseltsy after the war. Trachtenberg and his brother were the only surviving members of his family. He then describes living conditions in barns and barracks, located in the Kosharyntsi ghetto and the Mykolayiv concentration camp.
40:27
Trachtenberg answers questions about cultural terminology. He also addresses contemporary Jewish life and traditional weddings after the war. Trachtenberg then talks about Jewish life in the immediate postwar period. According to Trachtenberg, one thousand Jews lived in postwar Novoseltsy and met up for private services.
1:33
The second part of the tape is a formal interview with Sima (Sima Ilinichna) Moiseyevna Listengurt in the town center of Odesa. She was born 1932 in Odesa. The team meets Listengurt on the street and sets up an interview with her. She talks about her life during the war. She evacuated to 01:58 Siberia. She then talks about her family. She then gives a tour of homes of well-known Jewish figures, including Hayim Nahman Bialik. She also talks about prewar Jewish life and continues showing buildings of the former Jewish neighborhood.
10:12
Listengurt talks about her childhood memories, living with other nationalities in one building. She then addresses her family. Her father was born in Voznesensk and her mother in Lyakhova. Her parents were both orphans and moved to Odesa in 1921. She grew up with an older sister who was a nurse at the front. Listengurt evacuated to Tashkent during the war. Listengurt continues the tour of the former Jewish neighborhood, explaining former buildings, including a tuberculosis treatment center and a Yiddish school. Listengurt also addresses her uncles’ encounter with Felix Dzerzhinsky in 1920.
26:27
Listengurt continues the tour of the former Jewish neighborhood. She also discusses prewar religious life.
35:28
The formal part of the interview begins. Listengurt talks about different periods of Jewish history in Odesa and party politics. She then talks about her family, in particular her sister.
3:35
Listengurt talks about prewar Jewish life in Odesa and initial expectations of Hitler’s occupation. She then talks about Jewish life at the beginning of World War II.
19:57
Listengurt talks about Lazar Kaganovich. She then talks about prewar Jewish life on Crimea.
0:00
Vladimir Bondarchuk*, a local writer, talks in Russian about Jewish local figures and holiday celebrations.
13:53
After candle lightening, Bondarchuk continues to talk about Jewish figures.
16:29
Cherner discusses his childhood memories and Jewish life in prewar Balta. Cherner performed with his grandfather at Jewish weddings. He recalls one wedding with a wedding canopy in 1948 in Balta. Cherner also addresses postwar religious life in Balta.
37:31
Cherner talks about his family and holiday celebrations, as well as touching upon food customs. He then talks about prewar Jewish life.
24:17
Tokar talks about his life during the war. He states that his parents and sister were shot on May 9, 1942. He then discusses prewar Jewish life in Zheludok and neighboring towns, including educational and political institutions, as well as sports clubs (Tarbut school, Poale Zion, Hashomer Hatzair, Mizrakhi, Algemeyne Tsiyonistn, Betar, Kholes Hatzair). He recalls enmities between Yiddishists and Hebraists.
31:35
Tokar discusses prewar holiday celebration, in particular Purim. Tokar remembers modernized Purim celebrations. He then talks about prewar religious life. According to Tokar, more than one and a half thousand Jews lived in Zheludok. He recalls antisemitism before the war. He then talks about contemporary politics in Poland.
13:15
Tokar talks about contemporary Jewish life in Odesa. He also talks about his wife.
0:00
The first part of the tape includes town footage with a tour of the Odesa community led by Rabbi Zev Shpunt. Rabbi Shpunt talks in Russian about the community in Odesa and surrounding towns. The team walks toward the Odesa yeshiva, passing other community buildings.
24:53
Vainbrand talks about prewar Jewish life and how his family prepared for Sabbath. He then mentions his mother’s matzos baking. Vainbrand then talks about his family.
47:50
Vainbrand addresses Jewish life in Valedniki during the war. According to him, the Germans did not set up a ghetto because Valedniki was considered a holy place. Vainbrand then discusses his life in Odesa.
34:17
Brodsky talks about prewar Jewish life in Odesa and his childhood memories, including sports. He then talks about his life after the war. After he returned from his military service, he worked as a chauffeur for fifty years. Brodsky also mentions religious activity in postwar Odesa.
43:40
Brodsky talks about his life after the war when he worked as a taxi driver, as well as prewar Jewish life, including occupations. He addresses Yiddish theater performances.
53:29
Brodsky discusses prewar Jewish life.
0:00
The team greets Lerner and sets up the interview with him. He provides personal information and speaks about Jewish life in Ostroh (Yiddish: Ostrog).
10:06
Lerner addresses his childhood memories, as well as postwar Jewish life in Ostroh. He also recalls non-Jewish neighbors who spoke Yiddish.
20:34
Lerner speaks in Russian about prewar Jewish life in Orhei. He then speaks about contemporary Jewish life in the region.
42:03
Kipervaser discusses prewar Jewish life, including holiday celebration, in Berezdiv. She also talks about her family, particularly her husband. Kipervaser met her husband at school in Berezdiv.
57:23
Kipervaser talks about her husband's family and fate during World War II. She then speaks about her and Jewish life in Slavuta after the war. She moved to Slavuta (Yiddish: Slovita) in 1944. Kipervaser then speaks about her daughter's education.
44:28
Jewish Slovechno.
10:53
Celebrating holidays and prewar Jewish life.
16:11
Family and Jewish life after the war.
24:33
Prewar Jewish life and Yiddish press.
48:38
Prewar Jewish life in Novyye Veledniki and life during war.
52:31
Prewar Jewish life in Novyye Veledniki.
45:21
Childhood memories and Jewish life in Novyye Veledniki.
21:55
Prewar Jewish life in Volednick.
1:06
Life after the war and the museum in Polonnoye
23:42
Jewish life after the war
44:23
Shipitovke
MDV 639Isaak Grigorievich Vainsheinboim; Moisei (Moyshe ben Zalmen) Zelmanovich Fish bRivne, Slavuta, 2003
12:22
He speaks about the sixteen synagogues in the shtetl, divided by profession. Some of these buildings were made from brick.
48:17
The tape then switches to a formal interview (Part 1 of 2 See MDV 640) with Moisei (Moyshe ben Zalmen) Zelmanovich Fish b. March, 1922 in Rivne. He talks about how towns and villages in the area were heavily Jewish before the war, but most of his family was lost during the war. His son lives in Russia, near Finland. He can read and write in Yiddish.
6:59
Fish shares his memories about his childhood, early education and pre-war Rivne. He started going to a kheyder at 3.5 years of age where he learned how to pray. According Fish, pre-war Rivne had a population of 40,000 people, 85% of who were Jews. There were 44 synagogues in the town, which were always packed during holidays.
8:47
Fish brief retells the history of this synagogue, the former tailors’ synagogue, and other synagogues in town. The Great Synagogue closed in 1955.
13:37
Fish talks about Jewish life in Rivne after World War II. Few local Jews survived, he says. Post-war Rivne Jews were either locals who had served in the army or migrants from nearby small towns. During perestroika, in 1989 a Jewish communal organization known as the Osher Shvartsman Rivne Jewish Cultural Organization, was founded. They rented a room from the Ukrainian owner of the former tailors’ synagogue. In 1990, they established a religious Jewish communal organization, to the synagogue was restituted by the Ukrainian government. Fish was the accountant for the cultural organization from 1989 to 1997, and has been involved with the religious community since 1995. He also briefly speaks about relations with younger Jews and other Jewish organizations in the city.
25:42
Fish describes the Jewish cemetery in contemporary Rivne, the religious leadership of the community in the late 1940s and mixed marriages in recent years.
31:53
Fish takes the interviewers to the former Great Synagogue (a sports hall) and he describes the paintings and inscriptions that used to be on the wall, as well as his memories of the town’s cantors.
39:35
Fish shows the interviewers old Jewish buildings while walking through the streets of Rivne. He remembers old Yiddish theater performances, reports on old communal institutions, and points out the old Polish and Jewish sport stadiums, where the Jewish sport teams played.
43:37
Fish and the team talk to a random stranger on street about location of the city baths before war .
45:30
Fish shares his personal recollections of the town’s pre-war baths and mivkes. He also speaks about growth of Rivne after the war, and how Christians move into former Jewish homes.
1:21
Fish describes the pre-war Jewish bathhouse and swimming in the town’s rivers.
5:35
Fish then reminisces about the Jewish sports stadium Hasmeneye and its famous, successful Jewish teams.
17:50
Fish describes the Jewish youth clubs of pre-war Rivne.
33:30
Before the war, according to Fish, Rivne had its own Yiddish theater. After the war, Nehama Lifshitsaite and other Yiddish performers came to the city.
39:36
Fish sings a fragment of a variant of Yidl mitn Fidl and mentions a movie theater in Rivne that showed some Yiddish films as well as silent films with Polish intertitles.
57:01
According to Kurliandchik, the synagogues in Novohrad-Volyns’kyy were all closed in 1934. After that, a minyen (minyan) would come together in a private home on shabes (the Sabbath). A synagogue was briefly re-established in the town after the war.
5:18
Before the war, Novohrad-Volyns’kyy, the town were Litvak was born in 1925, was mostly Jewish; she remembers only one non-Jew who lived on her street growing up. The town had two Yiddish schools that were both closed around 1937, one having been converted to a Russian-language school.
25:29
In the pre-war period, according to Litvak, there was only one synagogue. It had a women’s section on the balcony. There was probably more than one synagogue, Litvak admits, but she only remembers one synagogue and one church in the town during those years.
26:27
In the pre-war period, according to Litvak, there was only one synagogue. It had a women’s section on the balcony. There was probably more than one synagogue, Litvak admits, but she only remembers one synagogue and one church in the town during those years.
28:12
Shteingart describes his father's work, and how he learned how to read Yiddish at home from his father. He then continues with his description of pre-war Kovel’, a town with many non-Jews, Poles and Ukrainians, who spoke Yiddish. Shteingart also remembers the town’s various churches.
32:55
Shteingart shares his memories of Kovel’’s Great Synagogue, relating how women prayed on the balcony and how famous cantors came to the synagogue.
51:38
Shteingart then speaks about the last years in Kovel’ before the war. He describes the changes that came to the town when Kovel’ became Soviet in 1939, saying that the transformation was not for the better, even with the numerous Yiddish schools, newspapers and publishing houses that the new regime established. He also notes how the Soviets closed down Kovler shtime, the local pre-war newspaper.
0:00
This tape begins with a formal interview with Maria (Makhlye) Leibovna Frayerman née Khiterman. She was born in 1915 in Berezdov, a small town not far from Slavuta that was populated primarily by Jews before the war. In the 1930s, she worked for two years as a bookkeeper in a village called Kutki and then moved to Novohrad-Volyns’kyy in 1933.
48:09
Khiterman describes the three synagogues in her town before the war, two of which were for poorer members of the community.
49:56
Her son shares his memories of going to synagogue in Novohrad-Volyns’kyy in the post-war period, stating that this place was closed down by the authorities in 1952-53. Khiterman further describes the synagogue in Novohrad-Volyns’kyy, and who went there. According to Khiterman, Komsomol (Communist youth league) members would receive penalties if they went to services in the synagogue.
9:51
Fish details his prewar education in “kheyder,” and in Polish-language Jewish schools. He also describes the religious “Beys HaSeyfer” in the town, and how each ethnic group in the city had its own school system in their own language.
17:20
Fish describes some of Rivne’s 44 synagogues from before the war.
20:43
In Rivne, according to Fish, there were two Jewish theaters, as well as a movie theater that played Yiddish movies. Fish saw “Yidl mitn Fidl” in the latter institution.
33:09
According to Fish, before the war, 28,000-30,000 of Rivne’s 40,000 residents were Jews. In the last Ukrainian census, Fish reports, there were 442 self-registered Jews in the city, 7% of whom said they could speak Yiddish. Fish maintains that at least 80% of the these Jews are from mixed families. [00:35:26] Fish relates his experiences during the war years, travelling by foot to the Polish-USSR border, where he was then evacuated into the Russian interior and, eventually, into Kazakhstan. After working in a Korean kolkhoz (collective farm), he was eventually mobilized into the Red Army, fighting in Belarus, Poland, Germany and the Far East.
51:11
Fish returns to the subject of prewar Jewish life in Rivne, speaking about Yiddish films and Jewish sports organizations. He remembers the special 1938 “Makabiade” games between Jewish soccer teams across Poland in honor of the republic’s 20th anniversary. Professor Kerler also asks Fish about words and phrases relating to sports and gameplay.
14:45
Fish enumerates the surrounding shtetlekh where a few Jews can be found, but comments on the inclination toward mixed marriages even among his own sons.
0:00
Continuation of interview with Abram (Arkadii, Abrashe) Khaimovich Vaisman, born 1940 in Sharhorod. (Part 2 of 4. See MDV 655, MDV 656, and Accession # 09-010.58-F MDV 776) His father, named Khayem was also born in Sharhorod, and, having lost his right hand, did not work. His grandmother owned a store. Vaisman is named for his grandfather Avrum. His mother Blume was born in Chernivtsi (Kleyn Tshernovits), a shtetl 15km away and worked as a seamstress. Vaisman has three siblings: Roza (b. 1923), Danya (b. 1929) and Kolmen (b. 1936), the third of whom now lives in Israel. Although Vaisman is now retired, he worked for the local newspaper as a photographer/photo-journalist, a craft he learned from his brother Danya and loved to do. Vaisman remembers Jewish religious holidays and how his father used to pray in shul (synagogue). Although he has been told that there were eight synagogues in the town before the war, he remembers only one shul, which was burned down after the war 40-45 years ago. Vaisman went to Ukrainian schools growing up and learned some English, but he cannot read or write in Yiddish. Vaisman describes his town as a Jewish city until emigration and shows old photos he took of the town’s elderly Jews, most of whom have since left for America or Israel. In Sharhorod, according to Vaisman, there were all kinds of Jews in the town, both religious and non-religious. He also tells the interviewers about the two tsadikim (righteous men) buried in Sharhorod’s cemetery who have been popularly credited with the fact that no Jews were killed when the Germans came to the town (Vaisman adds that some Jews also bought their way out of danger). Unlike other shtetlekh (towns) in the area where all the Jews were killed, in Sharhorod the Romanians killed no Jews.
0:00
Klava Vaisman (Abram's daughter) used to work as a machinist and typist, although she has never learned how to work on a computer. The camera cuts to the Vaisman family outside their house, speaking about contemporary Jewish life in the town and why they do not want to leave. Abram leads the research team to the old Jewish cemetery where the local tsadikim (righteous men) are buried. Shots of the street leading away from cemetery. Passing the plant on the road, Dov-Ber Kerler explains thistles, which are thrown in the hair of those crying on Tisha b’Av. Abram leads the team to the home of Faina (Feyge) Rivelis. The researchers go into Rivelis’s house and begin a formal interview. She remembers her parents, Shmil Khayem and Sheyve Srulovna Rivelis, as very pious. Her father was a tailor and had four kids, of whom she was youngest (b. 1916). She remembers the shul (synagogue) in town, and religious holidays, including Passover. As a child, she attended Yiddish schools where she learned to read and write in that language. Faina lived in Germany for a year, but returned to Sharhorod to be between her “fir vent”, her “four walls”. Rivelis recalls how the Jews in her town survived the war years, but nevertheless lived through hardship and hunger. Faina worked for fifty years in the village government. Rivelis answers a series of dialectological and linguistic questions about the Yiddish language. Outside Rivelis’s home, the researchers also talk to Faina about her father’s old prayer books. Shots of the town’s old synagogue. Video of the team driving on the road at night.
0:00
The camera focuses on the interior of his house with its newly placed mezuzahs. Exterior shots of courtyard. Street scenes of Bratslav. Researchers speaking and taking photos with the informant outside his home. Street scenes of Bratslav. Kupershimdt leads the team to the Bratslav cemetery where Reb Nosn haTsadik is buried and tells them about the shtetl along the way. Scenes of the Bratslav cemetery. Scenes of Sharhorod. The researchers begin a formal interview with Mikhail (Motya) Isaakovich Yerikhman, who was born in Sharhorod in 1939. (Part 1 of 3. See MDV 658 and MDV 659) He starts his interview talking about his family, including his son, now in Israel, and his nephew, who still lives in Sharhorod, who has became religious. Yerikhman remembers Sharhorod as being a Jewish shtetl into the 1990s, where all the non-Jews spoke Yiddish. During the war, Yerikhman tells the interviewers, only two Jews died in the town, both of whom, a deaf man and a woman, were killed by accident. He also describes the town’s wartime ghetto population as being almost exclusively women and children, as most of the local men were drafted into the Red Army and were thus on the front. Yerikhman also talks about the Pechera camp where Jews from the whole region were killed.
0:00
Yerikhman explains his views against emigration to Germany, Israel, etc. and why he is in love with his shtetl. His nephew Igor’ takes the team inside to look at and read from old religious texts. Scenes of Sharhorod and exterior of the synagogue. Yerikhman explains more about Jewish life in the shtetl as the team goes inside the synagogue (it is now a wine factory). More scenes of Sharhorod from the exterior of the synagogue. Screen goes black for a moment until it reveals Luda, his sister-in-law, inviting the research team inside Luda’s cafe-restaurant Dana (named after grandaughter). Dov-Ber Kerler explains to the camera that although Luda is not Jewish, she learned to speak Yiddish by talking with her mother-in-law. Luda understands most of the questions posed to her in Yiddish, but finds it easiest to respond in Russian. The research team meets and interviews “Bobe Klara” (Klara Lvovna Kurman), who was born in 1930 in Sharhorod. (Part 1 of 2. See MDV 660) Kurman speaks first of all about her family, including her grandfather Leyb the apothecary, her father Leyb the feldsher (born in Kam”yanets’-Podil’s’kyy, d. 1954), her mother Rivke (d. 1976) and siblings Boris, Etta and Misha. During the war, her family hid in a cellar in the house where she still lives. She remembers the Romanians and the Romanian Jews who came to Sharhorod during the war and how they paid for help.
11:23
Earliest childhood memories and Jewish life in prewar Shepetivka
9:41
Jewish religious and geographical life
37:26
Education and prewar Jewish life.
7:10
Shvartsburg talks about prewar Jewish life in Skvyra, how he remembers it from his family's stories. He then discusses postwar Jewish life in Skvyra.
13:25
Shvartsburg and the team arrive at the synagogue and the camera collects synagogue footage, while Shvartsburg gives a tour. He then talks about synagogue activities and the its architecture, as well as contemporary Jewish life. The building of the current synagogue is based on photographs of a 19th century synagogue building, which was destroyed in the 1930s.
38:54
Childhood memories of Jewish Ostroh.
48:15
Prewar Jewish Ostroh and concluding interview.
48:58
Prewar and postwar Jewish life and family.
0:00
Prewar Jewish life in Starokostyantyniv.
7:00
Berger gives a tour of the prewar Jewish neighborhood in Svalyava. They are headed to the town's synagogue. The complex around the synagogue was used as an industrial plant, bakery, during the postwar Soviet period.
10:12
The team arrives at the synagogue area and takes a tour, led by Berger. According to him, the synagogue was closed in 1946. An unidentified man provides information in Russian on the renovation of the synagogue.
43:26
The team, together with Berger, head to the next interview with Tartinets. He gives a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood.
54:35
Dorfman gives some historical background on the synagogue. The synagogue was built between 1924 and 1931. Dorfman himself worked at the synagogue. He then describes the conditions of the building in the immediate post-Soviet period and how Dorfman helped to fix it up. He then talks about contemporary religious life, including rabbis. The camera then records footage of the synagogue area.
4:54
Burshtein talks about prewar cultural life, as well as traditional weddings. He also briefly mentions Jewish life in Bershad and recalls a local musician.
30:05
The camera cuts outside and Burshtein provides information about the former Jewish neighborhood, before the team concludes the interview with him. The camera also collects town footage and the team chats with an unidentified community member in Russian.
34:33
The team travels from Haysyn to Teplyk, while the camera collects town footage. After the team arrives, Boris Chechelnitskii, the mayor of the town, greets them on the streets of Teplyk. Chechelnitskii talks in Russian about contemporary Jewish life in Teplyk.
25:35
Yakuta addresses her father's observances and pilgrimages. She then talks about prewar Jewish life in Teplyk, including synagogue (tailor's, cobbler's, klezmer's, wealthy's, pauper's) and occupational structure, local klezmers, as well as traditional weddings.
38:26
Yakuta addresses the synagogue structure of prewar Teplyk.
10:07
Yakuta speaks about prewar Jewish and religious life in Teplyk. She describes how the community gathered in private homes in the 1930s. Yakuta then addresses her family's life in the 1930s. Yakuta explains how Ukrainian officials arrested her uncle in search for money.
17:02
Yakuta speaks about prewar Jewish life and infrastructure. She then talks about prewar Sukkot celebrations at home.
11:50
Marinina shares her memories of prewar Jewish life and her early education. When she was approximately ten years old, her family moved to the Lunacharkskii kolkhoz in the Crimea, where her family received assistance from the American Jewish organization Agro-Joint.
7:56
Marinina speaks about Jewish life in Teplyk before her family moved to Crimea, stating that she had both Jewish and non-Jewish friends. There were many non-Jews who spoke Yiddish well in the town, according to Marinina, and many of them were killed by the Germans during the war.
0:00
This tape consists of a formal interview with Sofia (Sonye) Moiseevna Palatnikova (b. 1927 in Teplyk) (part 1 of 3. See MDV 688 and MDV 689). She discusses prewar Jewish life in the Crimea, where her family moved in 1930, and in Teplyk, where she was born and to where her family returned in 1940. Before 1930, her father worked as a successful butcher. In 1930, the family was sent to live on the Lunacharka kolkhoz in the Crimea and Palatnikova describes what life was like there in her youth. She attended a Russian-language school in a nearby Tatar village and then a Ukrainian-language school once her family moved back to Teplyk. She also recites a fragment from the popular Soviet Yiddish song “Dzhankoye”.
0:00
This tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Sofia (Sonye) Moiseevna Palatnikova (b. 1927 in Teplyk) (part 2 of 3. See MDV 687 and MDV 689). She discusses prewar Jewish life, noting that holiday celebrations did not take place in the synagogue, but rather at home. She remembers how Passover was strictly observed with a different set of dishes. Reflecting on her father’s work as a butcher, Palatnikova discusses the differences between Jewish and non-Jewish consumption of meat before the war as it related to the kosher status of the meat and different kinds of fasts that non-Jews observed. She also comments on contemporary eating practices of chicken.
18:56
The team drives around Teplyk with Leonid Trachtenburg, the director of the Jewish Community of Teplyk, who points out important historical Jewish sites in Teplyk, including sites related to the Holocaust, the sites of former synagogues, and the cemetery. The tape concludes with the beginning of an interview with Maria Andreevna Yakuta.
30:35
Gliazer recalls his home life as a child, describing his mother, his sister who immigrated to Palestine in 1927 and his pious maternal grandfather (d. 1939). He also details the various types of people that lived in his shtetl (town).
7:08
According to Gliazer, Podgaytse had popular Jewish public baths that included a “mikve” (ritual bath) that was used by the men before shabes (the Sabbath). Gliazer also recalls the town’s different synagogues and other religious institutions.
1:47
Speaking in Russian, Larisa Kliuch leads the team on a tour of Krements’, pointing out the place of former synagogues, old Jewish homes, the location of the wartime ghetto, and other sites of interest as they drive around the town.
3:08
The team drives to the town’s Jewish cemetery, where Professor Kerler reports his great-grandfather is buried. Kliuch mentions that financial assistance from an American “landsmanshaft” (former residents of the town) organization is used to keep the cemetery in good condition.
5:47
Kliuch leads the team through the cemetery, indicating its oldest sections and other distinguishing features. She notes that many gravestones were taken by Nazis to build roads in the town and that other local non-Jews used the stones to build their houses. She also reports that local photographer Valerii Rozenblit has taken a photograph of every gravestone in the cemetery for proper documentation. The research team also says “kadish” (a memorial prayer) at an unidentified grave.
18:52
Back in the car, Kliuch talks about the history of the local Jewish community and the difficulties of publishing research on Jewish topics, all the while pointing out different sites of interest along the way.
22:35
Kliuch leads the team to an old synagogue that is now part of the bus station. There are also scenes of the town and a closer look at an older building.
26:58
The team returns to the car as Kliuch continues discussing the history of the town and indicating various landmarks.
36:57
Another brief drive, during which Kliuch touches upon various historical topics.
43:17
Back in the car, Kliuch relates further anecdotes about the town’s history as well as the stories of some of its families. Cities and towns mentioned on this tape: Kremenets’, Mohyliv-Podil’s’kyy
29:50
Shveibish talks about her life after the war and her family, before she addresses contemporary Jewish life in the surrounding towns.
0:00
The continuation of the formal interview with Rita Davidovna Shveibish in a café in Tul'chyn. (Part 2 of 2. See MDV 708) She talks about the Jewish community and life in Tul'chyn today and before World War II. In the past, there was a thriving cultural life in Tul'chyn. She talks about ghettos during the Romanian occupation. She continues to answer a series of dialectology questions about the Yiddish language. She then discusses religious practices immediately after the war. She provides more information about local Yiddish speakers in towns nearby.
0:00
Kogan addresses prewar Jewish life in Bershad, including Jewish and non-Jewish relations. Kogan also recalls non-Jews who spoke Yiddish. He then talks about the local Yiddish school in Bershad. According to him, non-Jews also attended the school. Kogan then addresses his school education.
16:02
Kogan talks about postwar Jewish life, after his return to Bershad. He recalls how the community gave secret donations to keep the synagogue open. Kogan then addresses his life in Tulchyn, where he worked in a procurement office.
18:30
Kogan speaks about prewar Jewish life in Bershad, including locals. He then briefly addresses prewar holiday celebration at home, as well as his family. Kogan's father visited America before World War I. He grew up with one brother, who lives in America and two sisters.
14:03
Golfeld returns to discussing the help of the rebbe in Chechelnyk. Golfeld then recounts postwar Jewish life in the region. He also shares an episode about Leybish Kishke in the Tulchyn ghetto, before addressing the moment when the Germans entered Tulchyn.
26:21
Golfeld discusses his childhood memories, before addressing prewar Jewish life in Tulchyn. He also addresses the local synagogue structure. Golfeld continues to answer dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire.
43:28
Golfeld talks about the prewar infrastructure of Tulchyn, before he continues to answer dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire.
33:34
Kogan speaks about prewar Jewish life in Bershad, shortly before Stalin's persecution campaigns. He also shares an episode when he met Solomon Mikhoels in Bershad. Kogan then speaks about Jewish writings.
2:56
On the way to the next interview, Shveibish provides a tour of a former Jewish neighborhood in Tulchyn. She also lists the names of former residents and points out former Jewish stores.
6:22
Shveibish briefly speaks about her training as a nurse in Tulchyn and then Vinnytsya after the war. She then addresses the prewar and postwar Jewish population of a Tulchyn neighborhood.
8:57
Shveibish addresses the prewar synagogue structure of Tulchyn and prewar local Jewish life. Shveibish and the team get back into the van and Shveibish continues her tour of the former Jewish neighborhood.
37:02
Yurkovetskij addresses his life before the war and recalls the Great Hunger in 1933 and poverty. He also addresses prewar Jewish life in Tulchyn, including the synagogue structure. Yurkovetskij returns to his sons' circumcision in 1941 and lists names of Jewish locals who were excluded from the Party.
50:42
Yurkovetskij talks about contemporary Jewish life in Tulchyn. He then addresses postwar Jewish life in Tulchyn. Yurkovetskij and Shveibish address survival statistics, before he talks about his life during the war. Yurkovetskij was also imprisoned in the Bershad ghetto. He also addresses the ghetto conditions.
0:00
Yurkovetskij talks about prewar Jewish life, including kosher butchers.
13:17
Yurkovetskij talks about prewar Jewish life in Tulchyn. According to Shveibish, there was a local Yiddish school until 1939. Yurkovetskij then addresses food customs, as well as the relationship between Jews and non-Jews before the war.
15:21
Shveibish talks about postwar and contemporary Jewish life in Tulchyn. She also addresses her traditional wedding in 1958, as well as postwar religious life in Tulchyn. Shveibish states that families would travel to Bratslav for their sons' circumcision. She then returns to postwar traditional wedding celebrations, including food customs.
4:11
Aleksandr briefly speaks about the community, before the team greets Pesia Kolodenker, born 1927 in Tulchyn, as well as Yenta's son. They then walk to Yenta's, nee Tolkovitz, home, born 1927 in Tulchyn.
30:46
Yenta and Pesia speak about prewar Jewish life in Tulchyn, particularly anecdotes about the local wealthy Jew "Roytshulem" (Sholem Royt). Tolkovitz and Alexandr then addresses Jewish life in the ghetto, shortly before liberation.
49:40
They discuss Jewish life in prewar Tulchyn, including the relationship between Jews and non-Jews. Pesia then shares food customs for Sabbath and weddings.
10:31
Shveibish addresses contemporary Jewish life in Tulchyn, including communal support, as well as from abroad for holiday celebration. She also describes her communal work.
17:02
Shveibish briefly talks about her life in the Pechera concentration camp. She then addresses contemporary Jewish life in the region, including antisemitic incidents. Shveibish maintains that the numbers of the Jewish population is dwindling. Shveibish provides information on Tulchyn Jewish residents.
28:53
Kogan's wife talks about her life during the war, when she was imprisoned in the Zhabokrych ghetto. Kogan briefly addresses postwar Jewish life in the region.
MDV 728Lev Shayevich Kolodenker; Aleksandr Shayevich Kolodenker; Pesia Kolodenker and 1 moreTul'chyn, 2009
6:07
Lev provides personal information and talks about his family. His father was also born in Tulchyn and worked as coachman. He then addresses the fate of the Tulchyn community when the Germans occupied the region in 1941. Lev describes forced assemblies, disinfection in the local Yiddish school and forced marches to the Pechera concentration camp. He then speaks about his family's fate, as well as living conditions among Jews from different regions in the camp. Among other themes, Lev addresses cannibalism, forced labor, mass graves in a near-by forest and burial.
46:30
Lev speaks about prewar Jewish life in Tulchyn. Pesia addresses prewar cultural life, as well as her education at a Yiddish school for five years.
51:07
Lev surveys Jewish history, before Yenta addresses postwar religious life in Tulchyn. Her father was a baker and frequently attended services after the war. Lev's mother was born in Tomashpil.
MDV 729Lev Shayevich Kolodenker; Aleksandr Shayevich Kolodenker; Pesia Kolodenker and 1 moreTul'chyn, 2009
18:31
Pesia talks about prewar Jewish life in Tulchyn, particularly wedding celebrations and customs. Lev and Yenta also speak about contemporary local life.
25:24
Pesia speaks about prewar Jewish life and mentions anecdotes about the wealthy Jew Roytshulem (Sholem Royt). Pesia states that her school organized excursions to his house.
33:02
Yenta talks about her family. Yenta then speaks about prewar Jewish life in Tulchyn and recalls poverty. Pesia also addresses prewar religious life and mentions a local synagogue. Lev shares an episode where they officials would not allow an extension of the synagogue.
28:47
The second part of the tape takes place in Uman' and is a formal interview with the cousins Efim Isaakovich Rubin, born in 1922, and Matvei Vladimirovich Rubin, born in 1928 (part 1 of 3. See MDV 734 and MDV 735). The interview is recorded at the grave of the Tsadik Nahman of Bratslav. They discuss the name of the town Uman'.
8:20
Jewish Buki before the war
16:01
Discussing Jewish buildings
43:02
Jewish life before the war
MDV 741Nukhim Moiseevich (Moshkovich) Gvinter; unidentified informant (Bershad'); Efim VigodnerUman', Bershad', 2008
9:29
Arrival at the synagogue in Bershad' and discussion about Jewish community
31:11
The formal part of the interview begins. Ernest discusses his childhood memories of Mukacheve, where half of the population was Jewish, as well as his family. He grew up with two sisters, who now live in Israel. He descended from a Hasidic family. His father taught at the yeshiva and his grandfather worked for the burial society (chevra kadisha). Ernest attended religious school (cheder) from the age of three until his bar mitzvah, at age thirteen. After his bar mitzvah, he worked in a factory. According to Ernest, work was hard, but it was sufficient to make ends meet. His father owned a small store.
41:25
The second part of the tape includes a tour through the former Jewish parts of Uzhorod with Nusn Leyb Naybauer, born 1924 in Velké Kapušany in today’s Slovakia. They drive to the three former synagogues of Uzhorod. Today the buildings are used as a concert hall, local phone company, and university building. His mother was born in Mala Dobron. His family moved to a village when Naybauer was one year old, where his father worked in an equestrian military facility. His father’s friend arranged work for him. His family lived in Mala Dobron until their deportation to Auschwitz.
47:28
They stop at a former religious school (cheder). Naybauer points out the former matzo bakery, at today’s university of Uzhorod. Naybauer talks about prewar Jewish life.
49:00
Naybauer talks about life during World War II, during his imprisonment in the Hungarian forced labor (i.e. "Munka Tabor") within the labor battalion of the Hungarian army. They arrive at the former Great Synagogue. Naybauer discusses religious life after the war. The Jewish community used the synagogue until it was closed down in 1948. When the former head of the Jewish community, Bergider, heard that the Great Synagogue was about to be closed down, he went to Moscow to speak with Golda Meir to prevent the closure. As soon as Bergider returned to Uzhorod, he was arrested and sentenced to twenty-five years in jail. Bergider was in jail for seven years and died two weeks after his release. Naybauer then briefly remembers prewar Hasidic life; before talking about holiday celebration today. Naybauer remembers that Jews hid their belongings in two synagogues, before they were forced into the ghetto. He then returns to talking about prewar Jewish life and institutions. Naybauer grew up as the oldest of five siblings. His father could not work for health reasons and therefore Naybauer had to help the “kosher sausage dealer “ carry meat.
39:04
They approach the third building of a former synagogue. Naybauer talks about prewar Jewish life in general.
48:38
The team begins the formal interview in a restaurant. Naybauer talks about his family. His father and sister perished in Auschwitz. Naybauer then talks about his childhood memories of Mala Dobron, in particular his father Avrum, who died of the flu in the 1930s. He then lists several Jewish families who lived in Mala Dobron and discusses prewar religious life.
6:16
Naybauer talks about a Yiddish language book on the history of Uzhhorod. He continues his recollections of life in the DP camp. He explains that he met a cousin, who had been in the same concentration camp as his mother, and who told him that his mother was still alive and was looking for him. In the hopes of finding his mother, he decided to purchase a train ticket to Uzhhorod instead of going to Palestine. Naybauer then talks about the reunion with his uncle and mother.
25:48
Zinger talks about life before World War II. He served in the Czech army from 1936 through 1939 and then returned to Velykyi Bereznyi. Zinger explains that his father organized a tailor apprenticeship for him when he was 14 years old. He then briefly discusses prewar Jewish life. He attended religious school (cheder).
43:55
Zinger recalls Jewish life before the war in Velykyi Bereznyi. His father worked as a tombstone carver (matseyve kritser) during the summer. Zinger assisted his father in the cemetery. During the winter, his father was a frame builder and glazier. Zinger then talks about the local prayer house, before addressing religious life today.
25:16
Kapaygerod before the war and introduction
1:14
Introducing AHEYM project. Early childhood memories of Jewish Kapaygerod
25:28
Drinking customs and Jewish population before the war
11:18
Chirkova speaks about the fate of the local Jews during World War II.
0:00
Furer talks about prewar Jewish life, particularly wealthy people. Out of a population of 10,000 lived 8,000 Jews, according to Furer. He then addresses his religious childhood education. He studied with a religious teacher (melamed) for a year and a half. Furer recalls the morning prayer "Modeh ani."
10:58
Vainer-Shpak remembers prewar religious life, specifically a local rabbi. She then answers questions about cultural terminology, before she addresses prewar Jewish life in Bratslav.
15:10
The team takes a tour of the former Jewish neighborhood in Sharhorod, led by Barshteyn.
50:21
Barshteyn shows Jewish cemetery
29:41
Barshteyn characterizes Romanian Jewish communities from Bessarabia, Moldova and Romania. She then briefly returns to the German invasion of Sharhorod. Barshsteyn also talks about contemporary life.
44:40
Khazin mentions that there were more than 10 synagogues in Vinnytsya before the war. He recalls some Yiddish songs, especially comic songs. His father and mother both used to sing.
31:17
Jewish life before the war
0:00
The first part of the tape is a continuation of a tour of the synagogue with Arnold Grigorevich Khazin, recorded in Vinnytsya. Khazin talks in Russian about prewar Jewish life and institutions.
4:59
Nayman, nee Shvarts, provides personal information and talks about Jewish life before the war. According to Nayman, thirty families resided in Turya-Bystra, where she lived until she was deported in 1944. She provides information about her family. Her father was a blacksmith and a Cohen. She grew up with one brother, who helped out in the smithy, one sister and four more brothers. Her mother gave birth to eleven children. Nayman then talks about her education. She explained that she would listen in on classes held for boys in a religious school (cheder). Nayman then addresses childhood memories. She and her mother would help the non-Jews work the fields with their horse. Her own family owned and worked a plot of land of two hectare and animals.
40:40
Nayman discusses prewar Jewish life and recalls her father visiting rebbes in surrounding towns. She then talks about a Zionist organization from Uzhhorod, which came to her home town. Her father would not allow her and her brother to attend the meeting. She remembers how her father punished her for putting on makeup. Nayman then talks about Sabbath celebrations at home and recites Sabbath prayers (God of Abraham), before she discusses Hanukkah celebrations. Nayman recalls a few words in biblical Hebrew.
54:19
Nayman talks about religious life today and customs, before she remembers Sukkot celebrations before the war and today. Nayman then recalls names for non-Jewish holidays. She then discusses her relationship with non-Jewish neighbors before the war. Nayman then talks about life after the war in Studenyy (her husband’s home town), where she and her husband lived for thirty years. According to Nayman, eighty Jewish families resided there before the war. Her husband was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Poland from 1941 to 1945. She talks about his life during the war in a concentration camp, and about his escape.
12:08
Nayman then talks about prewar Jewish life and her school education in Turya-Bystra. She then talks about contemporary Jewish life in Vynohradiv (Yiddish: Selish). Nayman moved there in 1978 and remembers that none of the congregants could read the prayer book except for her husband. She then talks about non-Jews speaking Yiddish in her home town, in particular a housemaid.
6:15
The camera cuts to the square in front of the L’viv Opera House. The team continues their drive, while Dorfman indicates various points of interest, including the site of the former wartime ghetto and Jewish historical sites.
10:24
The team continues driving into the countryside outside L’viv, while Dorfman relates further stories about the sites they pass, about the region’s history and contemporary visits by foreign tourists. Upon entering Zhovkva, Dorfman relates the Jewish history of the town.
34:32
Lebvol speaks about prewar Zhovkva and the history of the Jewish house in which she lives. She describes the town’s synagogues and Jewish religious life, detailing various holiday observances, and explaining the differences between prewar and contemporary Passover–related practices.
24:32
Lebvol addresses Jewish life before the war, in particular Hasidic neighbors.
27:31
Lebvol returns to her performance in the "Yoysef-shpil." She then describes prewar Jewish Zhovka.
31:38
Childhood memories of Jewish Velyka P'yatyhirka.
0:00
Jewish Berdychiv before the war.
25:48
Jewish life in Zhytomyr today.
51:15
Jewish life and architecture in Piotke before and during the war.
14:51
History of Zhytomyr synagogue.
35:02
Jewish life in Zhytomyr after war.
41:42
Rabbi Wilgelm discusses geography.
26:28
Jewish life in Zhytomyr today and history.
43:58
Prewar Jewish life in Gorove.
1:36
Prewar Jewish life in Pyatka and family.
34:11
Jewish political and religious life in prewar Gorovo.
39:54
Geography and Jewish history of Pulen.
0:00
Town quarrel and prewar shtetl life.
11:49
Surrounding area of Pulen.
14:43
Geography of Chervonoarmiys’k.
16:01
Jewish cemetery in Chervonoarmiys’k and life during the war.
6:25
Town Pyotke.
10:23
Political district Pyotke.
37:01
Visiting Pyotke and son of rabbi in Pyotke.
6:36
Jewish life in Pulen.
14:40
Prewar Jewish life and potential interviewees.
28:59
Jewish life in postwar Zhytomyr.
10:51
Oltkonstantin today.
53:16
Prewar Korosten and Yiddish song.
6:28
Prewar Jewish life in Pulen.
Passages where only the machine transcript mentions this topic
827 passages whose catalogue entry does not mention the topic but whose transcript-based description does — many of them on tapes the catalogue describes only with labels. A paraphrase of a machine reading; how this layer was made.
Show the 827 passages
26:47
From the machine transcript
Rezmovits describes his Orthodox community in Debrecen. In the morning he studied secular subjects at a school in the Real School Street, and in the afternoon he went to the talmud torah in the same building. He and Kerler discuss the synagogue on Post Street, a cantor whose son became an opera singer in Switzerland, and the Paul Robeson records he collected. They also talk about the surviving remnant of the old school with its Star of David on a window grating, the mikveh, and the Orthodox and status quo communities in the same street.
5:22
From the machine transcript
Smajovics says non-Jews who knew Yiddish lived nearby, and that Jews spoke Hungarian or a different Yiddish so as not to be understood. He gives his parents' birth years as asked and says that the region had no yeshiva of its own, so boys were sent to yeshivot in Seliš, Khust, Mukachevo and Slovakia. He describes the big cheder with outside boys who ate at different homes, and the age limit of 13 or 14 for studying there.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Opening chat with Kerler about the recording and the date; Herbst then gives his Hebrew and Hungarian names and says he was born on the eve of Passover in 1925 in Berlabash, a very small village between Rakhiv and Trebushany. He discusses the names of the village in different languages and the changing states that ruled the area (Hungarian, Czechoslovak, Soviet, Ukrainian), and says he lived there until the war. Early in the passage he also comments on American aid to Jews after the war.
9:13
From the machine transcript
Herbst answers a question on whether his family said challah or 'barkhes'. Kerler asks where in Hungary Jews spoke Yiddish; Herbst names small towns in the north of the country, among them Tokaj and Kalov, where there were many Yiddish-speaking Jews, and the talk turns to Slovakia. He says he would rather talk about the hard postwar years another time. Kerler thanks him and asks for a religious saying he remembers.
29:30
From the machine transcript
Dof says he was born in Uzhhorod but grew up in Khust, where the great rabbi Dushinsky was and whose synagogue still stands. During the war he was in the ghetto with his mother, her sister and the children. He attended cheder and a Hebrew school in Khust, with a Hebrew gymnasium also mentioned.
32:03
From the machine transcript
Dof says he is now a cantor in a Budapest community in Buda. He describes the big Khust synagogue with its cantor and a strict beit midrash, and his cheder with a fine rabbi. He recalls hearing a Yiddish sermon on Yom Kippur in a 'Polish' synagogue on the street where the family lived before the war; Kerler asks for the year. He lives in Buda now and says the synagogue there has Friday-night services. Few Yiddish speakers are left, since many died in the Holocaust; Hungarian Jews spoke Hungarian, some German.
42:12
From the machine transcript
Kerler meets Shloyme Levkovich, who comes from a village near Debrecen. They talk about whether he speaks Yiddish and about Hungarian being a hard language. Kerler explains that Levkovich is nicknamed Tsures-bachi because he is always complaining, and that he is the best Debrecen speaker he has met. Levkovich says Purim was celebrated with baking and recalls a bit of the Purim play. Kerler then talks with a colleague, partly in English, about the meeting and his age, and they leave to see the synagogue, where they see Yiddish-speaking children with sidelocks from Vienna.
55:25
From the machine transcript
The team greets Gotlieb in her apartment and introduces themselves by first names. Kerler explains the Yiddish interview, and she says she has no one to speak Yiddish with. They speak of the Yismach Moshe Teitelbaum, buried in her home town, and she refers to her husband and son, now dead, and relatives in Brazil. She says the town was called Ihel in Yiddish, and Kerler states the date and begins the interview.
55:08
From the machine transcript
Gotlieb recalls prewar Jewish weddings as beautiful, with singing but no instruments among the Orthodox and men and women separate; she says the rebbe danced a mitzvah dance with his followers. She describes sermons in the synagogue given in Yiddish or Hungarian and Hasidic life of study and singing. The passage ends with a discussion of the difference between rov and rebbe and their plurals, with Neolog and Orthodox rabbis.
3:28
From the machine transcript
Rezmovits talks about prewar Debrecen and his Jewish community, including an episode of his mother and the ritual slaughterer. He describes his mother's humor and patience, and how she managed six children while his father was in forced labor. The family lived in a long courtyard on a street in Debrecen. He and Kerler discuss the word for a snack (a Hungarian-Yiddish word, "yaznt").
10:33
From the machine transcript
Rezmovits and Kerler discuss who ate the carp's head with gefilte fish and how customs differed regionally. They then turn to Yiddish dialects: Hungarian-born speakers in Debrecen, the Carpathian region near Beregszász, Munkács and Nyíregyháza, and Budapest speakers' pronunciation. He recalls being annoyed by a Budapest pronunciation of a holiday name.
38:46
From the machine transcript
Rezmovits discusses cheder and prewar religious education in Debrecen, especially his teacher Reb Falkovitsh (?). He recalls being caught reading a novel under the table and the teacher's reaction, and describes his harsh but respected melamed, who taught Humash, Rashi and some Gemara. He mentions other melamed names, and says the last year brought the worst beatings. The Germans occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944.
48:07
From the machine transcript
Rezmovits describes an older community member who understood but did not speak Yiddish, and his father's friend Nosn Gotlib, with whom he discussed politics in Debrecen (the fall of Singapore). Kerler asks word-pair questions (such as 'zikher/gikher' and 'kokh/kekh'), and they discuss the Yiddish of Carpathian-area speakers. He then reflects on the decline of Yiddish and Kerler's mission, and describes encounters with ultra-Orthodox Jews, including a Satmar man and a Hasid seen in Debrecen dressed as a non-Jew.
41:24
From the machine transcript
Rezmovits speaks of non-Jewish rescuers, a reference to Raoul Wallenberg's rescue and arrest, in contrast to Kasztner, and describes a phone call with a Hungarian historian about Kasztner. He then turns to differences between Hungarian Jews and Transcarpathian ones: the latter mocked the Hungarians. He ends on the ignorance of what awaited deported Jews, recalling the Debrecen wagon at age fourteen.
MDV 82Latsi Galambos; Adolf (Avrum, Bumy) Smajovics; Herman (Avrom-Tsvi) Herbst and 1 moreBudapest, 2006
1:39
From the machine transcript
Informal conversation, probably at a restaurant, about Yiddish and German and how they get mixed up when a person knows both. Kerler and a second speaker discuss a woman now in America, originally from Berekszó (?), who taught Yiddish. One speaker recalls the Jews of a small place before the war, who were partly German-speaking and partly Ukrainian-speaking, got on peacefully, and mentions a father who spoke Russian and Yiddish. Kerler also talks about filming for posterity.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Herbst mentions his flat on a hill in Budapest and that he received it through work. He says he married in the 1960s (?). Asked by Kerler, he places his birth in a small village in the Carpathians known as Berlebash (Bornobash in Hungarian), between Rakhiv and Trebusa (?). It was a village of about three hundred inhabitants, mostly Ukrainians, with a minyan of Jews. He describes the surrounding mountains and wild animals.
31:22
From the machine transcript
Herbst says he last studied Jewish subjects during his year in Vişeu de Sus, at a yeshiva with some two hundred and fifty students (?). He and Kerler mention larger yeshivas in Pressburg and Cluj. Kerler explains his own interest in collecting Yiddish and then asks Herbst for more about Berlebash.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Opens with a remark about which languages a woman knew: Russian, but not Hungarian. Kerler then asks Herbst about Purim in Upper Vişeu and in Bornobash. Herbst recalls being alone one Purim in a strange town, cared for by a friend of his sister, and children going from house to house with Purim rhymes. Kerler asks whether there was a Purim play about a chimney sweep, and Herbst does not remember one. A side conversation with S2 turns to work and jobs. The passage ends with Kerler asking whether non-Jews in Bornobash spoke Yiddish; there were too few Jews for that.
24:00
From the machine transcript
Herbst gives blessing and wish formulas he knew from childhood. Kerler then asks about the Hasidic rebbes he saw. Herbst explains that the old Rakhiv rebbe lived in Upper Vişeu, while the younger one headed a yeshiva. He attended his Friday night table and recalls his Hasidic fervour, and says he lived in nearby Bornobash. He describes how poor the area was, with only wild apples, cherries and plums. In answer to Kerler's questions he says potatoes, a potato soup and a potato kugel were eaten.
16:32
From the machine transcript
Herbst and Kerler talk about Jewish speakers of Yiddish in Budapest after the war, and about Herbst's wish to keep speaking Yiddish. He says Yiddish, the mother tongue, comes from deep in the heart, more than Hungarian does. He says he came to Budapest after the war.
3:45
From the machine transcript
Kerler explains to the man that the team is on an expedition to describe older Jews and asks for advice on where to find them, perhaps from the Carpathians or other towns. The informant mentions Carpathian places and Hasidic or yeshiva-related older people, and names a possible contact (Khaim Hersh Feldman (?)) with a phone number and a place such as Soylish (?). Kerler then thanks him and the conversation closes.
37:44
From the machine transcript
Deutsch recalls prewar Jewish life in Budapest: streets with many small prayer houses and the large Kazinczy Street synagogue. He sang in its choir with his brothers, and mentions the cantor Moshe Stern. He describes Sabbath services in the small prayer house as against the large synagogue, and the crowded holiday services.
2:14
From the machine transcript
The formal interview begins with the date and Pearl's name, and his birthplace Tállya, spelled out for the record, with its distance from Budapest. He mentions Reb Shayale, a nearby rebbe, whom his father and uncle visited but whom he never met because he was still a child when the rebbe died. He says he had to leave in 1942 and go quickly to Budapest after a false rumor about him.
23:46
From the machine transcript
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.
27:43
From the machine transcript
Pearl says his family spoke Yiddish and Hungarian. His father, a shopkeeper, was born in Tállya in 1883 and his father's family came from Sighet. His grandfather and great-grandfather are named, and Pearl says he was named for his mother's father and has a son Shlomo in Syracuse. Because of the antisemitic laws of 1938 shops had to close, and the family kept animals and raised rabbits for wool. He sold the wool and fur goods, which his mother and sister made, in Budapest. Kerler and S2 try to find the Yiddish word for rabbit. Pearl gives his mother as Berta Rosenberg, born in Tállya, says he visits the family graves each year and describes how the Jewish community sold the synagogue, mikveh and rabbi's house.
19:21
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks how the dreidel game was played, and Gotlieb says she now plays it at the club with others. A woman present is mentioned as a teacher of the holy tongue. Gotlieb names her mother Chaya Sara and father Shlomo, then recalls Hasidim visiting town from Brooklyn, London and elsewhere, around the time of a rebbe's death (a year like 1928 is heard). They discuss the Yismach Moshe's grave and a document in Kerler's archive.
34:56
From the machine transcript
Gotlieb recalls a grand wedding in Sátoraljaújhely of the rebbe's daughter, married to the son of the Munkács rebbe; Kerler places it in 1933. She speaks about the rabbi (Meizels), his Yiddish and her neighbours. The conversation moves to Yiddish speakers today, who can speak it but will not, a planned visit to the grave of a tsadik, and relatives' marriages in Hungarian.
37:24
From the machine transcript
Blobshteyn describes the kosher butchers' courtyard with thirteen Jewish butchers under supervision, and Mukacheve's matzo baking in a dozen or so places with no machine matzo. He mentions the Rabbi Chaim Elazar Spira, his funds for the yeshiva, and a dispute over exemption of yeshiva students from military service, as well as contemporary religious life and the "Erlekh" fund (?). The English-language line and a loop at about 40:03 are recogniser noise.
47:47
From the machine transcript
Blobshteyn and Kerler discuss the old Jewish cemetery in Mukacheve, whose gravestones were destroyed or stolen after the war. Blobshteyn says the rebbe spoke only Yiddish and had a friendship with Czech president Masaryk. He tells of non-Jews who preferred to go to a rabbi (and not a non-Jewish authority) to settle disputes. The terms for a hasidic tsadik and an honest Jew are also discussed.
46:57
From the machine transcript
Blobshteyn talks about working as a kosher butcher after the war. He bought meat from a slaughterhouse chief who paid in a share, and he split it with two partners. He recalls another Jew who bought a calf and brought a shoykhet, was caught and sentenced to prison, and speaks about a Jewish family who lived opposite and later emigrated to Los Angeles.
17:34
From the machine transcript
Blobshteyn recalls a rebbe in a village called Keretski (?) near Svalyava, to whom they took a sick boy, a cousin of his, along with his father and uncle. The rebbe had the child stand up and walk and, after three weeks, cut his hair so that he could go to cheder. He then describes Svalyava, where a cemetery lies on a hill and almost no Jews remain; two were left, one of whom died and the other left for Israel. Kerler asks for a further story or a song, and Blobshteyn says he remembers nothing and gives a brief remark on Hasidim and the rebbe.
41:57
From the machine transcript
Reti speaks about Shavuot and Purim. For Shavuot they ate dairy foods such as cheese dumplings. On Purim, Jews sang and danced in the street, and there was the Yosef play. He recites passages from it, says his brother played Yosef, and that the young men from Rohod, Nyírmada and Vaja performed it for two hours; only boys acted, and local non-Jews attended without understanding. He also mentions his studies in Balkány and the Lichtenstein tallis factory.
6:48
From the machine transcript
Reti recites a prayer connected with yahrzeit, repeated more slowly at Kerler's request. He then returns to birth customs: during the week before a boy's circumcision children came in the evening to read the Shema (krishme), and this stopped after the circumcision. Reti says he has lived in Debrecen for ten years, that there has been only one circumcision and one wedding here in that time, and that almost all marriages are mixed. He describes Debrecen's former Jewish community of about twelve thousand, half deported to Auschwitz and half to Austria, and its synagogues.
13:20
From the machine transcript
Reti says the village had one Orthodox synagogue plus the rebbe's own beit midrash, and that every village had a brick synagogue. He explains how the mikvah was heated with a samovar and wood, hot on Thursday and Friday, with the water changed on Sunday morning. Kerler asks about the Sabbath goy; Reti says Jews did not work on the Sabbath, but a courtyard non-Jew, called the 'hoyf-goy', did the heating and other chores. He adds that relations with the non-Jews were good and there were no quarrels.
24:01
From the machine transcript
Asked about visits before the war, Reti names nearby towns, including Kisvárda, a Hasidic town; he says it now has a minyan only on Friday night and Sabbath and that Yiddish speakers have died. Kerler then asks about baked sweets and other foods: Reti names cheese-filled pastries (delkerlekh) and cheese or cocoa pastries, then Passover and Hanukkah dishes made from potato, and does not know several terms Kerler asks about. Kerler also asks about tomatoes, apples, mushrooms and the word dybbuk, none of which Reti recognises.
23:01
From the machine transcript
Reti recalls that before the war many Jews of foreign origin who had been born elsewhere were expelled from Hungary as non-Hungarians, with a brother's help in a village matter. Reti dates this to 1943, and Kerler then recalls a prayer for relief.
47:53
From the machine transcript
Kerler chats with several community members, asking how many tallises or families there were in the community; one answer gives about forty to fifty families. The talk turns to righteous and good Jews and to a rabbi, who after the war was chief rabbi in Budapest. Kerler then suggests going into the large synagogue.
10:39
From the machine transcript
Synagogue footage with talk among the group about the cost of the restoration, in sums of money. They compare the beauty of this synagogue with another one, and discuss a former synagogue building and fittings. Kerler also asks about what the old building was used for. The speech is partly garbled.
16:54
From the machine transcript
The group talks about prewar visits to Debrecen to pray, about the mikveh and other synagogues in the town, and about Torah scrolls taken away and later returned. They discuss a fire at one synagogue after the war and a local history book on the Jews of Debrecen, whose author the transcript does not make clear. They also discuss a rabbi, a memorial and a grave in a cemetery. A good deal is in Hungarian, and the speakers are hard to separate.
33:23
From the machine transcript
Samadi recalls visiting Kaliv in 1944, shortly before the Jews were taken away. The head gendarme there was friendly to Jews and helped a young Hasidic man; Samadi also names a Sholem Leyzer. They discuss the Kaliver rebbe's grave and the new ohel built over it. Kerler closes by asking about a song.
8:35
From the machine transcript
A passage on the wartime ghetto of Kisvárda (Yiddish Kleynvarden), where several thousand Jews were held. The speakers then talk about a drive to Nagyvárda and Arad and about a train route. Kerler asks about a song, but no Hasidic songs are clearly sung in the transcript. The passage is largely garbled.
22:12
From the machine transcript
Reti and S2 describe a play about Rachel's tomb staged in the synagogue before the war, with praying and singing. Kerler asks what a Purim shpiel means and Reti says it was a big play about Joseph. They also discuss songs the children sang. Kerler thanks Reti at the end.
0:00
From the machine transcript
After an opening in which David mentions her age and diabetes, Kerler asks for her personal information. She gives her Yiddish name Shayndl, her Hungarian name Lilly and her husband's surname David. Kerler asks about the surname Schön and its Yiddish spelling, and they discuss Yiddish names for Munkács and other towns. She was born in Kiralyhelmec (Slovakia) and taken to Munkács at two. Her father was from Sárospatak (?). She came to Hungary in 1965 after the war. She learned Yiddish from a scribe while learning sewing, since Hungarian was spoken at home and in the streets. She attended a Hebrew school for two years, and she and S2 discuss which Jews in Munkács were religious.
15:25
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about life in Munkács before the war; David says it was good, and S2 notes that things changed after the camp. She recalls her mother forbidding the children to go to the Latorca river, with talk of whirlpools and swimming. They discuss the languages she knows: Hungarian above all, a little Russian and Czech, with Munkács a multilingual town. She speaks of trips to America (twice), Israel (four times) and Canada, and of relatives there, including cousins' children and twins, a young man who spent months on a kibbutz, and a woman named Elke (?). The last part is a Hungarian exchange about offering food.
6:50
From the machine transcript
Galambos mentions praying and reciting Kiddush in the small community of Vaja today, which has no rabbi. Kerler and Galambos then discuss the Yiddish names of Hungarian towns, such as Klausenburg for Kolozsvár and a town with a large Jewish community whose name is unclear in the transcript.
15:10
From the machine transcript
Galambos answers Kerler's questions about cheder: there was no special chant for learning, and children learned to speak Yiddish and Hebrew and to write. He mentions that he goes to the synagogue every Sabbath despite poor health. He recalls playing in the courtyard with other children, and says the Vaja community had 41 families, a shul and a rabbi named Grinvald who died in the early 1930s.
29:54
From the machine transcript
At Kerler's request Galambos chants the prayer for blessing the new month. He is asked about the Kaddish and says he does not say it without a minyan. He says that none of the 41 families in Vaja was Hasidic, that there were no wealthy Jews, and that the trades were tailors, shoemakers and shopkeepers. His father was a cabinetmaker with a shop and fields worked by non-Jews.
35:34
From the machine transcript
Galambos speaks about the Sabbath goy who lit the fire each Sabbath and did not know Yiddish, and what his father said to him in Hungarian. He says Jews numbered 41 families and the non-Jewish population of Vaja was about 2,000, with 3,800 today (?). He mentions reciting a text from the prayer book (?) every Sabbath, the transcript is unclear on which.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Faiershtein talks about her aging parents, whom she took in; they died within days of each other. She says she went to synagogue with them and that her grandparents came from Rakovits before her parents settled in Soroca, where she was born. She also mentions her husband's birthplace near Soroca, calls Soroca a Jewish town, and says she writes her poems in Russian and cannot easily render them in Yiddish.
48:02
From the machine transcript
Altman speaks about the aftermath of evacuation. When she returned her parents were no longer alive; she was told they died, and does not know when. Her father, left alone, was hidden by a neighbor. She says her husband came back from the army and later died in Bălți. Kerler then asks about prewar Bălți; she recalls a Jewish street with many Jews.
38:20
From the machine transcript
Altman answers questions about the meaning of 'a good place' and 'a good Jew', and about the Yiddish of Baltic, Polish and Ukrainian Jews. She describes a Jewish wedding before the war: the canopy, music, dancing, and uninvited guests. She tells of a violent local man nicknamed Feyse Laber (?) who disrupted weddings and singing.
35:35
From the machine transcript
Reizman says she married in Tighina under a chuppah, and her husband was a painter. She describes the wedding food, the match and the way she met him. Lemster then asks about dishes: sweets, flodn at Purim, chopped and gefilte fish, matzo dishes for Passover, kishke, stuffed stomach, stuffed ducks and bread. She says her mother baked at home, with a cholent of beans, while they bought white bread.
15:41
From the machine transcript
Furman talks about fattened poultry, holiday dishes, Shavuot food, Purim gift-sending and meat cutlets. She says few non-Jews spoke Yiddish. She describes the colony's farmers working the land, and the crops grown. She names the village rabbi Chaim (surname given as Feinzilber, then Zilberman) and the shoykhet Hershl, neither of whom returned from the war. She and her husband are asked about chalutsim and about collecting money for Palestine. She also talks about the cemetery in Capresti, where her father and grandfathers are buried.
MDV 130Isaak (Itisk) Yakovlevich Boltykh; Semyon (Shimen) Semyonovich Katerberg; Tatyana (Tube) Yakovlevna KaterbergBriceni, 2005
4:33
From the machine transcript
Asked by Kerler about Jewish life after the war, Boltykh says there was little. The big prayer house was broken up in the 1960s and turned into a cultural building. A few old Jews gathered privately to pray with one man who could read.
46:32
From the machine transcript
The Katerbergs say that people spent winter nights with different families, and Tatyana explains that Berlinți and the neighboring village of Bilavintsy (Beleavinți) had Jews who often gathered in the latter. Asked about Yiddish reading, they recall little; their son cannot speak Yiddish.
55:00
From the machine transcript
Kalussky says there was a local fire brigade in which Jews served, and names a family of butchers. He says briefly that after the war he worked in trade. Kerler asks about a Jewish library. Kalussky then tells at length how Sholem Schwartzbard assassinated Petliura in revenge for the murder of his family in pogroms.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kalussky discusses Yiddish books and learning, and mentions a clever man called Tuvye (?). He then speaks about Jews in his town after the civil-war period of the 1920s–30s. He tells an anecdote about a poor tailor who writes a letter to God asking for money for Passover. The letter is opened by the police and the postal clerks, and the tailor is beaten in the end.
19:55
From the machine transcript
Lemster asks Kalussky for curses and sayings and he gives a few. He then talks about a poor Jewish street in the town, near the tanneries, and the rough and merry behavior of the poor Jews there. He talks about folk remedies against the evil eye, such as a red ribbon and cut potatoes.
24:48
From the machine transcript
Mostly travel and chat in a car; the team drives to the cemetery, with Russian remarks and talk about the way. They walk among gravestones and talk about names and families on them. They mention Jews of Edineț (Yedenitser), a woman from Ariv, and that they travel from Kyiv to Chișinău. Much of the Yiddish is garbled.
43:10
From the machine transcript
Goldberg says her son and daughter were born in Bravicea, where the family lived until 1957, when the district was abolished and the Jews left. Questions follow on the Jewish cemetery, terms for it, and whether there was a grave of a righteous man or a prewar rabbi.
11:29
From the machine transcript
Roif describes his family's wartime ordeal. He mentions a wealthy local mill owner, Winkelstein (?), and his father's house built with money earned in America. The gendarmerie took over the house, then gathered the Jews of the village in the yard of a neighbor's house and took them to a camp at Rîșcani, where they spent three months. He describes the hunger, disease and lack of water, then the forced march toward Dubyna. Near Cosăuți the marchers were shot into pits, and Roif spent a night in a pit after falling in with a doomed group. He also recounts atrocities he witnessed, including the shooting of a pregnant woman.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Opening exchange about a Soviet-era word list and the loss of Yiddishkayt, then Roif on his role as a patron for a community charity. He mentions sponsors, including one in Germany, and helping some forty-odd Jews. He also speaks of the writer Yankl Yakir, who visited the village before the war, and Yakir's son, an engineer who did practice in the kolkhoz and later published books in Israel. The talk moves to a writers'-union commemoration and to historians writing about a pogrom, with a death toll given as forty-nine (?). Much of this part is in Russian or garbled.
46:28
From the machine transcript
Brief talk about life today, with a mention of food and the interviewers. The recording then moves to a second man, who mentions seven schools before the war and a large ghetto in which many thousands of Jews died.
29:13
From the machine transcript
Shpitalnik gives personal information and speaks about her parents and grandparents. Her maternal grandmother was widowed when her husband, from Staro-Konstantinov, fell in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Her mother finished a Russian gymnasium and worked as a cashier. Her father, from the Jewish colony Dumbrăveni, near Soroca, was an accountant and a member of the Yiddish Kultur-lige. She was an only child.
37:52
From the machine transcript
Answering Kerler's questions, Shpitalnik speaks about her paternal grandparents in Dumbrăveni and her visits there. Her childhood home in Chișinău stood in a courtyard of Jewish families (the transcript reads twenty-six) with a small prayer room. The grandfather, aged 87, was killed in Dumbrăveni; her maternal grandmother ran a household and worked as cashier at a slaughterhouse. Her parents loved reading and Jewishness.
49:33
From the machine transcript
Shpitalnik tells of her schooling, starting a Romanian school at six without knowing the language, and of her mother's education at a Russian school and a private girls' gymnasium. She describes prewar celebration of Passover, Purim and Hanukkah at her mother's cousin Sonya Gershteyner's home. She remembers potato varenikes at Hanukkah, Purim gifts and filled pastries, and says Chișinău was a Jewish city. She did not see Purim plays.
53:56
From the machine transcript
Shpitalnik talks about the prewar sports clubs Maccabi and Hakoah in Chișinău. She was a member of Hakoah but not athletic. She describes Yiddish professional schools for girls, which held evenings of readings from Mendele, Sholem Aleichem and Peretz. She recalls the poet Yakov Shternberg, who visited her parents' home and taught her mother.
5:10
From the machine transcript
Shpitalnik answers questions about contact between Jews and non-Jews in Chișinău. She recalls that around 1938 the family moved to a house among Jews, and says that under the Romanians Communists rather than Zionists were persecuted. She recalls that after the Soviets arrived in 1940 Zionists were arrested and sent to Siberia, including Zalmen Rosenthal, editor of the paper Undzer Tsayt, and others; Kerler asks about Rosenthal's first name.
19:28
From the machine transcript
Bengelsdorf recalls spending his childhood with other actors' children at the Birobidzhan Yiddish theater, then speaks about his work as a pianist and music critic in Chișinău. He describes Yiddish concert life, including the compositions of Zlata Tkach and singers such as Eliashe, and a festival in Birobidzhan with guests from Moscow, Israel and America. He also discusses Russian composers' interest in Jewish music and Shostakovich's Jewish song cycle. Interviewers ask about Prokofiev, the performers and the Russian texts. The passage ends with preparations for filming music, with Russian talk about microphone placement.
MDV 146Sergo Bengelsdorf; Marina Mikhailovna Shraybman; Moisha Motylevich Lipovetskiy and 1 moreChișinău, 2005
19:35
From the machine transcript
Lipovetskiy says he worked as a driver, a locksmith and then a teacher of physical education after university, in a school. He recalls prewar schooling in a Yiddish school and a talmud torah in Chișinău, with the names of streets, and a general killed by a bomb. He discusses the difficult economic situation today, his small pension, and living alone, and that his children live abroad.
20:38
From the machine transcript
Abelsky tells anecdotes about his grandfather, the Hasidic rabbi of Moscow, and a Mitnagdic rabbi who quarrelled with him, including how the grandfather attended his opponent's funeral. He relates the story of the etrog and lulav before Sukkot, and tales heard from his teacher about a miserly Hasid, a rebbe's fundraisers and a Hasid in a short coat.
MDV 148Rabbi Zalman Abelsky; Sara Solomonovna Shpitalnik; Moisha Motylevich LipovetskiyChișinău, 2005
19:59
From the machine transcript
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.
25:40
From the machine transcript
Lipovetskiy describes the seven-class talmud torah, which was closed when the Soviets arrived. He explains that the synagogue where they sit was a shared glaziers' and bookbinders' prayer house. Jews returning after the war collected money and restored it, and he says it is now the only synagogue. He mentions the emigration of many Jews to America and Israel and speaks bitterly about the killers of Jews.
5:43
From the machine transcript
Lipovetskiy tells a story from the first Soviet period, before the war. As a boy he was given cherries or plums by a Russian officer buying from a neighbour's shop, and he worried about what his family would say. He then says which street he lived on and describes a nearby canal and a bathhouse, and Kerler thanks him and closes the interview.
16:59
From the machine transcript
Gordin talks about attending a wedding and the funeral of an aunt, and how the burial was done in a Jewish way. He then lists the Jewish trades and the rich and poor in the small town, and recalls a visiting circus and the burial of a clown. He adds that children studied in cheder and that he was too young to attend.
20:39
From the machine transcript
Sherman says he reads and writes Yiddish well and loved literature. He recalls the Yiddish library in Telenești, with works by Sholem Asch, Sholem Aleichem and translations of world literature. Young people read and met to discuss Zionism and communism; there were no formal debate evenings. The library was open to everyone.
22:23
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks whether Sherman knows Unetaneh Tokef; he recalls only part of it. Questions about the library follow: borrowing, whether books were paid for, and whether it held Romanian as well as Yiddish books. He says he read Tolstoy in Russian once he had learned it, and Sholem Aleichem in Yiddish.
37:25
From the machine transcript
Sherman describes his mother's Sabbath and holiday food, especially gefilte fish (not peppery), sweet-and-sour meat, and a yellow cake at Purim; at Hanukkah children played with dreidels. He says there was no Purim play in Telenești, only the custom of noisemakers in the synagogue. When pressed he says amateurs staged Yiddish plays at Purim.
40:38
From the machine transcript
Sherman answers questions about non-Jews in the Telenești fire brigade (there was no organized brigade) and about prewar youth movements. Gordonia met in a hall for dances and heard speeches from visiting pioneers (chalutzim) from Palestine, and some friends emigrated. He also tells of clandestine communist literature smuggled in from Bucharest, in Yiddish translations, and of reading Freud.
3:48
From the machine transcript
Sherman and the interviewers name Yiddish writers and press figures associated with Telenești, with some uncertainty about the names. He mentions a song noted down in Chernivtsi and a Yiddish theater there, with an actor named Sidi Tal (?) who also visited Telenești. He says he lived in Chernivtsi only after the war.
40:09
From the machine transcript
Sherman says Jews in prewar Telenești did not drink; the only drinker was the water carrier. He talks about wine at Passover and memorial days and describes Sabbath food: fish, meat, and cholent kept warm in the oven in a metal box, with a non-Jew called in to light the fire.
44:20
From the machine transcript
After a question on the word for flowers in Telenești, Sherman describes the hard prewar life of Jewish shopkeepers and traders, who waited a season for peasants to buy. He explains how people went to Chişinău and Iași, with a Christian coachman and horses, to buy goods, and mentions his father traveling this way. Kerler then returns to the questionnaire.
55:33
From the machine transcript
Sherman says there were few wealthy Jews in prewar Telenești, naming one man with a cash register and cashier. The questionnaire continues with words for tailoring, attic and other household items.
22:05
From the machine transcript
Mitlaeva names three Jewish schools left in the town, two vocational schools and Magen David. Both Yiddish and Hebrew were taught in them, and there were Yiddishists among the teachers. She gives her childhood street as Balanovski (?) and says she lived as a lodger with a landlord. His sons sang Yiddish and Hebrew songs in a choir, and some of them emigrated. She also mentions teaching a girl French.
27:34
From the machine transcript
Mitlaeva describes her mixed Jewish and non-Jewish street. She tells of a Romanian family whose mother was a converted Jewish woman who still spoke Yiddish and had a Jewish woman read to her from the siddur before she died. She answers Kerler's questions about children's games, including one played with nuts, and about Sukkot and Simchat Torah in her youth. She then lists local synagogues, including those of the cooks, bakers and glaziers.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Mitlaeva and Kerler discuss Yiddish sayings, including one about the length of the Jewish exile and expressions with 'Jewish' and 'gentile' (luck, head). She says she was active in Poale Zion, where there was singing, dancing and plays in Yiddish. She recalls a rich synagogue and Zionist library and kindergarten on Nikolaevskaya Street. She also remembers a Baptist circle where a Jew spoke Yiddish, which she once attended with a friend's mother.
38:48
From the machine transcript
Mitlaeva speaks about the women's section of the synagogue, her mother's mikveh visits and her Sabbath headscarf, and her mother's Sabbath reading of the prayer book and Yiddish books. She recalls a Jewish family, Mordechai and Leike and their children, and another very religious family named Stapudis who lived on Nikolaevskaya Street. She also talks about Rabbi Zirlson, who she says was educated and known to the Romanian authorities, and Kerler quotes a 'When in Rome' saying.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Asked by Kerler what films were shown in Chișinău before the war, Mitlaeva names several Soviet films, among them adaptations of Tolstoy and Ostrovsky and a comedy, and recalls a Jewish film shown around Passover or Purim. They also touch on the circus and theatre and on the barracks and other buildings of the Romanian-era town, and Kerler asks her to recall verses she learned at school.
11:08
From the machine transcript
Muchnik talks about her primary school, where she won prizes and a gold medal, and about difficulty gaining admission to the gymnasium. She describes the family home on the Jewish street in Orhei, with a balcony shared by three generations. She names girlfriends and one schoolmate, and recalls her teacher Yanovich and his grading of her and her sister.
9:56
From the machine transcript
Muchnik describes the activity of Romanian fascists in Orhei before the war: gatherings of peasants with sticks and sacks who were to plunder Jews. She recalls climbing onto the roof to watch their meeting place, and Jewish households closing shutters at night in fear of a pogrom. She tells of a night alarm in which neighbours knocked on windows to warn the Jews.
34:07
From the machine transcript
Answering Lemster and Kerler, Muchnik says the Yiddish actress Sidi Tal used to perform in Orhei before the war and she herself was not much at the theatre. She tells of the fate of her parents and a lawyer friend of the family during the war, who went to their death. She regrets that no memorial marks the place where Orhei's Jews were killed and buried.
47:16
From the machine transcript
Asked about the word 'dybbuk', Muchnik explains it as a stubborn person; Kerler and Lemster also ask about other words. She then describes her wealthy maternal grandfather, a landowner with a carriage and horses, and his richly furnished house. She also recalls the all-Jewish street where she grew up, and a Moldovan who bought a house there and became friendly with the Jews and learned Yiddish.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Abelsky speaks about his past travels as an emissary of the Rebbe, then about the unreliability of historical books, which rest on archive documents. As an example he describes the Chabad rescue of Jewish children conscripted as cantonists in Russia. He mentions Dubnow, Graetz and the Rebbe's writings on historians, a Yiddish-language Chabad memoir series, and the fate of Jewish life under Communism. Kerler introduces the recording in the Chișinău synagogue and Lemster and another voice ask about Dubnow.
24:56
From the machine transcript
Answering Kerler's question about old Chabad traditions, Abelsky tells how the Alter Rebbe supported Russia in the Napoleonic war while other Polish tsadikim favored Napoleon. He tells of the contest between the Alter Rebbe and Israel of Kozienice over who would blow the shofar first. He recounts how a rabbi, Moshe Meizlish (?), spied for the Russians inside Napoleon's headquarters. He then answers Kerler's question about the origin of the Chabad melodies sung with words.
32:16
From the machine transcript
Goldman names the streets on which her family lived and notes the changes in their names. She worked as a tailor in Bucharest until 1940, recalls fear of violence against Jews there, and a Romanian landlord who protected them. She says she always preferred Chișinău.
13:08
From the machine transcript
Benderskij describes his uncles' vineyard and winery in the village: cellars, large barrels, wine sold to non-Jewish buyers and sent to Bukovina by rail. He also describes the drying and export of plums to Paris and elsewhere on contract. Kerler asks about the Romanian word for plums; Benderskaia mentions lists of the dead and numbers of Jews in the town.
17:39
From the machine transcript
Lemster asks about Yiddish culture in Nisporeni. Benderskaia and Benderskij recall the library and her mother's reading of Sholem Aleichem, and travelling theater troupes that came to Chișinău. Benderskij names the Joint, collections for poor people and the chalutzim who gathered to talk about Palestine. They mention a few local people, and the details are patchy.
4:02
From the machine transcript
Dajch recalls a wealthy man's daughter's wedding in Nisporeni, where the groom was a learned young man and the leading men were invited. She mentions the chuppah and kiddushin conducted by the shoykhet, dancing in the Casa Națională to traditional dances, and Gypsy musicians instead of klezmer. She names a few people connected with the wedding, with some doubt about the names, and does not remember the synagogues or the rabbi.
7:15
From the machine transcript
Dajch speaks about prewar Jewish organisations in Nisporeni: many Zionists and some communists, but no Bundists. She describes Simchat Torah, with men gathering in the synagogue to drink wine and eat nuts and bread, and women sitting separately. She explains that her mother read Yiddish books brought by Jewish students from Iași and nearby Boldureşti (?), that her brother studied in cheder, and discusses amateur theater at the Casa Națională.
27:29
From the machine transcript
Rotner answers Kerler's questions about her father's bank in the village and the Jewish cemetery, which was in Orhei. She describes Orhei as a large, beautiful town with a Jewish gymnasium and Jewish doctors and lawyers, where she and her sister studied and boarded during the week while their father drove them there by horse.
31:21
From the machine transcript
Manevich says she worked as a bookkeeper after the war, using Russian. Asked about Purim in Tiraspol, she recalls only gift-giving (hamentashn) and says there were no Purim plays or masks before the war. She says the one Yiddish school there had seven classes, was closed before or after the war (she is unsure), and had a library with Yiddish, Russian and German books. She herself moved to a Russian school and finished her schooling there.
58:49
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks whether Manevich remembers the NEP, which she identifies as Lenin's new economic policy, but she says she does not remember it. She says there were no merchants or wealthy Jews in prewar Tiraspol and that people worked in factories. Life before the war was ordinary Soviet life, she says, with few good things to recall. She describes the war years as bad, and the postwar years as hard.
33:07
From the machine transcript
Fershtman speaks about prewar culture in Pishchanka, including a Yiddish newspaper and library with books by Mendele and Peretz, which he borrowed. The talk then turns to Sukkot, with a sukkah, and to Purim, including sending gifts to relatives. A brief exchange about a person named Berl or Moshe follows.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Rojtman gives her name and birth year and explains that Vadul Rascov lay on the Bessarabian bank of the Dniester, opposite Rashkov. Her mother Tabele was born in Vadul Rascov. Her father Shabsa, from Rezina, worked as a clerk, and her mother was a housewife. She grew up with one brother, Motl, who died in 1943. She remembers her grandmother Khaike as honest and hard-working, and her grandfather Moyshe, whose business still stands in the town.
31:56
From the machine transcript
Rojtman speaks about an acquaintance, apparently a woman now in America, and a few contemporary Jews. At Kerler's request she describes Simchat Torah, with Torah carried round the synagogue, dancing and music, and villagers coming from the surrounding area. She also mentions Purim noisemakers and the lack of electricity or cars, with one rich man's car from America in 1938. She says visitors from America made the town celebrate, and that people took pleasure in each other's good fortune.
41:22
From the machine transcript
Rojtman speaks about Hasidim and rabbis in the area, saying the local rabbis were good, ordinary men. She describes how people came from nearby towns, how roads and transport worked, and a fire at a Jewish bakery. Answering questions about folk healing, she mentions urine therapy and a Serbian woman healer who spoke Romanian. She recalls her mother's sister's belief in fortune-telling and her own fear of such women.
47:50
From the machine transcript
Rojtman answers Kerler's questions on terminology, including the words for rabbis, rebbes and the title 'good Jew', and names a few food items. She explains the role of a 'good Jew' as a person to confide in. She describes four such people in town and their families, and speaks of a Jewish man who crossed the Dniester and the many who were shot.
29:09
From the machine transcript
Shmid says her late daughter and son-in-law Misha lived with her, and she lives with him now. In Onitskan there was no synagogue; a cantor was hired for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and services were held in the mill, and afterwards people emptied their pockets. She remembers little of Simchat Torah, and for Purim speaks of baking hamantashen and sending sweet gifts. Few Jews lived in the village. She does not know what a Purim shpil was.
12:19
From the machine transcript
Asked about Purim, Shmid names baked goods such as hamantashen and baklava. She does not remember Purim songs or a Purim play, only masks worn by children. She describes the few Jewish families in her village and her father, who worked the land, took produce to the city and gave each of his seven children a dowry. Her mother came from Chișinău, could not speak Moldovan at first, and was later loved by her non-Jewish neighbours.
52:18
From the machine transcript
Leibelman recalls Yiddish theater visiting Rezina, including a touring actress and a cantor-singer. She describes Rezina as a small town with many Jews but no gymnasium, and says Christians spoke Yiddish. She tells of a Russian acquaintance who had grown up among Jewish children and married a Jewish woman. She ends with a remark about same-sex marriage seen on television from Moscow.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Leibelman says she spoke Yiddish with her husband, whom she married after the war; he had learned Russian only after the war. She and the interviewers discuss Jews in Soroca (?) and Rascov, then she tells a story about a Jew sending greetings to a wealthy man. They also discuss the Ribnitzer rebbe (Chaim Zanvl) and his immersion in the mikveh, and Jews in Saldinesht (?). Asked about youth activities in Rezina, she mentions the Tarbut meetings, with hidden communist booklets. She says she read Sholem Aleichem and Mendele in Yiddish before the war.
MDV 187Maria Leibovna Kleyman; Iosif (Yosel) Matveyevich Shvartzman; Raisa Aizekovna ShvartzmanLipcani, 2005
43:50
From the machine transcript
Iosif describes the Lipcani market where Jews sold everything before the war, and the Bershad ghetto where Romanian and German guards beat Jews, but Ukrainians helped with potatoes and food. His mother died in the ghetto, and he returned to Lipcani with his sister Tsili to find their house burned. He mentions about ten thousand people in the Bershad camp, few of whom survived.
6:12
From the machine transcript
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.
32:11
From the machine transcript
Kigel recalls a Jewish couple who converted to Christianity. She says she did not learn to read or write Yiddish, because she avoided her tutor's lessons. She mentions a Jewish bank and Zionists and communists in town, and recalls going to the theater and the cinema, where the films were in Romanian rather than Yiddish.
18:05
From the machine transcript
At Lemster's prompting, Sharhorodskij returns to the Yiddish school and its director, Yakov Pogorelskij, who was arrested in 1937. He speaks of Rabbi Yosef Ber, also arrested in 1937 and never seen again, and of the fate of his children. He then describes the teacher Fanya Borisovna, who taught Ukrainian, and remarks on how modestly people lived before the war.
41:27
From the machine transcript
Sharhorodskij says he studied seven classes at the Yiddish school, which was closed in 1936–37 because few Jews were sending their children, and became a Russian school. He talks about the teachers' retraining, the fate of the literature teacher Markus, who he says went to the war and did not return, and the Jewish history lessons (Egypt, Mesopotamia). He also recalls how holidays were described in class.
0:34
From the machine transcript
Sharhorodskij recalls Yiddish theater troupes coming to Rîbniţa from Odessa and Kyiv before the war, performing in a garden hall where tickets were hard to get. He was too young to attend, but his parents went. He mentions Sholem Aleichem and Mendele as sources of plays, and singers visiting. Asked about the postwar period, he mentions Epelbaum and the director of the Moscow Yiddish theater, Mikhoels, and a communal event. He then answers questions about Lithuanian Jews and speaks of the Warsaw ghetto survivors.
7:56
From the machine transcript
Answering Lemster, Sharhorodskij recalls one Jew in Rîbniţa who converted before the war and lived near the Jewish synagogue; he cannot recall the name. He knows of no cases of Christians becoming Jewish, says many non-Jews spoke Yiddish, and says that some Jews drank vodka heavily and others only liked it. The passage ends as Kerler asks about the word dibbuk.
38:05
From the machine transcript
Boiarskaia says she worked in Rîbniţa before the war and was driven out with the others. She describes being taken to a camp on the Bug in Ukraine with Bessarabian rabbis, the Romanians arriving after the Germans, and the ghetto formed from the old Jewish houses. Kerler returns to the 1933 famine in her village, and she says she was fifteen when she came to Rîbniţa; Ukrainians came begging for bread.
0:29
From the machine transcript
The formal interview begins: Magetman gives the date and place, her birthplace Vadu-Rashkovo (forty kilometers from Soroca), her names, maiden name Lerner and Russian name Fanya, and her birth date in November 1927. She describes Vadu-Rashkovo as a Jewish shtetl, and talks about her father, who had a mill and a creamery, her mother, her grandparents (one had a creamery still operating), and her two sisters.
4:46
From the machine transcript
Magetman recalls the Jewish town, which had more Jews than non-Jews, and a visit as a child to a tsadik, as well as a trip with her parents to Chernivtsi. She speaks of her mother's piety and descent, and of how her mother baked bread and gave food and money to poor people before the Sabbath, and held a meal for the poor. She then says her mother was killed in 1941 in the bombing at the start of the war.
8:31
From the machine transcript
Magetman recalls her first year at school and names rabbis in the town, Zukerman among them (the spelling is unclear). She remembers her parents going to synagogue on the High Holidays and a non-Jewish woman who came to light the stove; she cannot name the town's several prayer houses or a tsadik. She attended a Romanian school before the war and a Soviet school after it.
24:48
From the machine transcript
Magetman recalls traditional Jewish weddings she attended with her parents, the last one in 1936. She describes waiting for the bride and groom, the chuppah and the procession, and the klezmer band from Rashkov. She does not remember a badkhn well and does not know the dances Katz asks about.
24:30
From the machine transcript
Plotnik describes her mother lighting Sabbath candles and her father's languages: Hebrew, Russian, Romanian and Yiddish. She mentions a Jewish library in Dumbraveni run by the community. She says nothing is left from before the war and begins to tell of being driven from her home.
51:00
From the machine transcript
Rolshut describes prewar Soroca's Jewish occupations: Jewish shops, butchers, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths and food merchants. She mentions three Jewish cafés and a restaurant, where youth gathered, along with the cinema and park concerts by non-Jewish military musicians. She speaks of Zionists, Maccabi, the Yiddish talmud-torah, and the Hebrew Tarbut lyceum, which gave Hebrew and Romanian diplomas. There were Jewish lawyers and doctors, but no Jews in the police, fire brigade or courts.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Rolshut finishes recounting a group of Jews who tried to cross the frozen Dniester to Russia in the early 1930s and were shot by soldiers on the bank; a friend of her sister was among them. Kerler then asks about Yiddish writers: none lived in Soroca, but many in Bessarabia, and lecturers came to town. She does not remember names, including that of Moyshe Altman. Kerler then hands the vocabulary questions to Lemster.
23:29
From the machine transcript
Rolshut says Jewish weddings with a chuppah and a rabbi were held in Soroca until 1940; she attended friends' weddings but cannot recall the songs or dances. She and Lemster discuss whether the town had a madman, klezmers and the water carrier she remembers filling a vat in her parents' kitchen. They touch on handsome young men and women of the town and Jewish communists. She recalls a group of Jewish communists shot on the Dniester bank after a non-Jewish guide betrayed them. Lemster mentions the poet Yasik Baltsan(?).
30:58
From the machine transcript
Rolshut says she has many acquaintances and childhood friends from Soroca in New York and Brooklyn; the name Tendler comes up in connection with a Jewish newspaper. She worked as a laboratory assistant for about thirty years. Lemster asks whether Jews were admitted to hospital at night; she says Jewish doctors worked there but there were no Jewish patients. She notes that many Jews lived in Soroca until 1940, few remained after the war, and many of those emigrated.
21:35
From the machine transcript
Mirenburg talks about her childhood friends, Jewish children and non-Jewish servants who spoke Yiddish, and mentions a Jewish girl who married a Christian, a rare case. She says there was a library of Yiddish books and recalls children watching the singer Sidi Tal perform Yiddish songs in a neighbor's courtyard; the interviewers ask whether she came from Chernivtsi. Kerler also asks about a fire brigade, which she does not know of.
29:33
From the machine transcript
Mirenburg describes the synagogue, where people were forced to gather in 1941, the room's earlier arrangement and its restoration. Kerler thanks her, and talk turns to the recording and what it is for. The camera then films the synagogue, with some Russian aside.
51:21
From the machine transcript
Plotnik says her parents did not let her go to weddings, although a wedding canopy was put up near their house by the prayer house. She names several synagogues in Dumbraveni and Rabbi Sternberg (Shternberg), who came from Soroca. She does not remember folk beliefs such as the evil eye.
38:01
From the machine transcript
She mentions reading Yiddish books and newspapers after the war. She describes the synagogues of prewar Soroca: the Great Synagogue and those of the tailors, shoemakers and carpenters, saying that after the war only the Great Synagogue remained.
21:47
From the machine transcript
Asked by Kerler what she would say to future viewers, she gives her memories of prewar Soroca. It was a clean small town with good doctors and skilled craftsmen, and the Jews were decent and hard-working. She stresses the values her parents taught: honesty, humanity and not slandering others. She answers questions about the meaning of an honest person and an honest Jew, and Kerler thanks her at the end.
26:31
From the machine transcript
Answering Lemster's questions, Nusbrokh says Hanukkah was a holiday marked with prayer at the synagogue and with money collected from wealthy shop owners. He mentions his older brother and his sister, now in Israel, and says that a Yiddish library existed on the main street, with Romanian books too.
30:33
From the machine transcript
Asked about prewar occupations, Nusbrokh names trading, tailors, shoemakers and a Jewish bakery, and says Romanians were not tailors. Asked about Sabbath challah, a Yiddish theater visiting, and Hasidim, he remembers little. He talks at length about a rich shopkeeper (Gotlberg?), a landowner in the Soroca area, and his dealings and horses.
1:00:07
From the machine transcript
Lemster asks Nusbrokh what he wants remembered about Zguriţa; he says he remembers the houses, the streets and the Jewish majority and that there was a Jewish life there. Lemster thanks him and the interview ends.
36:16
From the machine transcript
Milevskaya talks about elderly community members, many unable to speak Yiddish, and about young people having left for America and Israel. She describes former ghetto prisoners, including Ida Lazarevna (recently buried) and a woman held in the Savran camp under Romanian rule, and Pogrebinsky's family who hid in a tree and now live in Germany. The remaining speech covers the town's population and the geography of Pervomaysk, Golta, Bohopil and Olviopol, and the beer factory is mentioned. Arrangements for a visit to Sofia Lvovna follow.
11:15
From the machine transcript
Dunaevskij recalls the Ştefăneşti rebbe: his good advice, his authority, and his sparing, measured speech. He recalls that when the rebbe died in 1937 (?) the whole town mourned and Romanians and Jews both attended. He also begins to mention the Jewish school and its director Feinstein.
13:32
From the machine transcript
Dunaevskij talks about the Jewish school in Ştefăneşti, where subjects were taught in Romanian and Hebrew was also spoken, and poor children were given food and clothes. All Jewish children attended it up to the fourth grade. He recalls learning to write Yiddish, reading short Yiddish books, and one by Sholem Aleichem about an orphan. Kerler shows him the book and he recognises it.
36:20
From the machine transcript
Dunaevskij recalls that many non-Jews in Ştefăneşti spoke Yiddish, among them a Turk who spoke it like a Jew, and that German children also spoke it. He says non-Jews went to the Ştefăneşti rebbe. He recalls Yiddish newspapers, one of them in Hebrew, and that rich Jews ran businesses in the town. Kerler then asks about political parties.
38:38
From the machine transcript
Dunaevskij answers questions about prewar political and social life in Ştefăneşti. There were Zionists, and Kerler suggests Revisionists. There was a fire brigade and a Maccabi sports club. He lists Jewish trades such as tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths, carpenters and bookbinders. He says there was a Yiddish library from which his father borrowed books, while his mother had no inclination to read.
8:11
From the machine transcript
Klichinskaia recalls her grandfather's stories and the Passover table, where the children said the four questions. She mentions holiday food and going to synagogue at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. She describes the many prayer houses in Bender and the poor and the rich in town. She mentions a charitable society and names her siblings and the origin of their names. She says there were five children.
23:30
From the machine transcript
Klichinskaia recalls that the singer Sidi Tal came to perform in Bender before the war. She sings a Yiddish song about a tavern and a glass, and a drinking song about a glass of wine. She mentions that a woman she knew took songs from small songbooks, and Kerler says he is looking for songs not found in booklets.
48:34
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks what she wants remembered about Bender. Klichinskaia says there were many poor people under the Romanians, and things were better under Soviet rule. Her father worked in a cooperative whose owner was Jewish, so he did not work on Saturday. Her grandfather died in June.
57:55
From the machine transcript
Goldshteyn and Luminskaia answer Lemster's questions on mixed marriages, saying there were none before the war, and on the word meshumed. They then describe Jewish occupations before the war: tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths and grain dealers who sold on credit. A break is called to change the cassette.
2:09
From the machine transcript
Goldshteyn answers Lemster's questions on Jewish organizations in the village. There was a cheder and a synagogue but no Zionist or Communist organization and no halutzim. A relative went to Palestine (Haifa) after learning the carpentry trade in Chernivtsi and Khotyn. He contrasts the occupations of Jews and Christians: Christians did the farm labor and Jews paid them. He also mentions about sixty or seventy Jewish families, Christian vineyards and wine-making.
26:32
From the machine transcript
Answering Lemster, Butorski recalls a Russian baker friend who married a Jewish woman, converted, and spoke Yiddish. He says he knows of no Jewish organizations or parties before the war, only the Maccabi sport club, and he recalls no Jewish theater or libraries.
9:00
From the machine transcript
Moisei continues on the politics of Moldova: the difficulty wives faced in returning home from Russia after the war, then Moldovan nationalists, the creation of the border at the Dniester and the 1992 fighting for Bender. He talks about Snegur, Yeltsin and the Russian general Lebed, and the continuing disagreement between the two sides. Kerler brings him back to his own childhood memories.
23:17
From the machine transcript
Meir lists Jewish trades before the war, such as shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, tanners, barbers and watchmakers. He recalls Jewish organizations: craftsmen's and merchants' associations, Zionists and Communists, and the Maccabi sports club with football, gymnastics and an orchestra.
28:49
From the machine transcript
Asked about Romanian Yiddish writers, Meir names Itzik Kara of Iași and recalls the local writer and theater man Yisroel Berkovitsh, whom he knew. He also mentions amateur theater figures such as Yankl Halpern and Marian Ernberg.
38:04
From the machine transcript
Finkel says the Jews of Sulita went to Israel and no one lives there now. She describes visiting the Jewish cemetery about two years earlier with the president of the community and her son. It is fenced with many stones and neglected. She asks who would work there. Lemster asks for the Yiddish word for the fence, and she says her father is in Israel.
39:26
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about the expulsion of Jews from Sulita to Botoșani in 1941 and about the fire. Finkel says about eighty houses burned, and Kerler corrects the date of the fire to 1935. Her father rebuilt the house and later sold it and left for Israel to join her sister after her mother died in Botoșani. Lemster asks what she says at the grave of her ancestors.
0:00
From the machine transcript
The speaker starts to answer Kerler's request to tell about the synagogue and its history. There is some confusion over how to begin and over what is wanted, with brief remarks about a dictionary and about when something was made.
0:44
From the machine transcript
The speaker gives the history of the Botoșani large synagogue. It was built in the 1830s or 1840s (the date is not entirely clear in the transcript) by Jewish families who had come from Ukraine and Russia, and it was the biggest synagogue in the town. He says there were many small synagogues in Botoșani before and after the war. He describes how services are now held on Friday evening, Sabbath and holidays, with about fifteen to twenty men at a minyan, and how the women's gallery was used earlier. He answers questions about the unknown architect and about the old and new cemetery fields, and speaks of Torah reading and Simchat Torah. He also mentions the few remaining Jewish families in nearby villages and the lack of a congregation there.
52:16
From the machine transcript
Cohn lists the town's trades, such as tailors, carpenters, coopers and tinsmiths, with no fire brigade. Zionists brought Yiddish and Romanian papers, there was a Zionist club with a lending library, and Yiddish theater troupes visited, as did Purim performances.
17:52
From the machine transcript
Cohn recalls prewar lectures in Suliţa, where Zionist speakers came to talk, among them Jabotinsky, who came from Chernivtsi (80 km away) and spoke in Polish-style Yiddish. Another speaker, a Mr. Zekler (?), spoke in Romanian Yiddish about going to the Land of Israel. Many people emigrated. There was a hakhshara and Cohn was a halutz, and he recognises a pioneer song.
21:45
From the machine transcript
Cohn describes visiting Suliţa now, where the Jewish cemetery remains but no Jews live, though relatives come from Israel. He recalls prewar life there as hard and the winters as a disaster, with a lack of firewood. A relief committee gave wood to the poor. Some Jews farmed their own fields. The town had a Jewish doctor named Gras (?) but no lawyer.
MDV 232Iosif David; Sami (Shmiel) Kurtsberg; Iosif Kunovich BurgȘofrîncani, Botoșani, Chernivtsi, Siret, 2006
14:10
From the machine transcript
A chat in Yiddish with an older man, probably Rabbi Kofmansky, who exchanges good wishes with the team and says he is from Chernivtsi. There is talk of payment and of a very old man of 101 who still speaks. The conversation ends with a request to tell the team about the synagogue.
24:02
From the machine transcript
He speaks about wedding customs and the matchmaker, and compares Maramureș Jews with those of Transylvania. He describes Passover food made with potato and goose fat. He also touches on Ashkenazic and Sephardic prayer rites in Cluj and Moldavia, and says his parents were in prison.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Hershkovich and Kerler look at a book and documents about the Jews of the Bogata area, sent from Yad Vashem and from America. They go through the Hungarian-language text, names of rabbis and local figures, and Jewish population statistics for the villages around Bogata in the 1920s–40s, noting that nobody Jewish remains there today. There is also some talk of Bogata dialect words.
3:54
From the machine transcript
Hershkovich describes the small prayer house in Bogata, with families walking in from nearby villages for Sabbath prayer under an eruv. He studied in Bogata until age eight or nine, then went to the yeshiva in Dej. He also learned from his father, who was a learned man. Part of the passage is interrupted by a Romanian remark from a woman in the room.
48:42
From the machine transcript
Freundlich says that no Jews are left in Kisvárda and the surviving Hungarian Jews are in Budapest. Kerler asks about the meaning of the Hungarian expression she uses. She then talks about the chief rabbi of Jerusalem and the closing of women's sections, and about a Sabbath meeting at which she was asked to attend.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Freundlich and Kerler look at a Megillah. It is from Satu Mare and was read at home by her father; the details are only partly clear. A long, garbled stretch in Hungarian and Yiddish follows about a bishop who was driven out of the town for condemning killing. Kerler then asks about books printed at the local printing house.
4:14
From the machine transcript
Freundlich talks about her sister's printing house in Satu Mare. It printed the town newspaper, toys, books, prayer books and other items, in Hungarian, Latin and Hebrew scripts. She mentions a book by her brother-in-law and a Hungarian children's tale, and then her son's invitation to the Metropolitan (Opera) in New York.
10:45
From the machine transcript
Freundlich recalls prewar Jewish weddings with the 'mitzvah dance' and the hired announcer. She then talks about relatives in Várdan (?), about Jews left in Satu Mare and Cluj and the community's problems. She goes on at length, partly in Hungarian, about her husband's family (Weinstock) and their business, an uncle in Nyíregyháza who was head of the Judenrat, and a minister who helped them. Kerler also asks about a humorist who was paid to amuse guests at weddings.
23:04
From the machine transcript
Freundlich mentions songs sung at Passover and a haggadah she gave to her grandchildren. The talk turns to people from the community who are still alive, and to the lack of a minyan in Satu Mare. She goes on in Hungarian about the Jewish population of the region, the ghettos and rabbis driven out of Székely towns, and a landowner's fate. The latter part is in a long Hungarian monologue about the Weinstock family dryer and a minister.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Freundlich says she visited Auschwitz in 1969. At Kerler's request a Yiddish travel song about taking food for a journey is sung, apparently by another woman. Freundlich then speaks, partly in Hungarian, about Satmar, a mass killing and burial in a pit, and a history professor in Jerusalem originally from Satmar whose father was a shochet.
10:40
From the machine transcript
Freundlich and the others discuss Jewish life today in Bistrița and Cluj: whether anyone is left in Bistrița, a planned trip there, and contacts with community members. Much of the passage is Hungarian talk about street names, the synagogue and community office in Cluj, and arrangements for the visitors.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Conversation about how many Jews in Cluj and Dej still speak Yiddish, and plans for the team's drive to Dej, Bistrița and Gura Vadului(?). A bar mitzvah attended by a visitor from America whose grandfather came from Dej is mentioned, with the synagogue there and the former Jewish population of Dej.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Footage at the cemetery with brief conversation. Kerler asks how old the cemetery is and is told it is over ninety years, with a reference to a tombstone. Near the end the group discusses how they will travel back and whether to eat together in a restaurant in the town centre.
22:24
From the machine transcript
The speakers describe how Jews from Cîmpia Turzii and surrounding villages were taken out of the villages, moved to Luduș and then to Turda in the ghetto. Grunfeld says his grandparents came from a village (Zalău (?)) and that there were twenty prayer shawls in its congregation. Kerler asks the Yiddish form of the village name.
33:10
From the machine transcript
Grunfeld speaks about his schooling and family: born in 1920 and attended a Romanian school, while his father (born 1892 (?)) attended a Hungarian one. He describes the mixed languages of Transylvanian Jews (Yiddish, Romanian, Hungarian) and compares them with Moldavia. They discuss why it is called Siebenbürgen, with its seven fortresses.
10:45
From the machine transcript
The community head talks about books on Dorohoi Jews and an annual June gathering of Dorohoi Jews near Jerusalem, with a monument there. The speakers also settle dates, addresses and telephone numbers for meeting contacts, including a rabbi and a man in Israel.
20:08
From the machine transcript
Meir says he remembers nothing of Burdusani. His father was a shoemaker without a livelihood and moved to the village of Dumbrăveni, where three of his brothers had small shops and the father opened one too. At about five Meir was sent to live with a maternal aunt in Dorohoi and attended cheder. Asked about Yiddish, he says only Yiddish was spoken in Dorohoi, and he states the town's Jewish population before deportation.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Chirilau talks about pensions and the hard lives of the poor today. She answers Kerler and Lemster's questions on how Yiddish speakers named Romanian towns and places, such as Rădăuți, Dorohoi, Siret, Hârlău, Botoșani, Iași and Seghet. She also mentions Hungarians and Poles in some of them. The team chats about sending photographs, a daughter who also speaks with the team, and the last Jew in Siret. The interview ends with farewells.
7:13
From the machine transcript
Town footage leaving Mihăileni, then the team at a Jewish cemetery. Kerler and Lemster read gravestone inscriptions and Hebrew dates in Yiddish and Russian, including one mentioning deportation to Transnistria and one for a woman who gave money. They talk about the cemetery's condition and who might know its history.
52:23
From the machine transcript
Mentions summer visitors who speak Yiddish, many from Israel, and phone arrangements. Then recalls prewar business: a handshake sealed a deal, and a dispute went to a rabbi or dayan. A story about his mother and a commercial matter begins.
14:07
From the machine transcript
Grimberg speaks about her family. Her father Iosl worked as a carpenter or workman and died in 1970 (?). Her mother Sara did not work, and there were three daughters. She names her grandparents: her maternal grandfather Elokim was a ritual slaughterer near Răpăciune (?). Her paternal grandmother Kune Leah and grandfather Avrom built a synagogue, and the grandmother went to Chernivtsi to buy a Torah scroll. Two of her father's brothers died in Transnistria.
12:51
From the machine transcript
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.
35:13
From the machine transcript
Hirsch mentions a pogrom after the war in what the transcript seems to give as Dorohoi, and shootings at its cemetery. He turns back to Luduș and describes its single synagogue with a beit midrash, and its morning and afternoon prayers and Sabbath services. He also speaks of the Jewish cemetery there, with about two thousand gravestones, which survived intact, and of his brother's grave.
39:55
From the machine transcript
Hirsch says he settled in Dej in 1960 and speaks about his brother Iosif Hirsch, who was a radio technician. The brother was arrested as a political prisoner for building an illegal radio station with two Romanian colleagues and was sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. He was beaten, lost his health and returned home sick with tuberculosis, and died soon after. Hirsch also says Dej had about 4,000 Jews before the war and about a thousand at most afterward.
3:18
From the machine transcript
Hirsch recalls that the Yiddish actress Sidi Tal performed twice in Luduș in the early 1930s, when he was about ten. He describes a wealthy Jew, named as Aron Moritz, who owned buildings, a restaurant or café and a theater hall with a stage. Plays were given in Hungarian and Romanian, and Moritz later emigrated to Palestine. Kerler ends by asking about Hirsch's work after the war.
10:38
From the machine transcript
Hirsch describes postwar religious life under communism: party members checked the services, and about ten percent of the Jews who were Communists attended on the High Holidays. He says the Great Synagogue was used for prayer until about 1990, and mentions that some Jewish men died every month. Kerler then asks what brought him to Dej after the war and whether Jews returned to Luduș. Hirsch answers that the work brought him, and that few came back to Luduș.
25:51
From the machine transcript
Hirsch speaks about prewar Luduș, including non-Jewish workers whose parents spoke Yiddish, and about holidays. He recalls the matzo factory and new clothes at Passover, the closed shops at Yom Kippur, and being taken by his father to the early-morning selihot services. He then discusses the Yiddish word for the Mureș river, the changing of Jewish family names, and a saying about birth and loss. He finally describes the seder, where he asked the four questions, the afikoman, and the Hebrew reading of the Haggadah.
27:26
From the machine transcript
Hirsch talks about the decline of the Jewish population in Luduș after the war, from several hundred Jews to a couple of hundred around 1960 (?). He says his cousins had left for Israel by 1948, and Kerler asks where he lived in between. The passage ends with Kerler asking about a memory remedy before thanking him for his help.
17:33
From the machine transcript
Chajim and Lemster discuss his wartime labor in Briceni, Edineț, Rujniţa (?) and Hotin; Chajim says some 800 Jews were there. Lemster asks how many Jews lived in Hîrlău before the war. Chajim tells of a boy from Moscow whose parents were taken to Auschwitz and whom he befriended. The boy later died in Radauți (?) at about eighty, and the local rabbi wrote to Chajim to say so.
30:21
From the machine transcript
Asked about his childhood, Chajim recalls cheder, work with wagons and hauling wood to Tuzac (?), and says he does not remember his grandparents. He talks about his father taking him to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and about prayers he still knows. Kerler asks about customs such as beating Haman during the reading of Esther (Purim) and about the Edineț bath and mikveh. He says he was in Edineț from 1941 and again mentions work in forced labor.
35:52
From the machine transcript
Lemster and Kerler ask about Podu Iloaiei. Chajim names a rabbi there, Rabbi Benzin (?), and tells how the Russians bombed Iași. He says Podu Iloaiei had five synagogues, including the great synagogue, which was sold, and the tailors' synagogue. No Jews remain there now.
0:00
From the machine transcript
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.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Greetings and chat at the Hîrlău synagogue; Lemster and Kerler ask the man's age, name (Abramovich) and whether he was born in the town. Abramovich says the synagogue is nearly two hundred years old, that there were once six or seven synagogues and this was the great one, and that it was a Hasidic town with several rabbis and shochtim. Kerler asks how many Jews lived there before the war.
9:03
From the machine transcript
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.
14:46
From the machine transcript
Abramovich says the synagogue was built with money sent by American Jews and later repainted; as a boy he watched the painter at work and was chased away. The painter was a Romanian Jew from elsewhere. Lemster and Kerler then ask Yiddish terms such as pious Jew, honest Jew and serious Jew, and about removing the evil eye with quenched coals and water; Abramovich does not remember the details.
54:01
From the machine transcript
Chajim tells of working as a forced laborer in the Romanian army during the war, in and around Edineț, building bridges and doing other labor. He recalls Jews shot and buried in a pit there, among them his uncle. Lemster asks how many Jews lived in Hîrlău before the war. Chajim also mentions his friend Shmuel (whose father was sent to Auschwitz), with whom he worked in a Poland-related place, and that the boy later died in Rădăuți.
27:20
From the machine transcript
The camera films the synagogue interior while the interviewers remark on an iron ark. Grinberg compares the Rădăuți synagogue with the great synagogue of Fălticeni, with more painted decoration, and tells a legend of a ship and Emperor Franz Joseph. She asked a Suceava university historian to check the archives. She also talks about an ethnographic museum that has nothing from the Jews, and about wanting to keep the synagogue's contents there.
47:44
From the machine transcript
Chat in the synagogue about the painted decoration and the painters, a name such as Steigman, and names of fathers and sons, with some dates. Grinberg and Kerler discuss whether the Yiddish word means painter or is a surname, and she refers to texts in Hebrew and English. Some of the content is unclear.
50:15
From the machine transcript
Grinberg points out things that were damaged or removed in the synagogue. She and Kerler discuss the Yiddish word for the little objects, and she mentions a meeting where the area's officials came. Kerler asks about a Star of David that has to be glued back on. She explains that the benches come from another synagogue and carry names of former worshippers.
17:30
From the machine transcript
Finkelshteyn says Yiddish was the only language at home and that his father wrote and read it. He talks about cheder, praying and synagogue attendance, which working Jews could not manage, and mentions the Iași pogrom as something too terrible to tell. He explains how he worked as a carpenter until his pension, mostly in a state factory in Soviet times, and how Jews were expected not to work manual jobs. He describes his apprenticeship with another carpenter and the market in Iași.
23:44
From the machine transcript
Finkelshteyn describes the Iași market and the trades before the war, many of them Jewish: tailors, shoemakers, tinsmiths and builders, including how houses were built. His master was a Jewish carpenter named Moshe. He adds that his own home had no running water, electricity or heating until after the war.
48:24
From the machine transcript
Finkelshteyn describes his childhood courtyard in Iași with fourteen Jewish families, each with its own room. He recalls the Passover seder at the long table his father made, with childless neighbors joining, and his mother's week of baking for Purim. Gypsy musicians visited on Purim. On Sukkot he built the sukkah for an uncle, and he mentions the Jewish bath and mikveh.
51:38
From the machine transcript
Finkelshteyn describes the Jewish bath, the mikveh and Friday bathing, and then synagogues in Iași: the street of the synagogues, with over a hundred prayer houses before the war. He talks about the town rebbe and how people brought disputes to him. Kerler asks whether he was Hasidic, and Finkelshteyn does not distinguish. He also recalls Sabbath evenings with the rebbe and his father's role in resolving disputes.
10:38
From the machine transcript
Finkelshteyn speaks about the Yiddish theater in Iași, the first Yiddish theater in Romania, and how children helped as extras and with scenery. He mentions touring artists, a musician family named Sigali (?), and plays on the theme of emigrants' families. He says Yiddish films never reached Romania except one, "A brivele der mamen", which people fought to get in to see. He notes that the theater building is gone, and that a monument now stands at its site.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about the Jewish population of Moldova and Romania; a figure of about fifteen thousand is mentioned. He then asks whether they remember children's songs or other songs. The interviewees say they know many Yiddish and cantorial songs and keep them on a computer, and a father's good singing is mentioned.
3:24
From the machine transcript
Rozenblat sings several Yiddish songs from his songbook, including a Passover song, a 'Tumbalalaika' type song and a song about his hometown Iași. Kerler asks when he compiled the booklet and whether it has a table of contents, and Rozenblat sings more.
7:15
From the machine transcript
Resh recalls his childhood in Chernivtsi: Romanian-language schooling, the ethnic makeup of the town, and the Soviet arrival, which ended his schooling. He says he went to a Jewish cheder for about a year after a private tutor had come to the house, and describes children's games (nuts, buttons, football) and the town's many languages. He also mentions deportation to Transnistria.
31:01
From the machine transcript
Resh answers questions about prewar Jewish culture in Chernivtsi: he recalls German but not Yiddish newspapers, mentions a Jewish theater, libraries, hospital and the Jewish street, and says there were no Yiddish or Hebrew books at home. He says there were Hasidim and many synagogues, and mentions Rabbi Marcus, shot by the Germans in 1941. Lemster then asks about terms such as a good place and a good Jew; Resh defines a good Jew as one who helps others.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Speakers at the Goldfaden memorial in Iași talk, in garbled transcript, about a Jewish hospital or old-age home and Jewish theater, apparently with reference to Goldfaden and the Romanian theater. The camera is probably recording the memorial.
19:20
From the machine transcript
Shtaigman says he studied Yiddish for four or five years after the war with a lawyer and Yiddishist teacher who had a large library and taught Yiddish literature. His religious education was minimal, with a stepfather who was somewhat communist. He says Rădăuți was multilingual (German, Romanian, Yiddish, Ukrainian, Russian) and describes the prewar population of about eight thousand, mostly Jews. Most Jews left for Israel in the later 1960s, leaving few young people.
27:18
From the machine transcript
Shtaigman explains that 'Litvak' speech in Rădăuți was like that of Polish Jews, with the vowel a pronounced differently, and Kerler gives examples of word forms. Polish Jews came to Rădăuți fleeing the Germans during the Second World War, and earlier Jews came from Austria and Czechoslovakia after the First. Kerler then turns to Transnistria.
23:04
From the machine transcript
Kaizerman briefly addresses Shavuot, Simchat Torah, which he calls a great joy with the Torah carried in synagogue, and Sukkot, with a sukkah in the courtyard where Jewish neighbors came. He says non-Jewish neighbors saw but did not join. He says few non-Jews now understand Yiddish, and speaks of two or three non-Jews he knew who converted. One married a Jew and their children went to Israel.
0:20
From the machine transcript
Chirilau gives her birth date and place, Mihăileni, in 1932. She recalls the town's three quarters of Jews, Romanians, Germans and Ukrainians living in harmony, with Jews and Christians attending one another's weddings. She tells a story about her father and a neighbouring friend, whose wives gave birth on consecutive days.
32:55
From the machine transcript
Chirilau talks about her father, an honest coachman who transported wine for Jewish tavern keepers, and about her mother, who worked the field and garden. She says few Jews worked the land, and names the Regenshtrayf pottery factory, with about sixty workers, and other rich Jewish families. She also mentions a workshop making kerchiefs and the word for them.
42:32
From the machine transcript
Chirilau names the local klezmer musicians, the Nadler brothers, Yoselekazak(?) on accordion and a drummer from Galati, who played in one orchestra at Jewish, Romanian and Ukrainian weddings. She says she will speak better the next day. She then describes the balls held for young Jews and Romanians, and on holidays, with fine clothes.
26:06
From the machine transcript
A long questionnaire stretch covers household words (attic, beams, garden, window pane), curses, colours, body parts, kinship and numbers, as well as sentence translations. Chirilau also answers questions about illness, verbs of motion, being pious or honest, a Jew who converted, prayer, the word for grandmother and street versus town. Toward the end she describes a Jewish street and a local pharmacist, Zakhachinski, and his wife, a doctor from Craiova (?).
9:00
From the machine transcript
Chirilau explains that she spoke Yiddish and German at home as a child and Romanian at school, and that Romanians also spoke some Yiddish. She describes Mihăileni as a fine town and discusses the Jewish cemetery, now locked, and a family who tended it. She tells of Moshe Itsik Bernshteyn (?), who was in Transnistria with his children, and whose son Natan lives in Israel. Natan had a gravestone made for the grave of his father.
25:33
From the machine transcript
Chirilau tells anecdotes about a poor, drunken neighbouring couple, Dudl Heler and Malka, who borrowed everything from her mother. She describes the trio of brothers who were Purim players and how one was matched with a tall bride. She then tells how rich Jews traded in flour and building materials and how life was natural and healthy before.
30:31
From the machine transcript
Chirilau says her parents were both born in Mihăileni. She recounts her father's friendship with Moshe Itsik, and a funny story about two friends who agreed to circumcise each other's children. She then answers Lemster's questions about Jews who leased out fields and vineyards, with Romanian peasants working the land.
33:20
From the machine transcript
Chirilau answers questions about the town's cinema and visiting Yiddish theater troupes, which performed in a large school hall. She says she understood Yiddish plays and recalls singers. She does not remember a Zionist organization by name, but describes a hekhalutz group that met for dancing, talk and aliyah. She also names local musicians.
47:58
From the machine transcript
Chirilau describes today's Mihăileni: few Jewish families remain, most people came from villages, and the town was once fine. Kerler shows her the photographs and addresses that he sent. They talk about a man from Chicago who wrote about her, about a very old émigré, and about her pension in old and new lei. Kerler then asks about Purim plays in the Carpathians.
13:32
From the machine transcript
Leichtner recalls his childhood schooling. He began cheder at six, and from seven he went to cheder early in the morning, then to the state school, and back to cheder in the afternoon until evening. He says it was hard to be a Jew. He counts the Jewish households in the village by the number of tallitot, 25, many with large families.
49:10
From the machine transcript
Leichtner says Jews lived well in prewar Romania, and that Sighet was a large city with many Jews, which he visited by train until he was taken into service at eighteen. He talks about weddings: the wedding jester who announced the dancers and collected gift money from them, and the klezmer band from a nearby village, with fiddle, drum, accordion and clarinet. He recalls storytelling in the evenings and has heard of Hershele Ostropolyer.
54:47
From the machine transcript
Leichtner says a Yiddish theater came to the city rather than the village. He says his parents and other Jews were not originally from the village and had come from the area. On Hanukkah he recalls children playing with the dreidel and its four letters, and says latkes were not made on Passover. Lemster asks him about words such as dybbuk and golem, and Leichtner glosses golem and other words for a fool.
41:44
From the machine transcript
Shwartz describes the Purim play he performed in, a wedding play in which he played the master of the house and another young man played his wife. Kerler recalls a play about a chimney sweeper looking for a bride. He states the town's name in Hungarian and Romanian and that no Jews live there now; the Yiddish name is unclear. Kerler thanks him, and the interview ends with a Russian aside to the staff.
2:44
From the machine transcript
Freundlich talks about Purim plays in the community, which mocked communal figures such as the head of the community, the gabbai, the shamash and the rabbi, sometimes causing offence. As a child he dressed up as a bridegroom or hasid with a kaftan and shtraymel; he recalls that he and his brothers tried to put on performances but could not pay for talent.
33:28
From the machine transcript
Freundlich describes his Sighet-area Yiddish and the differences in pronouncing prayers compared with Hasidic and Hungarian Jews. Lemster then conducts the questionnaire with Romanian prompts, covering greetings, thanks, animal and body words, house and colour words, adverbs, and the terms for a pious versus honest person, a Christian and a convert. Freundlich also relates the story of a Jewish girl who converted, talks about words for peasants and Yiddish-speaking non-Jews, and Maramureș peasants who lived among Jews.
24:00
From the machine transcript
Macarie says village children had few toys; they played in the garden, and she made dolls from corn silk. Lemster asks about Purim; she mentions a large shared courtyard and field where all the Jews lived together. She says nothing about postwar work as an accountant in this stretch.
37:48
From the machine transcript
Freundlich continues his wartime story: a group of 47 men held by Russian soldiers, including Jews from the Carpathians who spoke Yiddish and Russian, and an officer who was Jewish. He calls his escape a miracle. Kerler asks about Purim plays and theater, and Freundlich recalls a Yiddish touring actor in Maramureș. He says there were few Hasidim in Baia Mare. He speaks of newcomers and rebbes, a dispute among rabbis, and a visit to a rebbe in Sighet. A passing question about the meaning of a word appears, but a clear dialectological questionnaire is not evident.
18:35
From the machine transcript
Shwartz shows a recent diploma recognising his activity in the community. He then recalls the Passover seder before the war with his parents' and two families, at which he asked the four questions as the eldest, all in Hungarian, with the Haggadah also read in Hungarian. Yiddish he spoke only in the study house and yeshiva. He names the local rebbe Schönfeld, says the town had over two thousand Jews and nine minyanim on Sabbath, and mentions wishes of going to Palestine.
40:57
From the machine transcript
Freundlich sings the song again, and Kerler asks him about other songs. He says he learned a song from a fellow prisoner, discussing where the man came from, which appears to be Bistriţa and then the Gura Humorului border area. The man's origin is somewhat unclear in the transcript. He begins to sing the verses of "Baranovich".
1:49
From the machine transcript
Grinberg describes her family in Fălticeni as very pious, with hasidic (Chabad) roots and several cantors among her father's relatives. She recalls her maternal grandfather's piety, and her own childhood task of calling neighbors to the synagogue on Sabbath mornings. She says Yiddish was spoken with her grandmother, while at school she had to speak Romanian and had few people to speak Yiddish with.
17:06
From the machine transcript
In the community center, Grinberg and the interviewers discuss a dialect word for Purim and where it is used. She says Rădăuți Jews were less pious than those of Fălticeni, and that many in Rădăuți married non-Jews even before the war, which surprised her. She discusses children of mixed families who come to her wanting to be recognized as Jews.
41:32
From the machine transcript
Lemster and Kerler ask about Jewish weddings in Fălticeni before the war, and Grinberg describes the huppah, who performed it, and the musicians. She and S3 say Christian klezmers played together with Jews. She recalls a violinist named Stainer who also taught children, and the pianist Lazar Offenberg, a pharmacist who played for himself. Lemster begins a question about Yiddish libraries.
6:47
From the machine transcript
The team meets the head of the Sighet Jewish community, who says he knows little Yiddish and speaks English and Romanian. Kerler and Lemster ask about the community and its centre and which language to use; they then ask whether the building is a Jewish house and which synagogue it is, and Kerler asks how many Jews live there today.
11:42
From the machine transcript
Chat with community members, then a visit to the synagogue with footage while the guide speaks. The transcript is very fragmentary, with repeated phrases and Russian and Romanian bits. A speaker remarks that Sighet was a Jewish town.
20:02
From the machine transcript
Salamon speaks about Jews in her neighbourhood today: there are few and many are of mixed descent, with one grandparent or a neighbour Jewish. Kerler tells her she will tell her story, and the speakers touch on an address.
32:35
From the machine transcript
Salamon discusses who counts as Jewish in the small present-day community, the difficulty of forming a minyan and why Hasidim do not use the synagogue. She recalls the prewar rabbi Dantziger, the small prayer houses with cheder, and the old synagogue with its mikveh, which was demolished after the war. She says the community brought in a cantor for the holidays and her father would finish praying quickly to hear him. She also describes why Jews emigrated and her visit to Canada, where the children knew little Yiddish.
3:43
From the machine transcript
Kurtsberg says he knew few Jews of Rădăuți but worked there in 1953 with several Jewish co-workers, whom he names. In answer to Kerler, he confirms that the Jews there spoke Yiddish.
6:02
From the machine transcript
Kurtsberg gives his Yiddish name Shmuel and his birth date, 4 November 1936. He explains where he was born (the street and the district names are garbled, and the town is Piatra Neamț only per the catalogue). He names the old counties of Bacău, Suceava and Siret. He then explains that Piatra Neamț people called Suceava "meshuge Shots", and tells a story of neighbors who quarrelled so much over a tree that it was cut down.
34:01
From the machine transcript
Kurtsberg describes theater performances in Siret soon after the war, in the cinema hall, in which Kranenfeld, Herber Grafe and Dina König (?) acted. He gives the plot of a comic play about an emigrating woman who travels to America in a trough and a husband asking for coffee.
58:38
From the machine transcript
Kurtsberg recalls traditional Jewish weddings in Siret, including those of his two uncles. He describes the chuppah, the ceremony, the broken glass, Hasidic and ballroom dances, and Jewish musicians, including an accordionist named Fisher (?). He names the master of ceremonies, Grünfeld, who led the wedding. Songs for the bride, groom and mother-in-law are discussed, though he cannot remember the jests.
22:42
From the machine transcript
Kurtsberg talks about Hasidim in Siret and describes the holy place (the Jewish cemetery area) with its old and newer parts and the graves of famous rabbis, visited by Hasidim from America and Israel. The team then plays him a recording of Iosif Kogan singing songs from the Bershad ghetto, with brief remarks identifying Kogan, now in Tulchyn.
55:28
From the machine transcript
Kurtsberg discusses his reading of Yiddish literature, saying he read Sholem Aleichem in Romanian. He describes his monthly visits to the Jewish cemetery to pay the electricity bill, light a memorial candle at his grandfather's grave and sit there. He also talks about the key to the Radauti cemetery and about visitors, rabbis and yeshiva students who come to Siret.
22:59
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Lemster talk with Petraru inside the great synagogue, while the camera films it, including its paintings. Petraru explains that the family name Petrarlu/Petraru comes from his great-grandfather's trade as a builder or mason, and speaks of a woman who restored the paintings and what the work cost. They discuss the women's section and who prays there; he prays at home and the synagogue meets mainly on Sabbath and holidays.
30:09
From the machine transcript
The team greets Mehler in front of her house and chats with her, in Romanian and Yiddish, about her origin in Iași and whether other Yiddish speakers live in Vatra Dornei. She gives them an address to visit, on the street Podul Verde. She says her father was a professor and was killed in the Iași pogrom; the date is unclear in the transcript.
45:13
From the machine transcript
Outside, Galambos talks with the team and says he has found it hard to recall old things. He recalls that his family came to Vaja when he was three. He mentions cheder and games with other children, and the group discusses the number of streets in Vaja. Hungarian chat with others and a gift of apples follow, then a song and warm farewells.
36:47
From the machine transcript
Weinberger describes his family and Nižná Jedľová, a small village near Svidník with about nineteen houses, a few of them Jewish families including his own and uncles. He recalls his grandmother Leah (?) who cooked for him when he came home from cheder in Stropkov. His uncles were taken in 1942 and his father died in 1943 (?), his mother and siblings were deported, and an uncle hid him so that he lived on false Christian papers. He also mentions an uncle with eight small children, married to a woman from Poland, and the nearby border and villages.
52:26
From the machine transcript
Weinberger says no relatives remain, and that he visited Israel in 1969 for about five weeks (?), at a friend's invitation, and met Stropkov landsleit there. He then speaks about the contemporary Jewish community, including a woman from Breznica in Bratislava who knows Yiddish, an ethnographic project in Bratislava, other survivors of Auschwitz from the Stropkov area, and a book on Stropkov published by a woman in Be'er Sheva. He also mentions the Halberstam family and a Košice rabbi with an ohel in Košice.
6:57
From the machine transcript
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.
33:47
From the machine transcript
Chaimovic says his mother read the Yiddish Tsene-rene on Sabbath to women. He says he studied at the Hanušovce yeshiva with about sixty to seventy students and a rabbi who inspected them. He gives the town's Jewish population as 1,200, tells how it is said in Yiddish, and answers questions about newspapers, Hungarian, the term ba'al shem, and a wooden synagogue.
38:49
From the machine transcript
Chaimovic describes religious life around Hanušovce before the war: the Selichot service, people walking from villages to form a minyan, and the synagogue in Hanušovce. He lists shuls and mikvehs in the nearby villages, including Bystré, Vyšný Žipov (?) and Sol', and notes that the Vranov synagogue was destroyed. Kerler asks the Slovak name of Sol' and then for a prayer.
3:43
From the machine transcript
Steiner talks about a very old man, the son of the cantor of the Neolog synagogue in Košice, who died half a year before at over ninety. He says his own Yiddish comes from Jerusalem and that he was born in Slovakia in Zlaté Moravce, a small town where about fifty Jewish families lived among a non-Jewish majority.
36:40
From the machine transcript
Steiner discusses Hasidic life in the Košice region before the war. He says there were few Hasidim and few tsadikim, speaks about Orthodox and Neolog Jews in the city, a Sephardic claim, old gravestones, and the religious scholar Akiva Yosef Schlesinger. He mentions the prewar yeshiva in Košice, a rabbi who died in 1943, and societies of pious Jews. Kerler asks about Hasidim, Sephardim, yeshivas and Prešov.
4:15
From the machine transcript
Chaimovic describes Jewish inns with Gypsy musicians where people drank and danced. He tells of Passover preparations: home baking of matzo in household ovens two weeks before the holiday, shmura matzo and matzo for the pious, Passover foods and cakes, borscht from beets, and chremslach, with a recipe. Kerler asks for the names of terms and dishes, and the passage ends with a question about who spoke Yiddish in Prešov.
17:48
From the machine transcript
Chaimovic says he visited Munkács and other Transcarpathian towns after the war, and Kerler asks about a rabbi of Munkács. He speaks about Jewish trades in Prešov, the Maccabi sport club and Zionist youth groups such as Shomrim, Betar, Mizrachi and Agudah. He says he was a member of Mizrachi, where they sang and danced.
35:25
From the machine transcript
Pivnik talks about her time in the Jewish autonomous region of Birobidzhan around 1938–39, where her sister had moved and where Yiddish was spoken; she worked there in a school-related job (unclear). Lemster mentions the poet Lyuba Vasserman. She recalls a prewar concert in Balta by Clara Young, a performer from America, and an acting couple who settled in Balta. Many Jews attended. The conversation turns to Balta's size and to Hershl Polyanker's writings, then to her reading in Russian and Yiddish.
20:39
From the machine transcript
Gorberg tells of returning in 1945 to find no home, and moving to her uncle in Odesa, where her brother learned confectionery after being disabled. The family moved on to Rîbnița, where she trained in accounting in Chișinău and worked on a kolkhoz. After marrying she returned to Balta in 1951 and worked as a planner and accountant for decades. She says there was no shoykhet, synagogue or Yiddish cultural life in Balta; Kerler asks about the singer Nekhama Lifshitsaite (?) or similar visiting artists.
48:08
From the machine transcript
Epelman gives his parents' names, Yosef and Tela (?), and says he was born in Balta as one of ten children, with a twin sister Brane who now lives in Israel. He names his many siblings, says that not all of them know Yiddish, and tells that his father and grandfather were coachmen who took passengers to the station. His mother was a housewife, and the family lived on the other side of town near a prayer house (?). Lemster asks about the grandfather's name and work and about his own work as a stoker.
3:50
From the machine transcript
Lerner explains that her street was called Lesnaya before the revolution and was later renamed after Kirov. Her grandfather moved from Rybnytsia to Balta in 1930 and bought the house. She describes the house room by room, including a passage room, the stove, a south-facing room with a balcony and a bedroom. She says she once took in lodgers and painted the floors herself. She also recalls returning from evacuation in September 1944 and living in part of the house.
6:42
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about the prayers her mother said at home after the war, which Vaynman says were from an old prayer book, in Hebrew and some Yiddish. Questions then turn to whether an old synagogue or its ruins survived in Bar; Vaynman says there was none when they arrived, only a ritual slaughterer. A Russian-speaking local joins in about the Turkish or Polish fortress and where synagogues once stood, with the Germans having destroyed Jewish buildings. Kerler asks for more about the postwar years.
54:50
From the machine transcript
Marmalevskaia answers questions about Jewish funerals and the cemetery in Bila Tserkva, which has an old and a new Jewish cemetery. Kerler asks for the Yiddish words for the cemetery and for burial, and for the expression used when remembering the dead.
5:26
From the machine transcript
Berman recalls his Rivne youth. His father was a well-known leather merchant, and his mother led the Jewish women's organization and took him as a child to banquets where he met Ben-Gurion and others. He mentions Yiddish as spoken by Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky and Sholem Asch, and an incident at Asch's play. He also speaks of his articles on Rivne's football team and its match against a Viennese club, and on Jewish partisan doctors, which brought letters from abroad.
MDV 335Khariton Berman; Chara Yakovlevna Bublitskaia; Chara (Chare) Yakovlevna BublitskaiaBila Tserkva, 2005
5:31
From the machine transcript
Berman's wife Sonya, whose maiden name was Pritske, answers Kerler's questions about her origins. She was born in Bila Tserkva, and she describes the old town. Her father Meir was a very pious man and worked as an office employee, her mother Leah was a housewife, and she had an older brother Mordkhe, who is mentioned in connection with the war. She attended a Ukrainian school.
21:12
From the machine transcript
Bublitskaia remembers a large choral synagogue in Chisinau, where cantors came from America and Paris to lead the prayers. She says she lived in Chisinau for many years and names the street where the family lived, a street whose name is only approximately heard (Kharlampovskaya (?)).
4:21
From the machine transcript
Bublitskaia describes the Yiddish theater in Bila Tserkva led by the director Klorfeld (Anatolii Efimovich), who had studied theater in Kyiv before the war, organized a collective and later left for America. Local Jewish amateurs performed, partly in Yiddish and partly in Russian, including Tevye the Dairyman and Sholem Aleichem pieces. Her husband, a tenor, sang in the company.
14:08
From the machine transcript
Berman begins a second interview, in his home, answering Katz's question about his first childhood encounters with Yiddish theater. He recalls seeing the best Yiddish actors in Rivne in the 1930s, among them the Vilna Troupe and actors from Warsaw, in the community's Yiddish folk theater (the gallery) and in a private theater. He describes the crowds around the singer Bentsion (?) Witler and how he heard Mikhoels on Moscow and Kyiv Yiddish radio, which led to his wartime correspondence.
28:34
From the machine transcript
Berman discusses prewar Rivne: there were few Hasidim there, mostly Stolin (?) and Vizhnitz (?), the Jewish population was largely secular intelligentsia with two Jewish gymnasiums, and the great synagogue had famous cantors such as Moshe Koussevitzky, whom he heard. He also tells of Yossele Rosenblatt, born in Bila Tserkva, and of his own parents Avrom and Sheyne Roze (?) Berman, who were killed. Kerler then asks about Jewish places in Bila Tserkva.
41:20
From the machine transcript
Berman says that in the 1930s he and his family knew from the Yiddish press about the Soviet show trials. He names the Yiddish papers Volhyner Nayes (weekly) and Volhyner Yidisher Kuryer (daily) in Rivne. S4 asks about the actor Michl Weichert, and Berman recalls Maurice Schwartz's visit to Rivne.
43:41
From the machine transcript
Berman talks about the relationship between Yiddishists and Hebraists in prewar Rivne, saying there was no real conflict in the 1930s since each knew the other's language. He describes his article about meeting Bialik, whom he saw at a literary banquet and who told Volhynian Jews not to forget their Yiddish, and he discusses Bialik's attitude to Yiddish and Hebrew literature. Kerler then asks for a route for the next day's visit.
7:31
From the machine transcript
Answering Kerler, Shor describes Orhei as a Jewish town, 90 per cent or so Jewish (?), where people traded and lived well in Moldova's good climate. His mother's brother lived in a village with large wine-making holdings. Shor remembers sowing tobacco and wheat there, and says the estate was later dispossessed under Soviet rule.
10:20
From the machine transcript
Shor says he studied with a melamed who came to the house, because there were no Jewish schools; he went to a Moldovan school and learned to pray from the prayer book. He says the synagogue was closed in 1939 and gives the number of synagogues in Orhei as about twenty. Kerler asks about the difference between a shul, a kloyz and a beys-medresh, and Shor says he does not remember. Shor says his wife knows a lot about kashrut and holidays.
17:56
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about klezmers and Jewish weddings in Orhei. Shor recalls a wedding of his mother's sister's husband's relative (?) with a huppah and musicians, but cannot recall a badkhn.
37:50
From the machine transcript
They discuss prewar Jewish religious life in Berdychiv, with a view that there was one religion and no sharp split between Hasidic and other Jews. A companion tells that people used to walk at night to a grave in town and an anecdote of Rabbi Bik on the Sabbath goy. The informants also recall that the lamp was kept burning on the Sabbath. Kerler then asks plural forms of rav and rebbe.
12:03
From the machine transcript
Skobilitskii names his cheder teacher as Leybl and says there were about twenty children, in the later 1920s. Every synagogue had a cheder. He recalls that cantors used to come, and that after the war the community collected money to bring a cantor from Kyiv for holidays. Katz asks what the synagogue building was called before the war, since it stood for over a hundred years.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Skobilitskii says that the cheder was not closed. On Sabbath he went to synagogue with his father, since Sabbath was a day off from the Yiddish school and Sunday was a school day. He and Kerler discuss the schools in Berdychiv: thirteen in all, eight of them Yiddish, plus Polish, Ukrainian and Russian ones. Exams and certificates were in Russian. Kerler then announces some word questions.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Chukh gives the date and place of the interview and says the Berdychiv tsadik's grave is a pilgrimage site for visitors. She says she was born in Berdychiv, as were her parents, and was evacuated to the Caucasus during the war. Trained as a nurse, she wanted to go to the front but was kept at hospital work because she had a small child. She worked as an operating-room nurse and was later recognised as a war participant. She names her parents (father Yosl/Iosif, a sieve-maker from a place in Poland whose name is unclear; mother Tsirl, a quilt-maker) and her brothers, one in Germany. She describes her Jewish school (school no. 13, seven grades), her later nursing school and her long postwar nursing career in a Berdychiv hospital. She recalls childhood games, dolls she makes today from broken ones, and home life with Yiddish-speaking parents. She tells of the hungry early 1930s, when her mother sewed quilts to feed the children and the school later fed them. She remembers Soviet-era closing of synagogues, the synagogues of Berdychiv, the Hasidic rebbe's prayer house and holiday observance at home but not in school. Chukh also recalls Yiddish literature and press, a large library, visiting Yiddish theaters, the seltzer seller Itsik, and about 60,000 Jews in the town. She describes weddings with music and a rhymester, and Sabbath and holiday foods. She then answers Kerler's dialectological questionnaire: translating Russian words and sentences into Yiddish (greetings, household words, animals, colours, adverbs, body and illness terms), plus words like dybbuk and golem.
30:16
From the machine transcript
Skobilitskii describes the German round-up of Jews in 1943 from the synagogue. He recounts his own education and says he completed eight classes in a Yiddish school, one of eight Yiddish schools in prewar Berdychiv. About eighty percent of the inhabitants were Jewish, and Yiddish was spoken in the streets. He recalls a non-Jewish classmate who later spoke Yiddish with him.
33:23
From the machine transcript
Skobilitskii recalls his war service in an artillery unit from Stalingrad to Berlin, with the countries he passed through, and his rank as officer. Kerler asks about his cheder years in Kachynivka. He offers to take the team to the memorial for the thousands of people killed in Berdychiv and to the old synagogue buildings.
5:46
From the machine transcript
Skobilitskii recalls anti-religious propaganda that called religion an opiate, and that school subjects were taught in Yiddish. He remembers mocking plays about Jews staged at school, with Yiddish songs. He also mentions a Jewish theatre troupe that performed Sholem Aleichem, cantors in the Koch shul, and the Jewish owner of the fire brigade with white horses.
46:45
From the machine transcript
The team is in the van, with a Russian remark that there were eight Jewish schools in town before the war and a comment that the town was largely Jewish. Skobilitskii speaks about the old synagogue and the school building no. 9. The passage then turns to the difference between 'honest' and 'pious' in Yiddish and an anecdote about being asked about his beard. Someone says he is a professor of Yiddish, and then a speaker begins to tell of a family wedding.
54:17
From the machine transcript
Tour of Berdychiv by van with Skobilitskii: Makhlevka (now Sverdlov street), signs in English and Hebrew, a hotel building bought by Menlovich (?) for visitors from America, Chabad and its relations with the Skver rebbe, a monastery, and the ghetto monument. Jewish houses and the Lubavitch house are pointed out, and the group says it will return to see the synagogue of Feygele Magazanik (?).
2:19
From the machine transcript
Breuer speaks about the synagogue building and the Jewish situation in Zhytomyr. It is the only synagogue left of dozens, built long ago. He recounts a story about a rabbi's wife and a non-Jewish judge in a dispute over whether there should be other rabbis in the city. He also mentions the relations with the other rabbi (Krinsky?).
6:35
From the machine transcript
Breuer says Zhytomyr has several thousand Jews, that he is responsible for the surrounding towns, and that there were eight weddings last year and a yeshiva. He then speaks about his Hasidic descent, with rebbes of Chernobyl and other courts. He explains the differences between Chabad and Polish Hasidim, with a story of two Hasidim and their rebbes. The talk turns to the Messiah, Vilnius, and a Chabad Yiddish newspaper.
46:54
From the machine transcript
Furman talks about his childhood and school in Berdychiv. There were many Jewish schools alongside Russian, Ukrainian and Polish ones. About 60,000 Jews lived there, and many were killed at the airfield. He gives his siblings' birth years and says his friends were killed in the army. He studied in a Yiddish school, remembers Tolstoy and Sholem Aleichem, and says non-Jews also spoke Yiddish. He lived near the edge of town.
53:58
From the machine transcript
Furman answers questions about cultural life. Yiddish theater came to Berdychiv with actors from Odessa and Leningrad, and he went to the theater often. He recalls the building opposite the synagogue, now a factory, and other synagogues. Asked about Purim plays, he does not remember any.
57:31
From the machine transcript
Others present say there were no Hasidim in Berdychiv. Kerler asks about Levi Yitzhak of Berdychiv and visitors to the grave. Furman does not remember either.
1:00:31
From the machine transcript
Furman says Berdychiv was a Jewish city where everything was done in Yiddish. Asked how it differed from Zhytomyr, he says he did not go there. The interviewers then turn to Stalingrad.
38:32
From the machine transcript
Soyfer speaks about Berdychiv before the war. Few people had radios or electricity, many Jews were very poor, and his father said a herring cost a groschen. He remarks that many Jews today cannot speak Yiddish.
43:16
From the machine transcript
Soyfer says that Berdychiv has no new Jewish cemetery but an old one, that earlier Jews and non-Jews were buried together, and that the rabbi is now to be given a plot. Lemster asks about Soviet Yiddish writers.
9:45
From the machine transcript
She speaks about Jewish neighbours who were arrested and killed under Stalin, including a pious watchmaker who was sent to Siberia in 1937 and rehabilitated after his death. The passage opens with a part of Kerler's question that is lost in the transcript.
30:08
From the machine transcript
Berzon talks about her childhood neighbourhood and her friends, mostly Jewish, in Berdychiv. She tells about a non-Jewish relative by marriage who spoke Yiddish and went to cheder with Jewish boys, and who later lost an eye in the war. He suspected that doctors wanted to remove his eye because he was not a Jew. She also describes his Jewish friends.
40:50
From the machine transcript
Berzon speaks about Lipe, who ran the synagogue, and his sons. She says there were many synagogues, about thirty, in Berdychiv before the revolution, and that one reopened after the war. Kerler asks about the Berdychiv rebbe Levi Yitskhok and his grave. She says older people knew where the tsadik lies.
13:19
From the machine transcript
The interviewee tells of her schooling: her father sent her to a Russian school because Yiddish schools were expected to close. The speakers recall that Berdychiv was a Jewish town with over thirty thousand Jews, about seventy percent, and that a few Jewish schools existed. Today one sees almost no Jews on the street.
15:00
From the machine transcript
The speakers describe Berdychiv today as a small town, with only some hundreds of Jews left, many having emigrated. Kerler asks whether they studied in cheder or Yiddish school and whether they read Yiddish books and newspapers.
7:26
From the machine transcript
They describe Berdychiv before the war as a Jewish town of over thirty thousand Jews, with many synagogues and prayer in private houses. Under Soviet pressure Komsomol members could not enter the synagogue. After the war some returned from evacuation. They also say how the couple met, that they lived in the same courtyard, and that her father died in 1928.
14:15
From the machine transcript
She names the relatives lost in the war: her mother Sara, her sisters Ester and Zisl (the youngest was four), and her grandmother. She says she will show photographs. Kerler then asks about non-Jews in prewar Berdychiv and Yiddish. Both speakers say Yiddish was widely heard in the streets and that many non-Jews spoke it. They describe a Ukrainian locksmith who spoke good Yiddish, and say that few Jews now remain and Yiddish is spoken between themselves.
39:39
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about Passover after the war. They say matzo was baked in the synagogue, with the dough carried in large baskets to a big oven. They describe the German destruction of the synagogue and its repair by the Jews, and that Pioneers and Komsomol members could not enter. They also say there were many prayer houses of trades before the war.
2:12
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about the name of a street and a neighbourhood in Berdychiv. Soyfer answers and begins to say that poor Jews lived in Kachenivka (?).
2:30
From the machine transcript
Soyfer explains how, before the revolution, Jews were barred from living in many places and from owning land unless they had served long in the tsar's army, or converted. He gives a story of a Jewish family in a village forced out unless it converted, and speaks of the cost of gymnasium for Jews. He says Berdychiv was a place where Jews could live and mentions pogroms, emigration to America and his grandmother's languages. Kerler then asks for his birth year (1930) and he begins to speak of his mother's death.
MDV 359Rita Davidovna Shveibish; Aleksandr (Sasha) Shayevich Kolodenker; Mikhail Aronovich Vainshelboim and 1 moreBerdychiv, Pechera, 2009
12:00
From the machine transcript
At the former camp, now a sanatorium, the guides explain in mostly Russian where the gate and guard towers stood. They describe the memorial plaque, changed after Ukraine's independence, and how the Germans selected victims. They say prisoners were harnessed to sleds to haul corpses to burial pits in the forest, and that anyone going to the river for water was shot. Kerler checks whether the interviewee understands Yiddish. They discuss the barbed-wire fence and begging at the gate, and the group then debates driving the car into the forest.
56:32
From the machine transcript
Sara, born in Berdychiv, talks about her family before the war. There were four children, and the elder brother was killed at the front. Her father Yankl Yakov Katz worked in a sausage factory, and her mother Dobe was a housewife. The family lived on the street near the market that was formerly Zhytomyrska and later Lenin Street. She went to a Jewish school and then a Russian one, and was evacuated to Bashkiria. They also remark on the large prewar Jewish population compared with today.
1:04:22
From the machine transcript
Sara and Mikhail speak of their return to Berdychiv in 1944. They mention hunger and the rebuilding of a house on Zhytomyrska Street, and that Jews returned only slowly. They compare the Jewish population before the war with the few hundred today, and mention that Jews drive to the killing site on the anniversary of the massacre.
31:39
From the machine transcript
Vainshelboim describes the Cook's synagogue, where food was prepared and worshippers could eat after prayers. He recalls a club in Berdychiv in the mid-1930s where Yiddish plays were staged, including one about Sholem Aleichem (?). He says Berdychiv was a Jewish city, called a Jerusalem, with tens of thousands of Jews, and offers to switch off the camera.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Walking tour of Novoselytsya in which a local man points out former Jewish houses, a street once lived on, and a building that was a synagogue and later a sports hall, with Kerler asking when Jews settled in the town. There is talk about a non-Jew who keeps the Sabbath and considers himself a Jew, and about a Jewish school and soup kitchen. The group enters the building and discusses its decay and what restoration would cost, with figures for the town's Jewish families and students. The informant recalls the tailors' synagogue, the shoemakers' prayer rooms and small klayzlekh, and his father attending synagogue, before talk of the team's onward route by van.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Hodinger answers questions about singing in Berehove, saying that Jews once sang but few are left and only a handful gather for prayer. Asked about relations with the non-Jewish neighbors, he speaks of strong antisemitism in Hungary. He also gives the numbers of Jews who lived in Berehove before and after the war and mentions those who did not return from the 1944 deportation. The interviewers then ask about further songs and Purim plays.
11:35
From the machine transcript
Mostly camera-and-car talk on the way through Berehove. Hodinger sings a short song, and Kerler checks his sister's name and her flat in Haifa. The group stops briefly and speaks Russian and Romanian with people about visitors and university work, and about Efraim Berkovich's home and daughter (names unclear). Little of the content about the Great Synagogue or its plaque can be made out. Much of the speech is garbled.
6:43
From the machine transcript
Snook says the village had about a hundred Jewish families and a synagogue, and that people went to pray. She compares observance then and now, mentioning her grandchildren in Israel and her daughter-in-law's synagogue-going. Lemster asks how she herself studied.
45:36
From the machine transcript
Inside the synagogue the men talk about the many former synagogues in Berehove and say they are Orthodox Ashkenazi. One says he is from Seliš (Vynohradiv) and has lived in Berehove for about fifty years, while the other is a Berehove native. They discuss how few Jews remain, the minyan, and the absence of women singers. Kerler and Lemster ask about languages spoken (Yiddish, Hungarian, Russian, Czech, English), about nearby Jewish villages and Yiddish speakers, and about the Hesed.
11:16
From the machine transcript
Murovanaia gives personal information and speaks of her family: born in Nikolaev in 1926 and taken to Haysyn as a baby. She learned fish-making from her mother-in-law from Haysyn. Her father Mordkhe, born in Kiblych, was a military officer who taught at a military school in Moscow; her mother Golde, daughter of Tevye, was born in Haysyn and headed a tailors' artel. She mentions a half-sister who died young and a Russian-language remark about the proportion of Jews in Haysyn.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kerler opens with the date and Kozak's address, then she gives personal details: her Yiddish name Sheyndl (Zhenya in her passport), her birth in Bershad and her maiden and married names. She names her parents, Avrom Hershkovich and Blume Shlomovna, and their birth years; her father was a furrier who worked in the villages, and her mother was a homemaker and, after the war, a baker selling bread at the market. She recalls her siblings, a Ukrainian eight-year school, evacuation to the Caucasus and Central Asia, and her return in 1944 to find strangers in their home. She then describes prewar Bershad as a Jewish town, her grandmother the midwife and her grandfather's death after a rescue in the snow, and the town's water-carrier, shoykhet and mohel. Kerler asks about weddings and klezmer musicians, a relative's wedding in Khust (?), Sabbath cholent and challah, fish dishes, latkes, Passover and Sukkot, and the old synagogue. She ends by singing two Yiddish songs, one of passionate love and elopement and one about a poor orphan boy.
5:42
From the machine transcript
Kozak recalls a Yiddish theater troupe from Belz (?) that visited Bershad' before the war, performing plays in the synagogue hall; she does not recall plays or songs. She then speaks of evacuation, with hardship and lack of Passover observance, and a cooking-pot story.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Conversation among Kerler and the local hosts about the region's small towns, Jewish cemeteries and a rebbe's grave, and the many Hasidim once in Bershad. Kerler explains that the team is recording for an archive. He asks to be taken to a household where a husband and wife still live. Kerler also speaks Russian by phone to someone named Yuzik (?) Moiseevich, asking whether the visiting scholars may call on him.
2:11
From the machine transcript
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.
5:06
From the machine transcript
Bershadskaya says that her mother moved to Bershad' before the war, in the late 1930s (?), because the village had few Jews. Kerler then explains the project's linguistic and historical aims, and a second voice comments on the difference between what is written and what is heard.
17:44
From the machine transcript
Inside the synagogue the team meets community members and Kerler is introduced. They speak of a Passover supported by Chabad and of a man from Tomashpil. They also talk about the age of the synagogue, a memorial connected with a young man killed in the war (?), the women's section upstairs, and religious books. Much of the speech is garbled and includes a recogniser loop.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Gvinter talks with Kerler and Lemster about the song of going to Palestine, which was sung in secret in the ghetto and more openly after the war, and comments on politics and the Israel–Palestinian conflict today. He mentions his own illness and a daughter's family. He answers terminology questions about Bila Tserkva, about words for non-Jews and for a foolish or wicked person, and about a convert. He recalls the Bershad' ghetto, people from Chernivtsi held and shot at the stadium, and non-Jews who learned a few Yiddish words. He then speaks about his own life: neighbours and the shoe workshop, the sale of a building he was asked to sell, his marriage in 1958, his children, and his siblings. Finally he explains why one synagogue in Bershad' stayed open after the war while others were closed, and mentions the building turned into a cinema.
37:07
From the machine transcript
Answering Lemster, Feldman recalls a Jewish klezmer musician whose daughter was her friend. She names the instruments and says the musicians played at weddings. She mentions the custom of bringing a cake to the grandparents and parents, and the dances they played. In response to Lemster's question she lists wedding food such as stuffed fish, cutlets, calf's foot jelly, cheese and flaky pastry. She is unsure whether it was kosher.
0:00
From the machine transcript
The second man opens by explaining that the synagogues were closed before the war and that after the war only a few were allowed. He recalls that a synagogue building stood on a spot in Bershad', and points out the main street, which became Lenin Street. Sklyarskiy then gives his name and patronymic and says he was orphaned young (his mother died when he was three, his father when he was seven) and brought up by an aunt and uncle in the shtetl Zhornysche, where about two thousand Jews lived. He tells how in 1942 the Jews were driven out by police, he was shot at and wounded, and the family hid in a dugout in a field. His sisters and their children were killed when he went out for food; he then joined the partisans and was wounded again. He describes his father as a carpenter, his sisters, and his schooling: a four-year Yiddish school, then a Russian one. He talks about the shtetl before the war, a rabbi, holidays in the synagogue and the postwar murder of a Jewish man. Kerler asks about the length of the hiding and the number of people in the dugout, and asks him to retell the first shooting and the forced labor under the Germans, including burying dead soldiers.
6:31
From the machine transcript
The guide, speaking Russian and Yiddish, shows the former synagogue and women's section and says it was used as a sports hall in Soviet times. She describes the restoration by a benefactor named Fishl (?), the current neglect of the building, and the Hebrew classes upstairs. She recalls holidays filled with 140–160 people and says it was not comfortable to speak Yiddish in the street. Kerler asks about Moldovans, Bulgarians and Gagauz in town, and the meaning of the town's name is explained.
31:10
From the machine transcript
Teitel gives personal information: she was born in 1936 in the village of Baremcha in the Sarata district. Her grandfather ran a restaurant, and the family was evacuated to northern Kazakhstan, where she finished two grades before returning to Baremcha. She describes the destroyed synagogues there and the fate of the Jews killed under German occupation. She tells about her paternal family from Stanislav, her uncles, and the move to Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyy in 1962. She says her brother lives in America, and discusses her children and grandchildren and her husband's work in Sarata.
19:30
From the machine transcript
Loyf relates her mother's account of a great fire in Dzegovka and how people rebuilt afterward. She says she herself went to a Ukrainian school there, since no Yiddish school existed. After seventh grade she tried to enroll elsewhere in Boryslav but was turned down because of her region, and went to work in a factory.
21:59
From the machine transcript
Loyf talks about her son's circumcision in Dzegovka after the war, with the year not clearly heard. She describes the Jewish town with its one synagogue and the Jewish houses, and says no non-Jews lived in the town. She recalls the church gold hidden before the Germans came, and her mother's fear of speaking about her grandfather in 1937. She also notes that her mother, raising three children alone, had little time to tell stories.
24:46
From the machine transcript
Berkovich reflects that few are interested in Auschwitz and the camps, then describes Berehove as a Jewish town with some seven thousand Jews among about twenty thousand residents, and many synagogues, including the great synagogue. Asked about rebbes, he says his father was very pious and traveled to the Spinka rebbe, a wise tsadik, to ask questions, though Berkovich does not know the result of the visits. A Berehove rabbi is also mentioned.
3:50
From the machine transcript
She talks about the war years in the shtetl. A gathering of Jews at the market square and where the family lived near the monastery and the market are mentioned, together with the dreadful life there. Lemster steers her back to Jewish life before the war and away from the non-Jews.
16:19
From the machine transcript
She describes the Jewish street near the monastery and a prayer house in the shtetl after the war, and thanks the interviewers for coming. She says she knows no Jewish story but recalls a song, and speaks about living among non-Jews and about killings of Jews at a place near the shtetl.
23:43
From the machine transcript
Lemster asks about Hershl Ostropoler, and she says he was a merry man who made fun of people, adding that one should not mock anyone. She then speaks of a good Jew and of her shtetl as a Jewish town, and Lemster asks what her father sang.
2:48
From the machine transcript
Formal interview begins with the date and Kupershmidt's name. He says he can still pray, having learned with a poor father about seventy years earlier, and Kerler asks him to repeat some of it. He remembers Hebrew Bible study (khumesh, gemara), and Kerler asks him to say the opening of Genesis. He then recalls that before the war Bratslav had a shoykhet, a rabbi and many learned men, and that after the killings few were left.
11:56
From the machine transcript
Kupershmidt describes the current mood towards Jews in Ukraine as calm for now, but says Jewish graves in the fields have been desecrated. He says only about five Jewish families remain in Bratslav and that many Jews live with non-Jews, and he speaks of conflict among Jews. He also mentions a Hasidic man in Vinnytsia who runs a Jewish school and an old rabbi hidden in the area.
29:08
From the machine transcript
Kupershmidt describes the melamed, called rebbe in Bratslav, and recalls a rabbi named Chaim and the Hasidim, perhaps eight, who were poor tinsmiths and shoemakers. He tells of the Sukkot gathering with dancing, of the honesty of the poor, and of his father selling a horse and how the sale was done. He also mentions his mother's home practices.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kupershmidt relays what a former neighbour told him about the children of a prewar Jewish orphanage in Bratslav. The Germans threw the younger ones, about two hundred (?), into the river, and the neighbour wept when she told it. He adds that he cannot understand how he himself survived the Germans.
MDV 398Dora (Dvoyre) Iosifovna Yatskova; Tsilya Yakovlevna Koifman; cemetery caretaker (unnamed)Kopayhorod, Bratslav, 2008
31:29
From the machine transcript
The team meets Koifman, who says she comes from Vapnyarka and moved to Bratslav thirteen years ago. She gives her age as eighty and notes that few Jews remain. Introductions follow, with Kerler asking about her name and where she was during the war.
35:32
From the machine transcript
Koifman talks about life today: the hardship of life now, pensions and radiation worries. She mentions Anya (Kelmenson), who is also about eighty and still works in a school, and says she will show the team where Anya lives. She says her parents died in the war and that she has a sister in Israel, and that few Jews now live in Bratslav.
57:10
From the machine transcript
Kelmenson says her mother Nekhama was an accountant, and her father, arrested in 1937, was away sixteen years in Vorkuta. The family moved to Bratslav in 1937 to her grandfather, with her mother left with two small children and her brother later dying. Her grandfather Abraham, who owned a tea plantation in Staraya Sinyava, was dispossessed as a kulak. She mentions that many Jews lived in the area then.
7:30
From the machine transcript
Kelmenson explains the education of her children and brother, one a doctor and one in trade economics, and says she worked at a school. Many teachers were Jewish, and former pupils call her. She mentions a Yiddish school in the building before the war and a teacher who taught history.
0:00
From the machine transcript
After Katz's opening statement of the date and place, Khavin gives the name of the town and discusses how Jews called it. He describes the three rabbis in prewar Chernihiv and the four synagogues (the great synagogue, now a theater, the Naye Mark shul, the misnagdishe shul and the Liskovitse shul). Katz asks about the meaning of the names and of misnaged.
17:12
From the machine transcript
Katz asks about terms such as Litvak and misnaged, and Khavin explains that Chernihiv Jews were Litvaks, speaking with a Lithuanian accent unlike Polish Jews. They discuss where a different Yiddish begins, with places named including Nizhyn and Pryluky, and a few words such as come and buy. Khavin says he had not heard of the Vilna rabbi or the Baal Shem Tov, and that two synagogues were taken before the war.
9:37
From the machine transcript
Lifshitz answers Katz's questions on non-Jews who became Jews or Jews who converted, saying non-Jews were friendly to Jews. He is asked about trades in the shtetl and answers briefly about millers (?).
35:14
From the machine transcript
Bielaia answers a question about what Jews did for a living in the early years, naming tailors and shoemakers.
9:33
From the machine transcript
Khavin explains that the Jewish cemetery of Chernihiv could not be used for burials for about 25 years and was overgrown. Recently the community, with money from donors and from its rabbi, hired three men to clean it. Kerler identifies the rabbi as the young man the team met; Khavin says he is self-driven and has opened a school.
11:42
From the machine transcript
At the cemetery Khavin distinguishes the old holy place from the newer part and says the cemetery is about 150 years old. Kerler asks to see the oldest section, and Khavin first leads toward his mother's grave. The group reads old gravestones, including dates and the name of a woman, Rashe bas Binyamin, with Katz and Kerler helping, and discusses what some inscriptions mean. Some of the exchange is garbled.
25:01
From the machine transcript
Footage from the van while Khavin describes how the town has changed. He says a street here was built up after the war on what had been a field, that there is a big canal and a bridge, and that the district is now an entire new raion (Desnianskyi, name approximate). Kerler comments on the changes; the driver's Russian directions interrupt. The Yiddish is often unclear.
31:24
From the machine transcript
Footage in the van while Khavin shows his technical school, which he attended in the early 1950s, and answers Katz's questions about it, partly in Russian. He points out districts where there were barracks before the war and large buildings and a factory built after it. The explanations are partly garbled.
0:00
From the machine transcript
In the car, Khavin and Kerler stop at the building that housed the Yiddish school. Khavin explains that the children studied all the ordinary subjects (mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, Ukrainian, Russian) in Yiddish, with no religious instruction. The school was closed down and liquidated in the 1930s, which Kerler remarks was very early.
2:12
From the machine transcript
Khavin describes the former Great Synagogue, now a theater, with its three halls for several hundred men and its prayer customs. He says his family went only to the New Market synagogue and recalls famous visiting cantors there. Much of the passage is a conversation with a guard who will not admit the group, with talk about the building's remodeling and its women's gallery.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Burg speaks about the graves of three generations of the Vyzhnytsya rebbe's dynasty in the cemetery. He describes how the old Jewish cemetery was turned into a sports ground and the gravestones reused for Soviet monuments. He recalls the First World War, when Cossacks killed two of his aunts in Vyzhnytsya; a Ukrainian carpenter buried them and a gravestone was later set up. He then speaks of Austrian-era tolerance in Bukovina, which in his view persists in Chernivtsi today, contrasted with antisemitic newspapers in Galicia and with Romanian rule between the wars.
14:39
From the machine transcript
Burg talks about the arrival of Soviet rule in 1940, which Jews welcomed as a protection against the Nazis. Persecution soon followed, and the wealthy, politicians and Zionists were deported. He recalls a night in June when half of Vyzhnytsya was taken away in trucks and many never returned. Kerler then asks him to read one of his stories.
24:41
From the machine transcript
Burg returns to childhood Vyzhnytsya and the Hager rebbes, naming Rebbe Israel as the fourth in the line, whose annual visits were festive occasions with torchlight processions. He tells of the local priest and the rebbe, whose mutual respect is shown by the priest throwing a cross aside to greet him. He gives the town's population and says Yiddish was the language of the town, even of Christian neighbours. He recalls his mother taking him to the rebbe for a blessing at about ten or eleven, when the rebbe said he was already blessed.
33:31
From the machine transcript
Burg speaks about his memory of the weekly Torah portions and his bar mitzvah haftarah, then recounts the Jacob and Rachel passage he was told to review. He calls it poetry, history and Zionism together, and defends cheder education as the source of Yiddish writers. He answers Kerler's questions about cheder and yeshiva in Vyzhnytsya, whether he was called a heretic, and his religious practice today. He describes Sabbath in Vyzhnytsya, including his father's pipe, and compares the town's moderate Hasidim with Hungarian ones, with a remark on Yom Kippur in Chernivtsi.
51:57
From the machine transcript
The team closes the interview with talk in Burg's apartment, with the camera on paintings and photographs. Burg mentions the conference building and the Jewish house in Chernivtsi, gives directions for finding the house near the theater, and Kerler thanks him and speaks of his plans. Russian and Yiddish talk between the others follows about travel in the coming months.
37:07
From the machine transcript
Shternberg describes Khotyn as a commercial town with many Jews. She tells how the town was bombed in the war and how the Jews in prayer shawls begged the Germans not to burn it. Her father was killed. She also recalls the Romanian school, where her Yiddish teacher Yanever came twice a week while the Christian children had religion lessons with a priest. She recites the Passover and Hanukkah songs that he composed, and sings other songs, including a Shavuot song of the cheder. Kerler asks whether non-Jews became Jews in Khotyn; she says this was not known.
0:56
From the machine transcript
Shames gives personal details: her name, her father Shlomo, who worked in a mill in Yanoshpol, and her homemaker mother Sarah (Sharkeh). She had one sister, Niusye. Kerler asks about the town and its Jews before the war. She cannot recall the name of a nearby town where her father also worked.
2:08
From the machine transcript
Kerler states the date and purpose of the interview, and Gammer gives her name, born Goldis, with her father Fayvesh, and says she was born in Khmil'nyk in 1924 to Khmil'nyk-born parents. Her mother was Eni. Her father was born in 1893 and was a tailor; her mother worked as an employee (a shop cashier, it seems) and died shortly before the war. During the war the family lived in evacuation in Central Asia. A second woman gives her name as Genia, and the town is said to have had about twelve thousand Jews before the war.
5:53
From the machine transcript
Gammer says Khmil'nyk had about twelve thousand Jews and was a Jewish town. Even the Ukrainians understood Yiddish, though they could not speak it well. She names three prayer houses (the tailors', the shoemakers' and the rich men's synagogue near the sanatorium) and recalls the wealthy Jews. She recalls her father as a poor tailor who sewed for villagers. Lemster then turns to her schooling.
13:36
From the machine transcript
Gammer recalls a childhood among poor children, who did not play with the rich. She explains the geography of Khmil'nyk: the old town and the new town beyond the bridge, where the wealthy lived.
29:06
From the machine transcript
Gammer recounts that her father was caught by Petliurists together with his brother and a cousin. He was thrown into the old bathhouse by the bridge and held in the mikveh to be drowned, but was dragged out. He survived and later lived as an invalid on a pension. Lemster asks whether he lived, and says he will look at a photograph later.
37:51
From the machine transcript
Gammer says she worked 37 years in a bread shop and now lives on a pension. Her daughter is also an invalid. She spoke Yiddish with her husband at home, and her daughter Genia learned to read Yiddish from her father. She comments on Jews who left for Israel, Germany and America, and on the town's Jewish population: about twelve or thirteen thousand before the war and five or six thousand after.
8:55
From the machine transcript
Gammer answers questions about a Jewish library before the war, which held books in Yiddish, Russian and Ukrainian. Kerler and she then touch on the amateur theater, which continued after the war in another form. The passage ends in an unclear exchange about cooking.
16:25
From the machine transcript
Gammer talks about what she heard of Jewish life in the town after the war, speaking of fourteen Jews who stayed on, of whom one remained at the end. Kerler then starts a new dialectological question.
12:24
From the machine transcript
Kapustina and Lemster discuss the ghetto in Khmil'nyk. She says it was on Shevchenko Street, and that some people ran away. Kerler asks how many Jews lived in Khmil'nyk before the war.
24:39
From the machine transcript
Kapustina talks about synagogues in Khmil'nyk before the war, a large two-storey one with a women's gallery where she went with her mother, now used differently. She describes the streets where the family lived, Voronovska and the street near the river, and where the synagogue stood. Kerler asks about street names.
4:01
From the machine transcript
Shames says she did not attend a Yiddish school; Yanushpol was a Jewish shtetl, and a synagogue existed. Her father worked in a mill and her mother was a housewife. She cannot recall aunts and uncles, and mentions possible relatives in America. She worked 23 years as an accountant in a factory after the war.
41:18
From the machine transcript
Srulova describes her mother lighting Sabbath candles, and that her daughters do so today. Katz asks about prewar Jewish culture in Zvil: visiting Yiddish theatre troupes, Yiddish and Soviet newspapers, a Yiddish library and school. She recalls the rabbi who stayed through the war, the Jewish street, and weddings with a canopy, breaking of a glass and a fiddle.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Srulova answers the interviewers' dialectological questionnaire, giving how she says words and phrases in the Yiddish of Zvil. Items include words for window panes, the colour of the sky, building a house, kissing, cold, fast, near, living, ill and weak, running away from the Germans, an honest or pious person, and the second-person form 'you are right'. They continue with the bed, well, potato, shop, vodka, 'back', cross, Zvil's non-Jewish name, midwife, 'what does he want', attic, wagon, a rich man, and sudden and many guests. In between she talks about food: Passover potato puddings, the Sabbath cholent and braided challah, and the family's poverty. She also recalls a taxin (?) in Zvil where relatives in America sent dollars, and Kerler explains the purpose of the archive.
47:00
From the machine transcript
Weiss speaks mostly Russian, partly garbled in the transcript, about the history and sites of Jewish Drohobych: the old Jewish district, the destroyed Jewish cemetery whose tombstones were reused, the synagogue, a Jewish orphanage and a hospital. He also mentions the oil-field history of nearby Boryslav and the Pushkin monument. Kerler thanks him at the end.
26:50
From the machine transcript
Asked about early memories of Nadvirna, Shekhter recalls a Jewish town with a river (the Bystritsa), girls and games by the water. He answers Lemster's questions about Yiddish writers (Sholem Aleichem a little, Hersh Polianker not at all) and recalls an amateur Yiddish theater and a club. He briefly says he fears traveling there now because of antisemitism, answers questions on terms (dybbuk, golem) and Purim songs, and recalls a sports club and football. At the end a woman and Lemster discuss in Russian and Yiddish who in town still speaks Yiddish.
13:35
From the machine transcript
Khasidovich says she barely remembers her childhood and describes how young people used to walk and gather, in contrast to today. She talks about the synagogue and prayer house near the militia building, about the cinema and theater, and about the languages she spoke with Jewish and non-Jewish friends and at home. She then talks about her three daughters, two in Fastiv and one in Kyiv, and a daughter's family in Israel; Lemster closes by asking about Jewish holidays at home.
3:05
From the machine transcript
The formal interview begins. Kopyt says she was born in Fastiv in 1935, and speaks about her mother, who lived to a great age, and about her father's Yiddish and Russian names. She describes the house she was born in and the Jewish street, formerly called Evreiskaia and later renamed Kyivska. She also talks about neighbours such as a watchmaker, and about a monument to a war hero named Chaikovsky (?), whom she wants moved to the town.
8:06
From the machine transcript
Kopyt recalls the outbreak of war and the family's flight on foot toward Kyiv, and says seventeen relatives were killed. She talks about her mother, who was a baker, and her grandfather, a synagogue gabbai, and speaks about neighbours and Babi Yar. She describes her first husband's death after Chernobyl and her second marriage, her grandparents' hiding in the civil-war pogroms, and a visit to the site where her grandfather was killed. She also tells of her own fall.
28:49
From the machine transcript
Kopyt describes how, after the war, Jews gathered in private homes for Sabbath and prayer while the synagogue was taken over by the militia, and she names families who hosted a minyan. Kerler asks what language was spoken at home. She then complains about housing and heating repairs and officials. She explains that she cannot go to Israel because of the graves of her relatives in Fastiv, and begins to say what songs she knows.
43:36
From the machine transcript
Kopyt talks about her aunts, who sang, and about neighbours during the war: the Grossman family, whose children were hidden by Russians. She says that her grandmother's home housed many families. She tells of being pressed to testify that people were Jewish, and she talks about Jewish writers from Fastiv such as Khashevatskaia (?) and Khentin. She says she gets no Yiddish newspapers, only Sovetish Heymland, and that she has helped make a museum in Korsun with artifacts.
11:45
From the machine transcript
Asked about the Horovitz and Kerler families of prewar Haysyn, Murovanaia talks about a Horovitz born in the same year as her husband, a relative who writes from Brooklyn, and what she knows of the Kerler family. She then gives her husband's name, his work at a factory warehouse, his religious family and his parents' names.
26:14
From the machine transcript
Beigel talks about her childhood in Tyvriv and the family's departure in 1932. She gives her father's name and birth year and his work, her mother Esther, and her siblings and grandparents. She remembers the hard life, and that the synagogue was closed in the mid-1930s so people prayed in private houses. She also mentions praying in private houses in Hnivan' after the war.
32:30
From the machine transcript
Beigel compares Jewish life in Hnivan' with that of a shtetl. In Hnivan' there were few Jews, who gathered at home for the holidays. She does not remember Tyvriv's holidays since she was a small child.
37:33
From the machine transcript
Beigel describes Tyvriv as a Jewish shtetl with a center where Jews lived well, and Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors in the neighboring villages. The family fled a pogrom to Krasne, where they were taken in kindly, but after two years were sent back to Tyvriv and a ghetto.
39:01
From the machine transcript
Beigel speaks of the hunger and hardship in the ghetto, and says that no Jews remain in nearby Voroshylivka and only a few in Krasne and Tyvriv. The Jews left for Vinnytsya, America and Israel. At the end Kerler asks about the gefilte fish her mother made.
49:16
From the machine transcript
Beigel and Kerler discuss a Yiddish blessing about long years and when it is said. She talks about studying at a technical college in Vinnytsya to be a medical assistant, and about a Jewish school in Tyvriv that she attended for a year before it closed, naming two teachers. She also mentions a fire brigade, a Georgian one (?), and the word for cotton wool, and does not remember non-Jews who spoke Yiddish.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Beigel says the stories were not told because her parents were always working. She says Hnivan' was a non-Jewish town without Jewish weddings. She talks about her son living in Hnivan' and her two grandsons, lawyers in Kyiv, and describes how the family helps her. She says she is blind in both eyes with glaucoma and cataracts and cannot read or write. Kerler then starts the word questionnaire.
11:50
From the machine transcript
The interview winds down with joking about Kerler's status and a local young man who learned Yiddish. Kerler notes that a Christian cannot convert from Judaism. Beigel then discusses Jews in Kopaihorod and Sharhorod: none are left in Sharhorod, which had a ghetto. She mentions a book about it by an author now in Israel, which she read in Russian.
35:37
From the machine transcript
Iuris says she moved to Kolomyya in the postwar period, where her husband came from, after her mother died and her father remarried. She describes Kolomyya's Jewish community then and now, and that her husband was transferred for work to Ivano-Frankivsk. Kerler thanks her, and she then speaks in Russian about her family's history, mentioning her grandmother's sister, relatives in Romania, food parcels, and the closing of the border.
35:42
From the machine transcript
Bukshtein speaks about the small Jewish community in Novoselitsa today, then about food (brinza, mamaliga) in a poor family, with a toast and a chat about food at the table. He recalls his first cheder in Edinet at age four, walking through the snow, and then the cheder of Rebbe Mendl after the family moved to Novoselitsa in 1928. He sings a cheder song (Afn pripetshik), attended the Tarbut school for a month until the teacher Grinberg demanded fees, and then went to a Romanian school.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Bukshtein begins with a remark in Russian about a gift of caviar from relatives in Israel, then recalls a Russian film and a young Jewish man. Kerler asks about Purim plays, and Bukshtein recalls Purim as the happiest holiday and a family that staged Purim shows (a nickname that is unclear). He also recalls Jews walking in the street in prayer shawls without anyone mocking them, and the bathhouse with its mikveh, and bathing in the river Prut. He names the rebbes of Sadagora and Stefanesti, and tells how his mother, after a non-Jewish landlord's son attacked relatives, consulted the Stefanesti rebbe, who reassured her. Kerler then asks how far Mekhebush (?) is from Donetsk.
MDV 448Froim Kalmanovich Bukshtein; Genrikh (Hersh bereb Moyshe akoyen, Hesye) Moiseevich KatzIvano-Frankivs'k, 2003
0:00
From the machine transcript
Conclusion of the Bukshtein interview, mostly in garbled transcript. The talk concerns the courtyard and building where he lived: prewar residents, a rich Jewish lawyer, and Jews, Poles and Ukrainians living in different parts of town. Little else can be made out.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Answers Kerler's questions about prewar life in his hometown. Topics: Shavuot greenery and Yom Kippur fasting by Katz and his parents; the Sabbath goy who stoked the stove; Sabbath cholent baked in the bread oven; the word for beans. He then discusses non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, a woman living with a non-Jew, and antisemitism, which varied by period. He names the fire brigade, a Jewish football club, a drama club in Tlumach, Zionist and Bundist groups, and Polish and Yiddish newspapers from Lviv.
11:44
From the machine transcript
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.
16:57
From the machine transcript
The synagogue footage opens with Kerler talking about the building and the rebuilding of Jewish communal life, with old Hebrew books, a menorah on the wall and commentaries. He mentions a book printed in Vilna and the Jewish settlement of Stanislaviv, now Ivano-Frankivs'k. He compares this with a synagogue in Bershad' (?), and most of the rest is the filmed morning service with almost no recognised speech.
25:32
From the machine transcript
Kerler talks with several congregants about where they were born, the Yiddish they speak and the language of their region. One man from Proskurov (Khmelnytskyi) talks about the Jewish population there, the family members who perished in the war, and his Russian schooling. There are also remarks on Litvak Yiddish, on Yampil and on Jewish life in Proskurov today. Kerler explains that this is a short interview for an archive and that the recording will not be shown publicly.
2:46
From the machine transcript
Fishman is asked by the interviewers about remaining Yiddish speakers in Chudniv. He says only three Jews are left and names a few people, including a dentist who came from elsewhere. He says he understands Yiddish and the interviewers explain what they are looking for.
6:21
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Lemster ask Fishman a few dialect items, such as the words for mother, father, tallis and bread. He says his mother died in 1972 and his father in 1984, and that the family spoke Yiddish at home. He says there was a Jewish school and possibly two synagogues before the war, and does not know about a ritual slaughterer.
14:51
From the machine transcript
Fishman and the interviewers go through dialect items such as attic, cross, sick, sleep and tree. He says his father was born in Chudniv and his mother in a village nearby. He recalls that many Jews lived in Chudniv and then emigrated, and mentions his sister in America. His father held several posts, including chairman of an artisans' cooperative and factory director, and then retired on a small pension.
22:26
From the machine transcript
Fishman is asked what people knew in the Soviet years about the Six-Day War and emigration to Israel, and says very little. He recalls that television reached Chudniv in 1964. He says no old synagogue or Jewish school survives in Chudniv, and the interviewers thank him and take their leave.
37:10
From the machine transcript
Geller tells of his 2005 trip to Pyatka with a grandchild (the catalogue says great-grandchild) to visit the Jewish cemetery. A hundred or so gravestones remain. He describes the killing of Jews buried there and the survival of a boy and a girl who later lived in Berdychiv and emigrated to Israel. Kerler asks how many Jews lived in Pyatka, and the passage ends with a Jewish man with a surname like Pastovsky (?) who was killed by a car.
12:32
From the machine transcript
Lys gives population figures for Zaslav, saying there were many thousands of Jews, with the exact numbers uncertain in the transcript.
44:37
From the machine transcript
Lys describes a letter from a man researching the Lys family and his son-in-law's use of the internet. He arranged for photographs of old gravestones, since he cannot read the Hebrew inscriptions, and Kerler comments on how hard they are to read. In answer to S4's questions he gives Jewish population figures before and after the war. He describes how Jewish houses became few in the old town, and mentions intermarried neighbors and his own Jewish family.
49:45
From the machine transcript
Lys tells of the town's synagogues and says Jews prayed secretly in his father's house after the war. The synagogue buildings became an evening school, a music school and a factory. He describes celebrating Victory Day with Jewish veterans, the many Jews in professional and official posts after the war, and later emigration to Israel, America and Germany. He mentions a letter from a former teacher abroad, and Kerler ends with a Yiddish phrase question.
48:48
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Lemster ask about the local Yiddish of Kuz'myn and whether it was Podolian or Litvish. Geller says nothing definite, and mentions the word forms for mother and father. He locates Kuz'myn relative to Slavuta, Zhytomyr and Proskurov, and tells a Jewish anecdote about a rich man and a police protection offer.
53:37
From the machine transcript
Geller says he does not remember whether his mother cooked mamaliga and answers questions on food terms such as mamaliga and papshoy. He says he met no antisemitism at work. Kerler and Lemster find Kuz'myn on a map near Staro-Konstantinov, and Kerler judges the speech to be Podolian Yiddish.
0:00
From the machine transcript
A woman, named Liudmila Vladimirovna in the Russian lines, recites Russian poems. One is about a former synagogue that became a sports school and about Passover, a rabbi and longing for Israel. Another, called 'hands', is a personal poem, and a Russian tribute to the late community chairman Wertman (?) closes the set. She also recites a humorous Ukrainian verse about a godfather and a river. In between, others discuss booking a hotel in Zhytomyr.
41:14
From the machine transcript
After the service, community members chat informally in Yiddish. They discuss earlier visits by the team in 2002, 2003 and 2005 (the years are partly unclear), the passing of years, a woman aged 92, and which person was born where. A speaker mentions the old synagogue and the neighborhood called Piatka. They talk of arranging time to sit and talk, and someone is to be asked about a man from a good family.
0:00
From the machine transcript
After greetings, Later shows Kerler photographs from his war service, including a German officer's interrogation and the liberation of Vienna. He gives his name and says he was born in Smotrych. He names his parents, grandparents and teachers, and says he directed the Yiddish school there. He describes his schooling: a Soviet Yiddish seven-year school, a Ukrainian ten-year school, and Moscow institute courses. He also describes the kheyder and rabbi, the two synagogues, local non-Jews, and the Yiddish amateur theatre circle he led. He recalls the expulsion of the Poles in 1936 and the 'golden night' when Jews were forced to give up gold. The remainder covers the closing of the big synagogue and his brother's death in the war, followed by holidays, Soviet anti-religious campaigns, red weddings, the Jewish court, performers and klezmer musicians, songs, and the Yiddish literature he studied. The recording breaks off during talk of the Yiddish press and the Kyiv Yiddish theatre.
0:00
From the machine transcript
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.
MDV 463Arkadii Isaakovich Gelman; Abram Davidovich KaplanKam'yanets'-Podil's'kyy, Mohyliv-Podil's'kyy, 2003
0:00
From the machine transcript
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.
27:11
From the machine transcript
Kraidman says there was a Yiddish theater in Babruysk to which her parents took the children. She does not remember what she saw, but recalls it as translations of world literature into Yiddish, and Kerler mentions Tevye the Milkman as a possible play.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Talk about the streets where the couple lived, with Sonya naming the street names. Kerler and Lemster then ask whether Gaiviker remembers Yiddish songs from earlier times; he answers that times have changed and mentions Jewish artists who came to perform.
4:27
From the machine transcript
Gaiviker describes the many prewar synagogues and small prayer houses, near one of which he lived, and says he prayed in all of them. Kerler asks what a "heymishe shul" means, and Gaiviker lists the trades of the town (tailors, shoemakers, hairdressers, tinsmiths). Asked about Purim, he remembers little, and Sonya recalls her grandfather Meir's synagogue visits and the pastries he brought. He mentions that his father opened a hairdressing shop where he learned his trade.
9:42
From the machine transcript
Gaiviker speaks about trades, then says that during the civil war a pogrom took place in 1919, with shooting between the houses and killing of old people and children. He mentions his father and aunt who, according to the transcript, ended up in Uzbekistan.
16:36
From the machine transcript
Yarmolnik describes a large synagogue with women upstairs and recalls Yom Kippur, with crowds outside bigger than at a parade and food prepared at home after. She says that now she has no one.
35:10
From the machine transcript
Yarmolnik says she spoke Yiddish with her son, who went to synagogue with his father on holidays. She says her brother finished a Yiddish school, and there were two Yiddish schools in Proskuriv, closed when she was to attend, and many synagogues.
50:35
From the machine transcript
Kaviner says that until 1939 weddings under the canopy and circumcisions were still carried out in Derazhnya, even under the Soviets. The last rabbi was Mekhl Rozhanski, who also served as moyel and played the fiddle.
51:30
From the machine transcript
Answering Lemster and Kerler, Kaviner says local Jewish klezmorim played at weddings, along with a badkhn named Itsik-Meyer who recited rhymes to the bride. He is asked about the badkhn's other livelihood and Kerler asks about wonder-workers in the area.
57:03
From the machine transcript
Kaviner says Derazhnya had its own Yiddish theater and was visited by Yiddish troupes from Odessa, including Habimah(?) with its Goldfaden-type production and other named companies. He emphasizes that Derazhnya was a Jewish town before the war and compares its size with Proskurov, then Kerler asks what else he read.
19:10
From the machine transcript
Kerler, Lemster and Kaviner talk about the places the team has visited and the Jews found there, including Bershad', Odesa, Balta and Nikolaev. They discuss who still speaks Yiddish and mention Chabad and yeshivas. A woman in Khmel'nyts'kyy is described who read Yiddish and whose daughter speaks it.
24:12
From the machine transcript
Kaviner talks about Mikhoels's death, saying he was murdered in a staged accident after being sent to Belarus, and about his lying in state at the Yiddish theatre. He recalls his rehabilitation and that of Yiddish writers, and names writers from the region, including some from near Medzhibozh and Starokostyantyniv. He also says Sholem Aleichem stayed in Derazhnya and wrote there, and mentions Mendele.
59:45
From the machine transcript
Kaviner names lesser-known local writers: Itsik Sokol, a Yiddish teacher who published a book after the war, and Moyshe Zibnberg, who wrote in the school newspaper and was killed during the occupation. Lemster asks about culture leagues, and Kaviner says there was a Yiddish theatre and Jewish circles in the town.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kaviner says that documents of the Derazhnya Yiddish school were probably thrown out or burned during the occupation after the school was converted to a Russian one, along with books and textbooks. He recalls Yiddish literature and the local Yiddish writers Zibnberg (?) and Sokol, who settled in Khmel'nyts'kyy after the war. He then names a gifted teacher at his school, Tentsermann (?).
1:01:42
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks how one can see a lamed-vovnik, and Kaviner begins a story about a madman in his town who wore ragged clothes and sang, danced and jumped while small children gathered. The tape ends mid-sentence.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kaviner finishes the story of a local holy madman in Derazhnya, seen as a boy on his way to yeshiva, whom children mocked. He tells how the man revived a watchmaker's dying daughter, who had a bridegroom from another town. The man vanished by morning, leaving only his tracks.
15:04
From the machine transcript
Kaviner talks about the Soviet Yiddish prose writer Eli Shekhtman and about his own novels, which he wrote after the war. He says he borrowed the title of one, "Erev", from Shekhtman, and the other title from David Bergelson (?). Lemster asks about the novels' heroes and prototypes; Kaviner says they are ordinary petty-bourgeois Jews in the shtetl before and after the war. Kerler then asks about a tombstone in Kopaygorod and the Ludmir maid.
20:20
From the machine transcript
Kaviner describes how Purim was celebrated in Derazhnya: sending gifts of food, eating and drinking well, dancing and singing, and exchanging good wishes. Children sang songs and rattled noisemakers. Kerler recalls a Purim song, and the two mention Sholem Aleichem.
21:42
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about women folk healers, and Kaviner says almost every street had one. He describes some forms of the cure: spoken in verse or in prose, with coals quenched in a bowl of water and the face smeared. He cannot recall the words said.
23:49
From the machine transcript
Asked about a dybbuk story in Derazhnya, Kaviner talks instead about the nearby town of Satanov. A synagogue fortress there stands to this day as four walls, and he explains the town's name through Satan and the dybbuk. Kerler asks whether he knows An-sky's play about the dybbuk.
24:59
From the machine transcript
Kaviner recalls Yiddish theater in Derazhnya before the war: plays by Goldfaden and Sholem Aleichem put on by visiting professional troupes and by local amateurs. He names several touring actors and companies. Kaviner also describes postwar performances in Khmel'nyts'kyy by touring singers and cantors such as Sidi Tal.
15:25
From the machine transcript
Vaisblai speaks of the rich men and the many poor people in town. He says a melamed named Dudye taught him Hebrew at home but would oversleep, so he ran off to find food. Lemster asks which school he attended; Vaisblai says it was under the Soviets and breaks off at the war's start.
37:52
From the machine transcript
At the community center, Kramer gives his name and birthplace Berezdov, discussed with Kerler as a Yiddish place-name. He states his full name, his father Zelman, and his birth year and current address in Khmel'nyts'kyy. Kramer recalls living in Berezdov until the war, evacuation to Kazakhstan, return in 1944 to Slavuta, and the family's flight on foot with others. He names his siblings: two sisters and two brothers.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kaviner tells legends about the Baal Shem Tov: his delay of Kol Nidre on the eve of Yom Kippur, and a note that he gave to an innkeeper for the later gabbai Yankl, which showed he could foresee the future. He also tells how the Besht forbade a gravestone, how the grave was marked and the state of the monument before and during the German occupation, when a cemetery guard was killed. Kaviner says he first came to Medzhibozh in 1946, after demobilization, while visiting the graves of holy men.
14:59
From the machine transcript
Kaviner describes his studies in the yeshiva: Pentateuch, Rashi, Gemara and the Prophets, studied by a fixed method with a teacher. He says he went to kheyder until age ten or eleven, then Talmud Torah to twelve, then the yeshiva. He recalls that the teachers later took Soviet jobs when it was closed, and that the authorities knew of it but pretended not to until they closed it.
2:52
From the machine transcript
The interviewees look for places on a map, with Snook's son (probably) doing most of the talking. They try to locate Kolochava, where the mother lived, and the neighboring villages, with Kerler helping. They go over Rakhiv, Solotvyno and Bila Tserkva, and remark on which places still have Jews and which do not. Kerler asks how Bila Tserkva was called in Yiddish. At the end they turn to Moshe Katz and prepare for the next interview. Much of the exchange is garbled.
18:01
From the machine transcript
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.
2:22
From the machine transcript
Smelanskii greets the interviewers, then talks about Yiddish schools in Smila from the 1920s to the mid-1930s, including a Yiddish technical school. He recalls a director and devoted teachers, classes up to the seventh grade, and moving afterwards to a Ukrainian school. He also mentions his maternal grandfather, who taught the grandchildren religion, prayer and Hebrew, and the grandfather's seven children, some of whom emigrated to America.
6:37
From the machine transcript
Smelanskii recalls his grandfather, a respected man in Smila to whom people came with questions, and the six or seven synagogues that stood until 1941. He lists uncles, aunts and cousins with their names, occupations and places (Moscow, Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Israel), says that relatives were evacuated or killed at Babi Yar in 1941, and mentions an uncle who ran the printing house of the Smila newspaper. He also says his father worked on the railway.
14:33
From the machine transcript
Smelanskii answers questions about childhood games, saying there were none beyond street gangs and fights. He explains the difference between a lane and a street in Smila and describes the town's rivers, the old mill destroyed by the Germans, and the two sugar factories, one of which was wrecked in the war. He also tells how the town changed after the war, and Kerler starts asking about Yiddish newspapers.
24:53
From the machine transcript
Answers questions about Smila's synagogues and prayer houses, saying there were six or seven because Jews could not walk far on the Sabbath, and Kerler asks about the sabbath limit (tkhum shabes). He also says there were klezmer musicians, with violin, flute and drum, who played at weddings, and recalls the chuppah, and that the 1930s brought some pressure on religion. Kerler then begins a question about Jewish–non-Jewish relations.
14:46
From the machine transcript
Smelanskii talks about the religious groups and prayer houses in his town before the war. Each trade had its own synagogue: tailors, shoemakers and others. He also mentions a distinction between groups in prayer (the transcript is unclear on the details). At the end Kerler starts a new question about stories of love affairs opposed by parents.
31:29
From the machine transcript
Shapiro describes a questionnaire from a Jewish institute in Kyiv about his family, and the booklet he made with family information and photographs of old Kyivans. Kerler says the team is going to Vinnytsya the next day. Shapiro recalls that no pogrom occurred in his town. He shows photographs of his parents, siblings and sisters to the camera, with Katz and Kerler naming them. He says one brother is in Israel and another fell at Stalingrad.
3:01
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Katz ask Shapiro about Jewish life in Vinnytsya before the revolution, including holidays, prayer and observance. Shapiro recalls a Jewish town with five rabbis and five synagogues, among them the Sandagerska (?) synagogue with a separate women's section and the Krochyk synagogue with a children's choir. He describes Yerusalimka, the neighbourhood where he was born, and his father's search for a larger apartment in the centre. He mentions his late wife's written memory of a Vinnytsya wedding, and explains that his father Yosele was a dayan, who settled disputes and was more popular than the rabbi.
32:03
From the machine transcript
Shapiro and Katz discuss getting help to continue the interview, with Kerzhner of Kyiv suggested. Kerler asks about Jewish weddings in Vinnytsya, and Shapiro says his wife's sister told him about them. He recalls holding the wedding canopy poles as a child. He recounts that in his time two Jewish schools, Krupitsky's and Faynshteyn's, opened in Vinnytsya, and that in these schools many Jewish pupils were taught in Russian. One of them had a large hall where weddings were held. Kerler asks about the klezmer groups.
36:28
From the machine transcript
Shapiro describes the Krochyk synagogue before the revolution, with a choir of twenty and Yiddish singing, and funerals with a children's choir; Kerler and Katz question him about klezmer and music at weddings and burials. He says it was the finest synagogue, held services in Yiddish and was supported by wealthy members. Kerler and Katz ask him to sing a children's song, and he says he must prepare. He recalls being given a piano during the war by the wealthy Rabinovich, and being sent to Moscow to fetch an aeroplane and speaking with generals there. The passage ends as Kerler proposes a pause.
10:16
From the machine transcript
Shapiro talks about his family. He recalls a grandmother's story of a daughter's match to a young man who studied well but was poor, and the in-laws' reactions. He then mentions that Vinnytsya had five rabbis and five synagogues.
0:35
From the machine transcript
Kerler explains the video-archive project and the team's plan to travel to Shatmar(?) the next day. Braverman and Semyon introduce themselves. She comes from Solkhov, about 25 km from Berdychiv, was named Faigele, and was born in 1923 (Kerler makes a special exception to the post-1920 birth rule). Semyon is from Zhmerynka, his father from Hryntsiv (?) and his mother from Derazhnia; he finished Ukrainian school as the war began, was taken into the army, and did not hear Yiddish for fifty years.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Braverman answers a prompt to tell something and recalls the theatre in Solkhov. Visiting artists lodged with the family and her mother cooked for them. She remembers a play and a song from it, and begins to tell about the town's doctor.
26:41
From the machine transcript
Braverman recalls relations with Ukrainian neighbours and a bandit, a maid, her friends and playing in the village, a local shopkeeper, and the river. Kerler asks the Yiddish and Ukrainian names for the river and the figures for Solkhov: about a thousand Jews among four thousand or more inhabitants. She also mentions the secondary school.
34:42
From the machine transcript
Braverman recounts the first postwar visit, in 1946, when her sister found the house plundered, and she describes the family home. She talks of the many Polish families, teachers and watchmen near Solkhov and how they spoke Polish. Kerler asks about the name Solkhov in Yiddish, Ukrainian and Russian, and she recalls the Hasidic kloyz, Jewish holidays and a childhood memory of the synagogue gallery at Sukkot (?).
25:21
From the machine transcript
Answering Kerler's questions, Braverman remembers the Jewish theater and club in Zhmerynka, which the Jews put together themselves after the war, with singing and dancing. He does not recall a particular play. He mentions that he studied in a Ukrainian school while Jewish children studied in Yiddish, and he mentions a Yiddish school certificate. The speakers then discuss how to film the document.
34:29
From the machine transcript
The group looks at a Yiddish school certificate belonging to a friend named Roza, who finished a Jewish school in Zhmerynka. Kerler and Katz read the school and director names (the director's name is uncertain), and the discussion touches on Jewish schools in Belarus. They go through a leaf from Semyon's father's postwar Yiddish calendar, with its holidays, and look at the newspaper Eynikeyt. The interviewers ask whether they may take the originals.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Katz asks in English how far Jewish religious life really survived in the early Soviet period, and Melamed answers in English and then Russian. He discusses the breakdown of the Jewish community after the revolution, early Soviet support for Yiddish culture, the 1926 rabbis' conference in Korosten and persecution of Hebrew, Zionists and underground cheders and yeshivas. He then explains that sources are mostly external, from NKVD and party files, and that he is gathering material for a book on old Zhytomyr. He mentions about 50 synagogues and prayer houses there around 1900, the rabbinical school and Haskalah figures.
31:32
From the machine transcript
Melamed outlines his plans: a book on the Jewish world of old Zhytomyr, a recent article on the early history of the Zhytomyr Jewish community, and a series of archival guides for Ukraine under Project Judaica. He explains why Jewish genealogy is difficult: lost memory under the Soviets, name and registration problems, falsified revision lists and missing records. He says his subjects are mostly the dead, known from gravestones and archives. He says the search interests him more than the results and mentions Natan Eidelman's influence. Kerler asks what drew him to genealogy.
21:53
From the machine transcript
Khandros relates how his grandfather, from a family of melamdim in Chernobyl, was orphaned in an epidemic, was taken as a child by cantonist recruiters and served in the army for many years. Afterwards he studied in Zhytomyr, and Khandros tells why he came to Ozarinets: as a boy he had been a friend of a tsadik's grandson of the Twersky dynasty, who later became the tsadik of Ozarinets. Khandros discusses the tsadik's grand wedding and says he will tell more in the third part of his book. Kerler also asks whether the Russian term for the Pale of Settlement existed in Yiddish.
43:44
From the machine transcript
Asked for memories of the Great Hunger, Khandros describes documents and a letter from Berdychiv in which a Jewish factory worker, who later died, begged for help, and he says it shows that Jews starved too, against claims that they did not. He discusses the Torgsin shops, where gold was exchanged for flour, and how his mother's gold was broken into three parts. He relates a butcher's story about gold and a hiding place, the mobility of Jews who could travel to Moscow and Leningrad, and relatives in Leningrad who sent rusks. He describes death registers from 1932–33, deaths from eating in summer 1933 and a dysentery epidemic which he survived because his uncle kept him at home instead of sending him to hospital. Kerler remarks that many informants deny Jews died, and Khandros reports letters in Russian that deny the famine.
28:56
From the machine transcript
Khandros and Kerler turn to the Yiddish school in Ozarintsy and the teachers. Khandros says his father attended courses in Kyiv in 1926 with the Reznik brothers, Lipe and Yoyse, and that the writers Lipe Reznik and others visited in 1934. The school ran from 1922 to 1945 and was the last one left. He recalls his grandmother Sure, his own illness at that time and the first time he saw writers. He also mentions his grandmother Miriam and the loss of Yiddish schools in the Vinnytsia region. He ends by mentioning the Black Book.
41:09
From the machine transcript
Khandros talks about his grandmother Sure, who died in 1935 and knew Yiddish literature well. She was from a family from Snitkiv, daughter of David Grinfeld; her first husband was a friend of Goldfaden; her second husband was Berl Vaynshtok, Khandros's mother's father. He recalls her love of the written word and his other grandmother Miriam. He describes a fire in the house, and an incident in which his baby brother nearly drowned at a mill. He also mentions the mikveh.
49:25
From the machine transcript
Khandros talks about his father's religiosity, from fanatical devotion to a turn toward freethinking. He recounts that his father was denounced for attending synagogue while a Soviet teacher. He describes the rabbi in Ozarintsy, Gedalye Roytberg, who was learned, and the church built in the 18th century by Polish magnates, which closed in 1931. He recalls the Poles, Ukrainians and Jews in Podolia. The Yiddish writers read at school are named.
55:28
From the machine transcript
Khandros names Yiddish and Russian writers he read at school and later, and quotes a poem of Usher Shvartsman. He tells how he and his wife, both journalists, visited a Russian poet in Leningrad. He describes the Ukrainian teacher Alexei Krevitsky, who organised the Ukrainian school. Krevitsky mentored Khandros's father in ethnography and folklore, and the ethnographic circle of 1926 in Ozarintsy. A Ukrainian ethnographer's expedition to the town gave him a view of his shtetl from outside.
2:27
From the machine transcript
Answering Kerler's questions, Khandros says Hasidim lived in Ozarintsy in the early 1900s, but the tzaddik died when he was a child and the community declined. He remembers praying with the tanner Hershl Koyfman and Koyfman's old mother Rachel, who told him and his cousin Lusia Bible stories. He wrote these down in his booklet. He recalls the mikveh near the mill, where his father's elder brother Itsik Khandros, who lived in Mohyliv, took him as a boy. He also describes the town's three prayer houses, among them the beys-medresh, whose walls still stand.
8:25
From the machine transcript
Khandros describes the first day of the German occupation of Ozarintsy, which he did not witness himself. The Germans drove the Jews of the town into the synagogue, and a German on a motorcycle brought petrol to burn it. Villagers took belongings from the houses and later brought some back. A maid in his family's house took their sewing machine and returned it in October 1941. Kerler asks whether she spoke Yiddish, and Khandros says she did not.
11:31
From the machine transcript
Khandros speaks of a non-Jewish Sabbath helper who grew up in the town and spoke good Yiddish. The Jews had helped his family in a famine, yet he was the only villager who took part in the action against the Jews on the first day. He was later imprisoned for ten years. Khandros says he wrote about this in his book and that the man's son told the story in front of the camera when a film was made in the early 1990s. He mentions that he has made more than thirty documentary films, including one on the history of the town.
33:06
From the machine transcript
Derbaremdiker gives his personal data while Kerler fills in the form. He fled Berdychiv in early July 1941, and the Germans entered the next day and seized documents, among them his birth record in Yiddish and Hebrew. He names himself as Mordkhe, son of Levi Yitskhok, and his mother as Perl. His birthplace was the Kachanivka district of Berdychiv. He also tells what his younger brother in New York recalled of a house where Mendele Moykher Sforim once lived.
35:58
From the machine transcript
Derbaremdiker recalls childhood in Berdychiv. He describes Kachanivska Street, the Carmelite monastery fortress with a museum that had rooms for Shevchenko, Sholem Aleichem and Balzac, and the church where Balzac married. At about four he was carried in his father's tallis to cheder, where he studied only a few years, as the cheders were closed in 1927. That year he entered a Yiddish school. He says he now speaks Russian most of the time and has hardly anyone to speak Yiddish with.
37:51
From the machine transcript
Derbaremdiker names his Yiddish school as School No. 13, in a former commercial-school building on the central street. The Russian school was on the second floor and a pedagogical institute on the third. After seven grades he moved to a model school. He went on to a technical school in Kyiv in 1936 and received his engineering diploma on 20 June 1941, two days before the war. He answers Kerler's questions on his cheder years: two synagogues in the Kachanivka district, a melamed of the Golyetski (?) family, and a younger brother now in New York.
52:08
From the machine transcript
Derbaremdiker describes the Club of the Heretics in Kyiv, a former synagogue building, and its Yiddish library and drama circles, and recalls the Berdychiv theatre built before the revolution. He mentions klezmer musicians at weddings and prewar prayer in secret. He says that in 1933 a rabbi secretly prepared him and his brother for bar mitzvah.
57:57
From the machine transcript
Derbaremdiker answers Kerler's questions about cinemas in prewar Berdychiv, naming a summer and a winter cinema and one in the fortress monastery. He recalls a silent film with Yiddish inter-titles in which Mikhoels acted.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Derbaremdiker explains why he speaks Berdychiv Yiddish yet tried to speak literary Yiddish after reading a lot. He says the Berdychiv dialect differed from Zhytomyr's. He mentions articles on dialects and conferences in Weinberg's collections, his work on a history of the Berdychiv Jewish community, and an article of his on Yiddish after the revolution. He and Kerler also discuss the fate of Yiddish and Hebrew in Soviet times and the Spanish forced converts.
19:21
From the machine transcript
Rusakovskaia says she finished four classes of the Yiddish school in Chornobyl', which was then closed, probably in 1936–37. The pupils were transferred to a Ukrainian school, where they studied until the war. She says her older sister finished seven classes in the Yiddish school. She can still read, write and speak Yiddish, and reads Yiddish booklets from her library. Kerler then asks about the Chornobyl' rebbe, about whom she remembers little.
49:20
From the machine transcript
Rusakovskaia says the school celebrated Soviet holidays rather than Jewish ones, and was open on Sabbath, with Sunday as the day off. She says many non-Jews in Chornobyl' spoke Yiddish freely, because Jews and non-Jews lived mixed together on one street. Jewish women spoke Russian poorly. She also describes a street of Jewish families.
36:31
From the machine transcript
Derbaremdiker shows a copy of his birth certificate, written only in Yiddish and Hebrew by the Berdychiv Jewish community. He gives his parents' names, his father's patronymic and his mother Perl, and the street, Kachenovka, where the family lived near the town centre, and mentions the monastery torn down in 1934/35. He says he left Berdychiv at sixteen for Kyiv. He also mentions that the parents fled a day before the Germans came, and that someone has the original.
21:32
From the machine transcript
Vider recalls Yiddish children's theater in a cellar and school festivals in Hebrew, Yiddish and Romanian in Hîrlau, then visiting cantors and an actors' club (the Dybbuk is mentioned). He talks about Yiddish newspapers, one of them illegal, and about the Cuzist (Cuza/Codreanu) antisemites who in 1939 (?) wanted to burn synagogues and whom Jews resisted. He says he belonged to Gordonia, while his brother was in Maccabi and later Betar and a chalutz who could not emigrate until after the war.
29:24
From the machine transcript
Vider and Kerler discuss the bathhouse with its mikveh in his town and the idiom about leading someone into the bath, which Vider explains as meaning that someone who is not pleasant gets no good treatment. Asked for a wordless niggun of his rebbe, he does not recall one. He sings a Hebrew song his father sang at the third Sabbath meal in the synagogue, beginning with the line "Yedid nefesh"-type text, followed by a few words on a sentence Kerler elicits about the word rov.
39:34
From the machine transcript
Start of a second interview, with Grayf, born in Kolomyya in 1922. Grayf gives his parents' names (Gershon and Etl), names the seven surviving siblings, and says that his sister and parents were deported from the ghetto and perished, while a brother died in Israel. He says that he and his brother David live in Kolomyya and have a niece in Frankivsk. He then describes how the region passed between Poland, the Ukraine and Romania and where the Bukovina border lay, and begins to answer Kerler's questions about his father's work, his mother and his schooling.
58:25
From the machine transcript
Grayf says he returned to Kolomyya in the summer of 1945, retrained, and worked in a dental laboratory as an X-ray technician until pension. He then returns to his childhood, saying he attended a Polish school and a Yiddish kheyder, and discusses how the older generation pronounced the word 'kheyder'. He says that the Sabbath was kept only at home, not in the synagogue, that his father prayed there every morning, and that daily minyans no longer exist. He recalls a synagogue or prayer house on nearly every street and a great synagogue, now gone.
29:06
From the machine transcript
Formal interview with Krotsh begins. Kerler introduces himself and the project, and Krotsh gives his name, birth in 1922 in Stefanesti, and the names of his parents and siblings. His father was a shoemaker and his mother a housewife. He recalls the huge crowds that came for the funeral of the Stefanesti Rebbe, Matisyohu Friedman (?). He speaks of the family's hard life, of his cheder, school and yeshiva studies, and of learning tailoring because there was no money. The town committee is explained as the body that paid the shoykhets and the rabbi.
18:55
From the machine transcript
Krotsh says that non-Jews never converted to Judaism in his town because Jews lived apart from their neighbors, but that many Romanians spoke Yiddish. Jews were the great majority in Stefanesti. He read in Yiddish and Hebrew in school, including Sholem Aleichem and religious books, and went to yeshiva while also working as a tailor from a young age.
11:17
From the machine transcript
Returning to Stefanesti, Krotsh describes the town as a holy shtetl closed on the Sabbath and holidays, with the rebbe's influence. Asked about Purim, he recalls dressing up as a child and sings the Purim ditty about Moses forty days and nights twice. He sings Lekhu dodi in the way he remembers it. He tells how young men in disguise visited homes and sang for the host, describes mishloyekh-manes gifts, and begins a song about the Sabbath preparations of Jewish wives of long ago.
23:25
From the machine transcript
Krotsh sings the song about where one finds wives like those of long ago. He recalls Yiddish theater coming to Stefanesti, his mother's love of it and a famous actress who died in Chernivtsi, and answers Kerler's questions about plays such as Mekhires Yoysef and Akeydes Yitskhok, which he knows from his Bible study rather than from the stage. He sings a variant of Lomir ale in eynem. Asked about Zionist activity, he says halutsim passed through, names several Jewish youth groups, and says there was no Bund or socialist party under the rebbe's influence.
10:07
From the machine transcript
Asked about Hasidim, Grayf says little. He says he remembers them looking like other Jews and doubts that those seen on television resemble them. He describes relations with non-Jews before the war: Poles and Ukrainians, more Poles, with little antisemitism. He says it began only around 1939, when the Germans started inciting. He adds that the border was close, so events in Germany reached Kolomyya fast.
15:31
From the machine transcript
Grayf struggles to name prewar Jewish organizations; he recalls a sports club, Hapoel, with a football team. He names his mother, Etl, and lists his siblings by age, among them Pinye, Munye, David, Shimshn and Hersh. He says seven children survived of nine. The family lived in a rented apartment near the town hall. He cannot recall a song.
49:07
From the machine transcript
Krotsh describes a prewar wedding canopy set up in the middle of town near the synagogue. He talks about the town's synagogues, including a two-storey high synagogue, and the nearby mikveh. His father taught him to put on tefillin, and his bar mitzvah took place in a synagogue with cake and brandy.
13:40
From the machine transcript
Krotsh describes how he came as an apprentice to a tailor in Ştefăneşti. His master was a respected man who went to the rebbe's prayer house and spoke only Yiddish. He tells the master's story of a man who asked the rebbe not to be drafted in the war. He also tells of a military tailor who botched a general's coat and was saved by the rebbe's advice. Lemster asks about other rebbes and about people travelling there from Iaşi and Bălţi.
44:09
From the machine transcript
Lemster asks about theater in Ştefăneşti. Krotsh says Yiddish theater troupes came regularly and staged plays, the Akeydes Yitskhok among them. Lemster asks about the director Yankl Sternberg from Bucharest, and Krotsh says he does not recall him. Krotsh describes the town's Jewish population and theatre posters, and Kerler asks whether such plays were done at Purim.
3:53
From the machine transcript
Krotsh tells a story he heard from his father about the Tsarist draft of twenty-five years. Young men were smuggled across the border to Romania. One man, Leyb Gershon, became a rich grain dealer. Years later, on night watch, he met his long-lost brother, and they recognized each other. Kerler asks about the dates.
27:33
From the machine transcript
Krotsh describes the prewar Maccabi sports and cultural organization, with its football team, concerts and the girls' costumes. He lists other Zionist organizations such as Gordonia. Lemster asks whether any Jewish member of the Romanian parliament came from the area. Krotsh names a rabbi from Kishinev (?) as a deputy, and Kerler turns the talk to Jews' secret language.
12:58
From the machine transcript
Vider talks about his illness and condition today while Kerler prepares to show him a recording of himself performing in a Purim shpiel. Vider also tells of being a matchmaker and of knowing a little Gemara. He tells how a house near the station in Kolomyya was sold and a skeleton, said to be of Jews about two hundred years old, was found in its cellar; he names Shloyme as his source.
49:41
From the machine transcript
Krotsh describes postwar Jewish weddings in Kolomyya, which had klezmer and Yiddish songs but no rabbi or religious ceremony. Kerler then speaks of Jews who came to Chernivtsi and of the one remaining synagogue there, and they discuss Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk) and a Jew from Romania who has died. Krotsh answers questions about reading the Soviet Yiddish journal and 'Birobidzhaner Shtern', and agrees to read Yiddish materials Kerler will send.
30:33
From the machine transcript
Katz and Kerler ask for interesting old Jews to record. Belous names an old man named Katsman, over ninety, who is the only Jew in Korosten' who still speaks the language, and gives his address. Belous adds that more Yiddish speakers lived in town fifteen years ago, and that he has Yiddish books and prayer books at home.
13:39
From the machine transcript
Futerman describes a Jewish wedding with a chuppah and klezmer, and a man who was a synagogue warden. Kerler asks about the name Kipnis and whether Jewish weddings continued after the war. She says weddings were held, and talk of singing at them follows.
22:28
From the machine transcript
Katsman names his parents, his father a worker, his mother a pious housewife, and his two brothers Dovid and Leybl. Leybl was a pilot killed in the war; Dovid died after it. Kerler and Katz ask what the town was called in Yiddish. He then describes his grandfather, a melamed who taught four future rabbis, and his grandfather Elye in Chopovychi, who died over a Sabbath reading, aged about eighty.
46:00
From the machine transcript
Skop gives the prewar population of Korosten' and says where its Jews came from (figures partly garbled). The questionnaire continues with words for floor/ceiling, fence, face, back, wealthy man, 'another story', one and a half, attic and shopkeeper. Katz then asks him to recall stories of prewar Korosten'.
2:32
From the machine transcript
At a building on the tour, a remark that there is nothing of interest inside: it now houses an arts center with clubs. Attention then turns to a nearby large synagogue, called the great synagogue.
4:52
From the machine transcript
Outside the former great synagogue the group discusses which synagogue is which, including a second one called the merchants' synagogue (?). They remark that there is little to see inside and that the old buildings have been rebuilt. Kerler says old houses are also being recorded, and there is brief chat about the filming.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Continuation of the museum visit. The guides show books, newspapers and a songbook from a festival at which songs were sung in Yiddish, and mention a play about Janusz Korczak. They describe the activities of the regional association of Jewish shtetls: outreach to small towns and villages, finding people of Jewish descent, Holocaust lessons in schools, Jewish participation in the Red Army, a regional Sunday school, a family camp, festivals, community programs and charity. They add that the Jewish population is aging and shrinking, with some emigrating to Germany, and that the programs depend on volunteers and have funding problems.
MDV 544Mikhail Zakharovich Ocheretianyi; Samuil (Shmiel) Borisovich BelobrovKorsun'-Shevchenkivs'kyy, 2005
10:01
From the machine transcript
Belobrov gives his name and background. He was born in Korsun and called Shmuelik at home. His father was Ber and his mother Reyzl. His parents bought half of a house in the 1930s, a house built in 1897. He says more than half of the prewar town was Jewish. His father came from a town rendered Baslav (probably Boryslav) and his mother from Shpola. He also names his grandparents.
30:24
From the machine transcript
Belobrov takes part in a dialectological questionnaire, translating Russian words and sentences into Yiddish. The items include the word for vodka, thanks, mouse, groats, skin, pleasure, dove, deaf, sun, son, kiss, hand, late, cold, close, faster, breath, stingy, sick, honest, believer, cross, peasant. He also describes a meat dish called rasl (?) and its seasoning. A woman speaks in Russian about a relative who was a party secretary. At the end he discusses the difference between a village and a shtetl, and says Jews also lived in villages before the war.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Katz discuss with Belobrov and a second informant whether places such as Smila, Uman and Berdychiv count as a town or a shtetl, apparently by whether they are subordinate to the region; Uman is a big town with a park and a tsadik. The rest is dialectological questionnaire work in Yiddish and Russian. Items asked include flowers, the numbers twenty and the teens, grandmother and midwife, 'tasty', 'to dig', 'well', 'potato', the prepositions 'at the table' and 'on the street', and sentences to translate. There are also a few asides on the dead, the border with Poland and a person's home language.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Footage and a walk around the former rest-home/sanatorium grounds and palace in Korsun, with an unnamed woman guide speaking mostly Russian. She calls the park a nature reserve and compares it with the planted park at Uman; Kerler asks about it. There is some talk of Jews and a railway, but this part is poorly recognized.
1:00:20
From the machine transcript
Kislinskaia answers Kerler's question about prewar relations with non-Jews, but remembers little and passes on what her mother said: Jews alone lived by the river. She describes the neighborhood today, now Russian and Ukrainian, and says only a few Jews are left.
MDV 548Tsili Davidovna Kislinskaia; Tsadik (Tsolik) Naumovich GroysmanKorsun'-Shevchenkivs'kyy, 2005
13:43
From the machine transcript
Town footage of Korsun. A woman (S3) speaks with Kerler about the Jewish cemetery. Two large gravestones were to be taken back there, with money from a man now living in America. In the end Kerler states the date and introduces the interview with Groysman.
27:26
From the machine transcript
Groysman speaks about postwar Jewish charity in Tarashcha. Wounded veterans collected money so that nobody knew the donors, and helped widows and orphans. He tells of a bearded man, a cantor, who came to the watchmaker's house, and the meeting was arranged in a private apartment. The windows were covered, and his singing about the war moved everyone to tears.
5:25
From the machine transcript
Angelova says there were many Jews in Birzule before the war. Asked about Topole, she describes prayer gatherings held in a private house, and a rabbi who taught children in Yiddish. She also mentions a ritual slaughterer who killed chickens.
13:40
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Lemster ask about religious life. Obodovskii says he never entered a synagogue and knows tefillin only from television. Leiderman says the family returned from evacuation in 1946 and that, in Kotovs'k after the war, older Jews gathered in private homes for a minyan, with candles and brandy. They also mention Pishchanka as a Jewish town with a synagogue where her father prayed.
5:53
From the machine transcript
Obodovskii recalls his school years in Siberia during the war and a class excursion to the Kotovsky mausoleum in Kotovs'k, describing the body displayed under a glass lid with his decorations and a sabre. He tells how the mausoleum was damaged in the German occupation and later restored, and that it is now closed. He then speaks of Polish neighbors, two brothers, one of whom was a lieutenant at the front and the other who gave away partisans to the Germans. Asked by Lemster, he says antisemitism existed in Kotovs'k, though not in his construction brigade, which was international.
44:05
From the machine transcript
Setting up the interview with Gershtein. He speaks of his brother in America, who was denied a visa for a visit, and of the search for Yiddish speakers in the region. Gershtein then shows his native village Holoby on the map. He says that thousands of Jews are buried in the woods near it, that he asked authorities in Luts'k for a memorial, and that many Jews lived there. Kerler begins filling in the personal-data form.
9:10
From the machine transcript
The informants recall prewar cultural life in the town: a mixed Jewish and Polish football team, political movements (Bund, communists, Betar and Hechalutz), and visits by a Yiddish actor and singer named Shuster-Meyr (?) who performed songs. They discuss Jewish periodicals, books read (Sholem Aleichem, Peretz), and a Yiddish film given to a museum in Kyiv. The informant tries to retell the film's plot, and Kerler asks about a library and the cinema, which the informant says showed no Yiddish films.
41:11
From the machine transcript
Town footage and talk about the team's route (Lviv, Drohobych, Chernivtsi, Stanislav, Podolia), then talk in Russian and Yiddish about a nearby former Jewish shtetl whose name is unclear in the transcript, with a tsadik's grave. Oykhovitch points out a building that once had Stars of David on its rings and balconies. The tape ends with the Victory Day memorial service, with Russian and Ukrainian speeches, a discussion of five honoured soldiers (one with a Jewish father), and the parade.
41:24
From the machine transcript
Town footage with Russian and Ukrainian talk among those present, partly about the former synagogue as a historical monument, its director and planned repairs of facades. They also discuss finds of buried gold coins and the state's share of them. Yiddish remarks by Kerler and Oykhovitch are scattered through the talk.
43:41
From the machine transcript
Restaurant and synagogue footage. There is Russian talk about a call from Zhytomyr and an upcoming Jewish festival in Vinnytsia, and a long garbled stretch that may involve a prayer or text. Kerler explains to a passer-by in Russian that the team is on its way to Lviv and is looking for old Yiddish speakers. The man remembers neither Yiddish nor Hebrew. They also discuss an old printing house, and the end is only scraps of Russian about addresses.
0:00
From the machine transcript
From the van the camera records L'viv street scenes. S2 points out the pharmacy company building, where he says he worked for many years on an upper floor, and the opera theater. He then offers to take the group to a small hotel run by a Jewish owner, with prices. Some Russian remarks come from a driver or guide.
27:11
From the machine transcript
Dorfman sings fragments of Passover songs, including Echad Mi Yodea and Adir Hu, and Kerler asks about the tune and pronunciation of Chad Gadya. He then speaks about Yiddish songs and about visiting Yiddish theater troupes that his parents, prominent in the community, hosted.
34:46
From the machine transcript
Dorfman describes Yiddish theater in prewar Chişinău, including the troupes led by Sevilla Pastor and Dzhina Zlatoia, and the neighborhood of Ridel (?). With the arrival of the Soviets many actors fled from Romania and a state Yiddish theater was set up, with a new premiere each week. He also recalls the Vilna Troupe touring the towns and plays such as The Dybbuk.
45:25
From the machine transcript
Dorfman recalls acting in Hebrew school plays and describes the Tarbut school, a private school with teachers who composed melodies and a Romanian teacher with annual inspections. He mentions the daily paper 'Unzer Tsayt' and a relative at the Hebrew school in Tarutino. Asked about non-Jews speaking Yiddish, he says no, and contrasts Chişinău with more developed Jewish culture elsewhere, giving the contact details of a woman.
50:54
From the machine transcript
Dorfman recalls Hasidim in white garments visiting his grandmother's house in Chişinău, from Stefănești and Sadagura among others, and the rebbe's fundraising. He then talks about Lviv acquaintances, including the Shenker family, Rabbi Kapliovatsky and his father-in-law, Rabbi Silberfarb. He speaks of his many journalistic articles and of a Chişinău rabbi, Tsirelson, a member of parliament. Kerler ends the session, planning to continue.
18:17
From the machine transcript
The group visits the Hasidic cemetery in Zhovkva. They discuss who built it and when, how Belz Hasidim stop there on the way to Belz, and the tombstones reused under the Communists in a wall. Kerler also asks about a Yiddish word for a Shavuot item and the terms for cemetery (beys-oylem, beys-khayim), and explains the title of a book written by the tsadik buried there.
24:05
From the machine transcript
At the grave of the tsadik Efraim Zalman Shor, Kerler and a companion read and explain the inscriptions and the titles of his book. The informant adds that even among the wealthy there was no separate synagogue, only a study group. Russian comments about the concrete structure date it to the 1920s.
3:14
From the machine transcript
Nisman talks about her first husband, a bookkeeper who was shot. She was married to him for only a few months and remains in touch with his family. Discussion turns to the Yiddish and German poet Kubi Vol (name unclear in the transcript). She says she was his wife, not a lover. They met in Chernivtsi in the 1930s, and he died young of tuberculosis. He wrote twelve Yiddish poems. She reads a last poem from his book and shows photographs, one of them with Romanian writers. She names other Chernivtsi Yiddish writers and teachers.
12:26
From the machine transcript
Nisman recalls amateur theater and singing at the Yiddish house in Chernivtsi, in a group called Kameleon. Kerler asks about a small-stage (Kleynkunst) form. She describes performing, and a photograph that was lost. She remembers Itzik Manger visiting Chernivtsi. She sang songs he wrote, which were set to music and which he taught to her, and she recalls his family. She also says she recited a poem at the Hesed. She explains that she wanted a family and children.
35:00
From the machine transcript
Leibel talks about Rivne before the war: a small town, the streets, the large stores and a small bookshop that sold school texts and serial novels read by Jews, and his memory of Friday night. He names his mother Golda and recalls his father as a soldier in the First World War who told stories about Jews freed to attend synagogue on the High Holidays. His grandfathers, a carpenter and a tinsmith, are named. He grew up with two sisters, and his parents and grandparents were born in Rivne. Kerler also notes that his own great-grandfather came from Rivne.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Leibel remembers the Hasmonea and Maccabi soccer clubs in Rivne, the sports hall on Zamkova Street, and the Jewish flag carried at parades. He recalls Jabotinsky visiting Rivne in the late 1930s and a Betar parade. He explains that gymnasium pupils were not allowed to belong to political organizations, and that he was absorbed in study and in Jewish observance at home.
22:00
From the machine transcript
Leibel recalls the two cinema-theaters, Safran and Berent, with Berent staging a play (apparently on Golgotha) that Jews boycotted as antisemitic. He gives the early 1930s as the time and mentions Safran's advertising slogans. The Dybbuk named in the catalogue is hard to make out.
27:45
From the machine transcript
Leibel says antisemitism grew before the war but Rivne was a Jewish city whose Jews held their heads high. He recalls the cantor Koussevitzky singing at the Great Synagogue on Shkilna Street, where his mother took him. He describes his family as observant but not fanatical, and himself as the most pious, putting on tefillin in the morning.
32:42
From the machine transcript
Leibel tells of a hungry Polish Jewish refugee he met on the street on Yom Kippur in L'viv in 1939 and fed at home. Kerler asks about the refugee's Yiddish, which Leibel does not recall as different. Leibel then mentions a book he read, and the terms Sephardi and Ashkenazi. Kerler turns to Hoshana Rabbah.
46:00
From the machine transcript
Leibel speaks about his Polish school education and answers whether non-Jews spoke Yiddish, which he does not recall. He tells of a Jewish lawyer who converted and a quarrel with his son over a ball, and names wealthy local Jews. He says the poor never converted while some rich did, naming a doctor family.
36:19
From the machine transcript
Dorfman speaks about museum people in L'viv, including a Ukrainian professor and Goldstein's prewar Jewish museum, and about a joint exhibition of Jewish art with its controversy over Israel. He describes his articles on the museum and on Sholem Aleichem's residence in L'viv, and the celebrations of the writer's 130th anniversary, which marked the first Purim and a concert, and the founding of a Jewish society.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Dorfman talks about religious figures in L'viv after the war: Cantor Shulman of the great synagogue and his family, an old man buried near his mother who had studied in Italy, and a later cantor with a good voice. He describes how, in the early 1990s, the community was given a second synagogue building instead of the original one, which had become a warehouse. The building was cleared and renovated, and a rabbi was brought from America.
29:04
From the machine transcript
Khonigsman describes his work in L'viv after the war. He took a job in the Jewish department of the library after meeting Professor Zadaretsky(?), who lived there, and he tells of the library's fate: most of its books were removed to Kyiv, and some Jewish books remain at a Jesuit building. He was let go in 1949 and worked in the NKVD archive, where he lived in fear of arrest like the Yiddish writers.
MDV 565Professor Iakov Samoilovich Khonigsman; Isaak (Itche, Itskhok-Avigdor) Moseevich MelerL'viv, 2003
0:00
From the machine transcript
Khonigsman shows his published works, in particular a book translated into German by a German university team who worked with him in L'viv. He gives its price and says it also sells in America and Germany. He describes his work on Jewish topics since 1993, including a study of the Janowska camp. He also mentions a work on two vanished Jewish communities in the L'viv region and his photographs of the last Jew of one town. Much of this is in Russian.
42:57
From the machine transcript
Meler says he was born in Glina Navariya, near Donets (?), and that his family moved to Lviv, where his father got a share of the family's land sale. He describes the town as poor with a stone synagogue and cemetery, and a Belz rabbi's grandson. Kerler records the interview date and Meler's name, spelled Isaak, and Meler explains how the surname Volf became Meler, and that his father was Samselik. He also mentions relatives in America and his heart problems.
7:08
From the machine transcript
Meler talks about the prewar Jewish community in L'viv, its hospital and orphanage, and a holy site tied to a woman called the Golden Rose. He describes how Khrushchev had the old cemetery destroyed to make a market. He tells about an acquaintance who survived the war.
38:27
From the machine transcript
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.
13:48
From the machine transcript
The questionnaire continues with sentence translation and word elicitation: pronouns, verb forms, numbers, prepositions of place, and words such as well, midwife, flowers, potatoes, shop, cantor's place at the lectern, rich man, and the burrs thrown at Tisha b'Av. Meler mentions in passing a tragedy in his shtetl in which two lovers killed themselves, and that his shtetl said one word for shop. Kerler and Meler also discuss where a word is Polish or Russian rather than Yiddish. The passage ends with Meler tired.
4:50
From the machine transcript
Dorfman tells how a monument was built over bones found during factory construction, and how the inscription was in Yiddish and Russian. He recalls the first Jewish demonstration at the time of perestroika, when a thousand people came, and the founding of the Jewish society with ten or twelve people, including the writer Alexander Lizen. He talks about the cemetery's age and lack of space, and shows two old gravestones from Polish times to Kerler.
55:53
From the machine transcript
At the great synagogue, Dorfman explains that it survived the Holocaust because the Germans used it as a stable, and that after its closing in 1962 it became a sports club. He describes the present cultural centre with its library, Sunday school, Yiddish theatre studio, ulpan and veterans' section, and shows photographs of events. He mentions the opening of the memorial with Israeli and American representatives and the donors from Vienna, Tel Aviv and London.
35:27
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about Jewish life in Peremyshlyany. Brandler discusses the postwar Jewish presence there and how he and the partisan commander Shimon Zisser saved the cemetery and the small hall holding the tsadik's grave. He names the tsadik as Reb Meir (?) and compares him to the Belzer rebbe. He tells of Zisser's wartime partisan unit, and of a survivor named Kirzhner who escaped a shooting, along with other friends, and of Jewish police betraying people in hiding.
11:51
From the machine transcript
Brandler talks about prewar libraries in the town. There was a Ukrainian library and a Zionist library with Polish and Yiddish books, among them Bialik. He lists authors he read in Yiddish translation, such as Tolstoy, Trotsky and Jack London, and says books could be borrowed but not read on the premises. He also names Polish popular writers and an Polish book on sexual questions.
21:04
From the machine transcript
Brandler confirms that his grandmother came from Mostiska, and lists the town's occupations: tailors, shoemakers, watchmakers and merchants, and porters who carried passengers from the station four kilometers away. He recalls Polish army maneuvers in the 1930s and a large fire that burned several houses. He then discusses Jewish and Polish newspapers read before the war, naming a few titles and an editor who left for America.
27:15
From the machine transcript
Brandler recalls prewar holidays in Mostiska: a childhood Purim in costume, being given liquor at a brit, tashlikh on Rosh Hashanah, and the beadle whipping men symbolically before Yom Kippur. He describes the town's synagogue, two small prayer houses and study houses, a mikveh, Simchat Torah and Hanukkah candles, building the sukkah and antisemitic harassment of it. He also gives the word for the ruffians who threw things, and says he fasted on Yom Kippur and Tisha b'Av.
41:11
From the machine transcript
Brandler answers questions about the meanings of the words dybbuk and golem, calling the first a bad person and the second a legend of a robot made in Prague. He gives terms for a non-Jewish and a Jewish cemetery. He then explains that after demobilization he found gravestones used as paving stones in Mostiska, and notes how few remain.
6:13
From the machine transcript
Begins with a recollection of a prewar amateur performance in the shtetl, with a large club with a stage somewhat outside the center, near Przemyśl. Kerler then continues the questionnaire with words for bed, flowers, vodka, numbers and money, kinship terms and household words such as cellar, attic and beams. He also asks about sentences with prepositions and plurals (the way, the wagon), words such as enemy, trouble, face and 'fooled', and a few Polish loan words.
8:30
From the machine transcript
Leibel speaks about his traditional childhood home and about his father working in the cellar of a textile store. He lists organizations in Rivne, including Betar, a Zionist group (names garbled) and a Hasmonea football club, and a Maccabi club. He explains that gymnasium pupils were forbidden to join political organizations and had to study. Kerler asks in what language the Betar and Bund booklets were written; Leibel says Yiddish.
16:15
From the machine transcript
Leibel talks about Rivne after the war: the Jewish street was nearly empty, a local milkman traded with peasants, and he felt a longing to return there. He then answers Kerler about his father's prayer habits, recalling carrying the tallis bag beside him as a child. He also mentions the special cap required at his gymnasium.
44:50
From the machine transcript
Leibel sings a Yiddish song about Hasidic and wealthy Jews, and says the Soviet regime closed synagogues so that people prayed in small minyanim in homes. Asked about klezmer, he says his father once wanted him to learn the clarinet. He describes his own wedding under a canopy at the Lviv rebbe's house, with two witnesses, and answers Kerler on weddings, matchmakers and the absence of Yiddish-speaking non-Jews in Rivne.
1:22
From the machine transcript
She says she speaks Yiddish to herself at night, and Kerler explains the project: recording the real spoken Yiddish of the shtetl, prewar life and the war, and the decline of Yiddish. He records the name of her town, Sofiyivka in Polish and Trokhenbrod in Yiddish, and she says she had a private teacher at home since there was no Jewish school. They discuss the district around Luts'k, with Kerler looking at a map, and she gives her married and maiden names and her father's name.
32:53
From the machine transcript
She answers questions about holiday customs at home, with Shavuot dairy food such as cheese blintzes and Passover food. She says the family bought matzo in quantity for their large household. She describes the town as a Jewish one where life was cheerful and Jews felt at home.
46:04
From the machine transcript
She tells of non-Jews, mostly Poles, who spoke Yiddish and Hebrew, including a postmaster's son, and says they lived on good terms. She recalls a Jewish–gentile intermarriage and a case of conversion, which the town condemned. She lists trades and professions: tailors, builders, shoemakers, teachers, pharmacists, a barber, and doctors in Luts'k. She says her father dealt in lumber and travelled to Luts'k by horse and wagon. She mentions folk healing by her grandmother and a midwife.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Talks with Kerler about prewar cultural life in her shtetl. She comments on differences of speech between streets and on a proverb, and on the term for an older grandmother. She names Warsaw Yiddish periodicals (Moment, Der Shtern) that were read, and recalls klezmer and singers coming from Luts'k to perform. She also remembers the first car in the street, a Jewish teacher who taught singing, a strongman, and touring actors, though she was a small child then.
2:09
From the machine transcript
Shvardovskaia gives her personal data: her Yiddish name, her Russian name and patronymic, her parents' names and her father's birth year. Both parents came from Trokhinbrod. Her maternal grandfather was a potter who dug clay pits and made pots and Passover vessels. She says there were four synagogues in town and that she was born in 1923.
6:45
From the machine transcript
Asked about her early years, she describes Trokhinbrod as a Jewish town of tailors, shoemakers and other craftsmen. She compares Polish Jews with Bessarabian Jews and their Yiddish. She says she was taught Yiddish reading and writing by a private teacher at home, not in cheder, and read Sholem Aleichem. Youth organizations (halutzim, Communists, Betar) had a library, and Betar members spoke Hebrew. She later visited Israel and met people from Trokhinbrod.
21:24
From the machine transcript
She speaks about Jewish names and a visiting rabbi, and says the whole town spoke Yiddish, while the youth spoke Polish and, in Betar, Hebrew learned from lectures. Meetings on Sabbath and outings to the forest are mentioned. Kerler asks about the distance of the town from Luts'k and the Yiddish word for 'other people'. She then recites Polish verse (Mickiewicz) with another voice and says she has forgotten much.
35:54
From the machine transcript
She says she came to Luts'k in 1946 after the war. Partisans found them in the forest and she worked in a field hospital as a nurse, and afterwards in a hospital. Lemster and Kerler ask about postwar Luts'k, and she says its Jews were nearly all newcomers from Russia and she was the only local Jew from Volhynia.
44:43
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about political organizations in the town before the war. She names Communists and Zionists, says there was no Bund, and mentions a Yiddish newspaper whose origin she does not know.
45:32
From the machine transcript
She describes Purim before the war, with baked goods and children dressing up, and says Jewish life was full and no one expected to be shot. Lemster asks about rich Jews, who were tanners or leather workers. She also tells of meeting by chance on a bus a man from Trokhinbrod, apparently Meir Shvarts (Schwartz) (?), with his non-Jewish wife who had adopted Judaism.
53:31
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about mass graves; she says there are four memorials where thousands of Jews from Trokhinbrod and nearby villages were killed, and a mass grave of Luts'k Jews. She says relatives and people come to visit twice a year. She describes Luts'k as a largely Jewish city before the war.
55:43
From the machine transcript
Asked about Jewish trades in Luts'k, she lists doctors, shoemakers and shopkeepers, and says the best products came from Jews. Lemster and Kerler discuss the Luts'k memorial book, which has nothing on Trokhinbrod, and she mentions a Dr. Abramski (?) who treated them. She says she can still read Hebrew.
58:14
From the machine transcript
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.
5:22
From the machine transcript
Shvardovskaia says she has nothing more to add and longs for her youth. She says the Jewish character of her town no longer exists, the gravestones were taken, and only a few memorial stones remain. She describes a large commemoration with Jews from Israel and America and local Poles, Ukrainians and neighbours from the villages, and mentions a former partisan in Israel.
6:11
From the machine transcript
Shoikhetman recalls the outbreak of war: a railway running by the house and a plane dropping three bombs. He speaks of the Jews of Derazhnya, with one synagogue and several small prayer rooms before the war, and says there was a cheder but no yeshiva. Kerler and Lemster press him on a yeshiva and on a man from Proskurov who studied in Derazhnya. He also quotes census-type population figures for Ukrainians, Russians and Jews, and says almost no Jews survived the occupation.
12:50
From the machine transcript
Shoikhetman tells of a well-off local owner with a large building in the town centre and of a young person connected with him who hid gold, escaped to the forest and was later taken into the army. Who the person is and how he relates to the speaker is unclear in the transcript. Kerler asks what languages he spoke, and Shoikhetman then estimates how many Jews were in the town after the war, perhaps about a thousand.
16:40
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Lemster ask how many Jews live in Luts'k now compared with before the war. Of roughly sixteen to seventeen thousand prewar Jews, almost none native to Luts'k remain. Shoikhetman and the interviewers discuss survivors, a woman born near Luts'k, and a present Jewish population of perhaps two to three hundred, about half of them elderly.
33:19
From the machine transcript
The team drives through Luts'k with Shoikhetman, with much Russian talk among those in the van. He and the others point out sights such as a theatre and the former wooden synagogue, now a police building, then the castle-area synagogue and a building now used as a Dynamo sports hall. Passing talk about local figures (Rabinovich, Dolinsky) and a book on Jewish history is hard to follow, and there is a recogniser loop.
46:39
From the machine transcript
The team walks into the former synagogue now used as a sports hall. Shoikhetman and others point out the prayer hall, the women's section and the galleries, and the columns and vaults that survive. They compare it with another synagogue near Lviv and note the nearby former Jewish hospital and an orphanage.
48:47
From the machine transcript
Outside the building, Shoikhetman and the others talk about the surrounding structures, once Jewish, now a repair workshop and car showroom. They also mention the charity administration (UEV) and the writer Dina Rubina. He says he worked in archives drawing plans of these buildings, and he speaks of mass graves, one without a marker and another with one, and of a possible visit to the cemetery area.
51:27
From the machine transcript
The drive continues past street names, former Jewish buildings and the castle synagogue, now apparently a dental clinic, of which nothing remains. Shoikhetman talks about Jewish schools in the town, some teaching in Yiddish and others in Polish. He also tells of a woman survivor who was denied compensation because her village had no ghetto, and mentions the Spielberg interviews and a woman who had been in the ghetto.
10:07
From the machine transcript
Kaplan comments that he has had a heart attack and can no longer sing well, and recalls a song about a tailor. He remembers the deported Jews from Bukovina, Bessarabia and Hungary who were brought to the town during the war, and the children he played with. He describes the two Yiddish-language classes in the Russian school and his own late start in school after the war. He speaks about the surviving synagogue, its builder (the name is unclear), his religious mother who fasted twice a week, her death in his arms, and his grandmother from Ozaryntsi.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kaplan answers Katz's questions about the meaning of words (dibbuk, golem). He speaks briefly about postwar hardship and the poor food of the 1940s, including cornmeal dishes. He explains the difference between a rav and a rebbe, and the Jewish burial place and mass grave. He mentions a man who died the same day, and recalls the prewar amateur Yiddish theater and Chabad Hasidim. He gives the town's Jewish population today as 360 (formerly fourteen thousand), with sixty-six children, and says emigration has stopped and a few people returned from America and Israel. From about 12:00 he is asked, with Russian prompts from a second speaker and questions from Katz and Lemster, for Yiddish equivalents. These cover greetings, thanks, luck, household and food words, body parts, adjectives, converts and Christians, peasants, directions and everyday sentences, with discussion of what is said in Mohyliv.
0:00
From the machine transcript
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.
32:44
From the machine transcript
Fiksler speaks of her return, when neighbors gave back what she had left with them but the fields were later taken into the kolkhoz. She says they knew nothing of the deportations before 1944 and recalls an older brother's worried remark when Hungarians first arrived. She also describes the mixed Hungarian and Romanian population of Solotvyno and the Jews living there. She mentions that her family kept Passover.
50:08
From the machine transcript
Vider talks about his great-grandmother Zisl and his grandmother Toybe, whose family names (Vetnshteyn, Berger) he explains; he also mentions his mother Leye and his own Hebrew name. He answers Kerler's questions about 'leshn koyln' (extinguishing coals), a folk remedy against the evil eye that his mother used. He then tells a story of the Munkács rebbe's meeting with the Czech foreign minister Beneš.
12:22
From the machine transcript
Vider shows photographs and documents. They include a picture connected to the ghetto in Mukacheve, a wedding, a Jewish school class in the 1930s, and a rabbi's funeral. He then shows newspapers and a certificate of merit from a Hasidic or Jewish communal fund. He mentions a person with a telephone number to contact, who knows several languages. The speech is partly garbled.
31:10
From the machine transcript
Vider tells a joke at the expense of the Jews of Berehove, whom the Mukacheve Jews considered foolish, about carrying stones up and down a hill. He explains the difference between a shul and a besmedresh and the small kloyz and shtibl prayer houses of Mukacheve. He talks about Hasidic groups, Zionists and the Jewish street today, saying he is an honest Zionist and works for the Hesed and the community. Kerler then asks about people in Berehove and more stories, and Vider reads out items from the internet. The segment ends with talk about wild blueberries, coffee and Russian-language anecdotes about Mussolini and the 1944 front.
43:46
From the machine transcript
Camera footage in Mukacheve showing the building where Vider's cheder was and the house where he was born, on the former Jewish street. Vider and Kerler talk about the age of the building and its inscription.
6:43
From the machine transcript
Asked about early childhood, Pasik says she remembers little before the evacuation, when she was seven. She describes the colony as Jewish, with Ukrainians and Germans living there too and two kolkhozy, where her maternal uncle held a leading post. Her mother said there had once been three synagogues and only one remained; Yiddish was the language spoken, and there was a Yiddish school.
27:09
From the machine transcript
Kenin sings the beginning of a children's song about going to the forest to pick flowers, which he says he learned in the school choir. He recalls the Yiddish literature taught at school, including Sholem Aleichem, Bergelson, Itsik Fefer and David Hofshteyn, and says poems were learned by heart. He mentions a Yiddish actor who visited before the war and the newspapers read (Shtern, Der emes, and the pioneers' paper Zay greyt). He also describes the Yiddish craftsmen's club (Kusteri) in town, including the staged mockery of Passover.
11:40
From the machine transcript
Trachtenberg speaks about prewar Novoseltsy. He mentions that about ten synagogues were in the town and that he is a war invalid. He says he lived there until 1941, studied in a Yiddish school and a Romanian school and in cheder, learned Hebrew, and finished four classes. His teacher was called Mendele. He recalls the Jewish football teams Hakoah (?), Shomer, Betar and Maccabi.
15:26
From the machine transcript
Bakmayev gives his name as Itsik and his surname as something like Bak Meir. His mother was Jewish and from Berdychiv, and his father was a soldier there who named as Otman Abramovich. Born in 1929, he lived in the synagogue building, which in Soviet times was used by soldiers. His mother had 23 children, of whom five survived. His mother's brother and others were killed by the Germans in 1941.
26:28
From the machine transcript
Listengurt continues on the Jewish plan for a republic in Crimea and the 1923 pogrom. She then explains Stalin's deportation of Germans and Tatars, Khrushchev's role, and the later Jewish settlement in the Birobidzhan region between two rivers. She describes a bare area and what an acquaintance said of the Crimea's beauty, then moves to the doctors' plot at Lemster's prompt.
12:54
From the machine transcript
Medved recalls songs sung before the war, in Yiddish and in Russian, including a song about Birobidzhan and a kolkhoz. She talks about Jewish kolkhozes, including in Crimea, and tells a joke about a Jewish kolkhoz worker. She then says that the best doctors before the war were Jews, including one named Rabinovitsh (?) in her courtyard.
45:25
From the machine transcript
Vainbrand reads aloud from a prayer book and tries a Kaddish for the interviewers, who praise his reading. He explains the difference between the kloyz and the beys-medresh, saying the beys-medresh stood near the centre and the kloyz was up on a hill. The town's Jews were Hasidic and visited only their own tsadik's grave. Pilgrims from distant cities stayed at his mother's house, which stood on the road, and she served them tea and cookies.
7:53
From the machine transcript
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.
35:30
From the machine transcript
Vainbrand names towns he visited before the war, including Zhytomyr and Ovruch; he passed through Berdychiv once. He names Simchat Torah as his favourite holiday and describes the procession with the Torah scrolls round the bimah in the synagogue. Kerler asks about Sabbath songs at home, and Lemster asks who asked the Four Questions on Passover. Vainbrand, the youngest son, asked them each year at home in Valedniki.
13:30
From the machine transcript
Brodsky says he was in the war for four years, first as a tank driver and then in the motorized infantry. He passed through Hungary (Budapest) and ended the war in Vienna. He states his birth year as 1924. The conversation then turns to whether his family was related to the Brodsky sugar manufacturers, which he denies, and to the Brodsky synagogue in Odesa. Kerler explains what the archive is for.
31:45
From the machine transcript
Brodsky mentions Jewish kolkhozes in the Odesa region, and says that students from all schools, not only Yiddish ones, were sent to help at kolkhozes. He had one brother, Misha (Mikhail Abramovich), who was killed at the front. Asked about his childhood, he says he lived on Prival Street (Privoz market area), with many Jewish children.
38:06
From the machine transcript
Brodsky says his wedding after the war had no huppah; they only registered. The conversation covers a grandson's circumcision and the question of what a real Jew is. His mother cooked gefilte fish and other holiday dishes, and his wife cooked as well. They talk about the sukkah put up in Odesa before the war and in a Yiddish school, and ask what Odesa was famous for, which they answer with Jews, thieves and good people.
49:12
From the machine transcript
Brodsky describes prewar Jewish weddings in Odesa, with dancing on the table and Jewish songs, and a klezmer trumpeter who liked his vodka. They talk about a Yiddish library, Yiddish newspapers (the Odesa worker) and journals. Kerler and Lemster ask if the couple knew writers such as Babel, Bialik and Nate Lurie. The couple recall a love song and a Jewish film director.
27:09
From the machine transcript
At the old synagogue Lerner gives Kerler and Lemster a tour in Russian. He says it was damaged in the war by the Nazis and Banderites, and an inscription dates it to the sixteenth or seventeenth century (?). He points out a cannonball (Crimean War?), the women's balcony, and the museum with a chandelier given from America. He recalls being brought here by his father, a rich man throwing apples from the balcony at Hanukkah, and a visit by Piłsudski. He returned in 1946 and later saw it used as a Soviet storehouse. He also says a famous rabbi is buried in the Jewish cemetery.
51:56
From the machine transcript
Kipervaser recalls weddings and the synagogues of Berezdiv. There were two or three, including a workers' synagogue and an intelligentsia one. After the war there was no synagogue, so in 1944 people prayed in a house for the holidays. The community then rebuilt the synagogue, and she went round town collecting money. Kerler asks whether it was wooden. She speaks warmly of a rabbi, Itsik Libersohn (?), who helped everyone, and of his daughters.
20:08
From the machine transcript
Dorfman recalls Slovechno as a Jewish shtetl, about ninety percent Jewish, with shoemakers, tailors and smiths and no antisemitism. He attended a Yiddish school until age six(?), then a Ukrainian school with seven grades before the war. He cannot name children's games, mentions friends Motl and Asher, and begins to tell about the tsaddik of nearby Velednik.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Dorfman answers a long run of dialectological questions, with Kerler and Katz giving Russian words and sentences to render into Yiddish. The items cover colours of clothing, birds, adjectives, degrees of distance and height, a few words about the house and village, and translation of short sentences. Later he talks about his father, who prayed and put on tefillin at home on weekdays because of work and went to the big synagogue only on festivals. He explains that the synagogue burned down in 1936 or 1937 (the year is uncertain) in a fire that started when a non-Jew was singeing a pig, and the group discusses dialect words and local terms for Litvaks and for the Belarusian border area.
13:07
From the machine transcript
Feldman and Kerler talk about the Hasidic rebbe buried in Volednyk (Yisroel Leyb, son of Yosef), the shtetl and its Jewish absence today. In Ovruch he led a minyan of older men until recently, and handed two Torah scrolls to the community. He complains that the rabbis of Zhytomyr and Kyiv do not answer letters. Kerler then asks about his home village.
15:18
From the machine transcript
Feldman names his home village, Yanova Rudnya, which had only six houses, and discusses how its name was said in Yiddish and the origin of "rudnya" (ore). After his father's death he lived in a town and worked in a shop. He describes the water mill his father leased, the fish in the river, and being taught at home by a hired teacher together with four sisters. He begins to mention the holiday songs he sang with the minyan.
33:44
From the machine transcript
Feldman names the teachers (melamdim) he studied with in Veledniki, Slovechno and Luhyny, including the sons of rabbis who had studied at the Vilna yeshiva. He names Yosl the rabbi's son and a relative. He also mentions a strange man living near the village. Kerler asks whether being a melamed was honourable, and Katz asks about women healers, who whispered cures and were called babkes (?).
3:45
From the machine transcript
Stotland talks about the only Yiddish school in Ovruch, closed a year before the war, and about his childhood in the orphanage. Twelve Jewish children lived there and spoke Yiddish among themselves, switching to Russian or Ukrainian when a teacher came. He names teachers and says subjects were taught in Yiddish. They read Sholem Aleichem and Itzik Pfeffer.
31:36
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about the synagogue in Ovruch, and the women say there was a large one, probably wooden. People from the surrounding villages came to study and pray there.
32:36
From the machine transcript
The women suggest possible interviewees, among them an old man called Binyomin (?) who is ninety-nine and still remembers how to pray, and a man named Friedman. They also mention a woman whose father was learned. They discuss ages and which people would speak Yiddish, and say that Ovruch was a Jewish town and that many Jews have since left or died.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Turovskaia says she keeps the yortsayts (memorial days) for her parents and grandparents, as her father told her, and recalls them. She names her maternal grandparents (Reyzl, daughter of Yitskhok, and Binem Shloyme, family name Vaynbrand) and her paternal grandparents (Shloyme and Fayge). Her grandfather had a matzo machine and a wool-carding machine and her father baked matzo. She distinguishes Novyye Veledniki from Staryye Veledniki, her grandparents' village, and says her father knew many tales of the rebbe.
25:14
From the machine transcript
Turovskaia describes the two-story beys medresh in Veledniki, with women praying on one floor and men on the other. She also mentions a former Polish church and a Christian cloister, which she says Jews called kloyster. Nothing remains of the study house, the church or the cloister. The interviewers ask for Yiddish terms.
9:16
From the machine transcript
Turovskaia recalls that weddings took place in Velednik, that her father arranged a wedding canopy for her and her husband there, and that klezmer musicians played. As she was still a child she does not remember who led the celebration. She says the shtetl later became a village, and Kerler asks for the Yiddish word for a sitting-position, getting the word for Satan.
4:59
From the machine transcript
Turovskaia talks about Dovid Katz's earlier visit and about her family. Her father died long ago, and relatives were evacuated. They discuss Jews who are no longer in town, including a man named Feldman and a couple from Slavechno (?). She says her children live in Siberia (Kansk, Krasnoyarsk region) and in Pskov, and mentions her late husband, a veterinarian.
41:16
From the machine transcript
Turovskaia talks about Leybl the Khapner, called the Trefer or the White. He knew who came to him, predicted that the family would survive and that war would come. When the Germans took Khapne, asked who would win, he told them to bring a white and a red rooster to fight. The red rooster won, which meant a Soviet victory. He died a hard death, and Kerler adds his own doubts about the man.
26:31
From the machine transcript
Lemster asks for Jewish anecdotes and funny stories from childhood; Turovskaia says there were few to hear and mentions a neighbor family named Zilberman who were leather makers. She describes the well near the old synagogue where water was drawn, and complains about water pollution today. Kerler asks about tales of fools, which she does not know.
20:24
From the machine transcript
In the Berdychiv synagogue Kerler and Lemster speak with several congregants about praying and about a minyan. They recall that the team had visited before, in winter and summer, for interviews, and mention a late rabbi (called a tsadik(?)) who was ill in 2005. A congregant relates that a Jew ran out of a mass-killing pit during the German occupation. A man introduces himself as Berzon, born in Berdychiv, says he lost an older brother, fought at the front and was invalided, and the interviewers ask to speak with him and his wife. Much of the stretch is garbled.
13:10
From the machine transcript
Zak recalls her poor, hungry childhood, going to school barefoot and ragged, without bread for years, and the famine in the early 1930s. Her sisters and brother went to work, and her brother served in the army. She says that two sisters now live abroad, in Israel and America. She names a childhood friend, Rachel, and says that she spoke Yiddish with the Jewish neighbour. She tells how the town centre was Jewish and the non-Jews lived on the other streets.
17:08
From the machine transcript
Zak says that today's Polonne has hardly any old houses; the town was rebuilt after the war. She says that non-Jewish children understood Yiddish but did not speak it, and that she played with Russian children. She goes on to tell how, at thirteen, she worked at a factory because of the family's poverty, and how her mother made her return to school so that she completed ten classes.
20:30
From the machine transcript
Zak says her father was observant, put on tefillin and a tallit, and went to a small synagogue for workers. She names seven synagogues in the town before the war and recalls the street named for them. She says the Yiddish school closed in 1938, that the synagogues were closed earlier, and that she attended an anti-religious campaign in school (?). She answers questions put by Kerler and other speakers.
46:16
From the machine transcript
At the Peretz Markish museum in Polonne, S2 (the catalogue's Bentsianov) guides the team and talks mostly in Russian about Markish's life, with Kerler putting in a few comments. He covers Markish's birth in Polonne, cheder, singing in the synagogue, early jobs, his move to Yekaterinoslav, the Polish and Paris period, Palestine in 1923 and his return to Kharkiv and Moscow. He also mentions Markish's family, with pictures of the parents and siblings, his children Olga and Shimon, and his wife Esther. He describes the museum's collection of photographs and books. Zak is hardly heard in this passage.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Bentsianov explains Markish's career in Moscow and his standing in Jewish literature. He lists his books, plays and translations into several languages, including Hebrew, English and Chuvash. He tells how he collected materials from many countries and how the Soviet-era ban on Markish's books affected Polonne. He describes the 1965 jubilee and the renaming of a street after Markish, with letters from writers, and shows the porcelain-factory items made for the museum. Kerler and Bentsianov discuss the postwar memorial to Jews killed in the war and the Polonne ghetto, and Bentsianov proposes to play a recording.
30:55
From the machine transcript
Kerler writes an entry in the museum's visitor's book, and the team reads other entries and press clippings. The clippings are from Moscow, Kyiv, regional, Lviv and Israeli papers and one from Krakow. Bentsianov comments on the authors, including a journalist who praised the museum, a critical remark about the synagogue being turned into a museum, and an English-language entry.
36:47
From the machine transcript
Bentsianov and Kerler talk about the day's plan: the underground fighters' monument, Markish Street, the cemetery and the mass grave of ghetto victims, and a woman who might be interviewed. Kerler explains that the team needs Yiddish speakers and cannot afford to cover everything. A woman who attended the Jewish school is also mentioned.
39:24
From the machine transcript
Bentsianov points out memorials near the road. One is for those killed in the war. Another, for the Civil War, names revolutionary-committee members tortured by Petliura's men, among them a Jewish teacher and a Pole. Bentsianov and another voice read out the names and discuss how Petliura is now treated.
41:12
From the machine transcript
On the drive, Bentsianov points out old houses and Markish Street, formerly Naberezhna, near where Markish was born, with a plaque. Shevchenko Street could not be renamed. He mentions the river Khomora and that Germans forced Jews to destroy part of the cemetery. At the Jewish cemetery, which was locked, Bentsianov says he organised its upkeep. Kerler reads and explains tombstone inscriptions and abbreviations, including a rabbi's daughter and a woman's gravestone.
MDV 639Isaak Grigorievich Vainsheinboim; Moisei (Moyshe ben Zalmen) Zelmanovich Fish bRivne, Slavuta, 2003
9:23
From the machine transcript
Asked about converts to Judaism in Ostroh, Vainsheinboim says there were none, but remembers Jews who converted to Christianity. He and the other boys would run after them and throw stones as they rode to the monastery.
17:54
From the machine transcript
Vainsheinboim describes a 'shive-kikh' (?) in Ostroh, where children were given rolls with cocoa. Kerler asks who organised it and when, and then asks about a fire brigade.
46:40
From the machine transcript
At an old wooden synagogue, Kerler and Fish and others discuss the building and what survives inside. They note that the original wooden structure is hidden behind brick walls, and Kerler hopes that Jews will pray there. Fish says that Jews were a large share of the population in the region and that they were all killed.
37:22
From the machine transcript
Outside, the researchers and Fish talk, largely in Russian, with the sports hall's staff about putting up a sign marking the building's past for tourists. They mention the number of synagogues once in town and Fish says he was born in Rivne and his family were all shot.
3:20
From the machine transcript
Kurliandchik is introduced as a man from Novohrad-Volyns'kyy. Kerler asks about the old name of the town, which Kurliandchik gives as Zviagel and the Yiddish Zvil, and about its location and former province (Volhynia). Kerler states the date and place of the recording. Kurliandchik gives his name, patronymic and official name, says his family came from Courland, and gives his address in Rivne, postal index and telephone number. Kerler ends by asking his birth year.
41:39
From the machine transcript
Asked about visits of Yiddish writers, Kurliandchik recalls Perets Markish visiting in about 1937. He also remembers Yiddish theatre from Kyiv coming to the town and names several plays, including Shulamis, Koldunye, Hershele and Der Karger.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Kurliandchik recalls returning to Novohrad-Volynskyi after the war, when a few Jews had come back. His sister-in-law and her mother tell him that those who survived must fast on Yom Kippur. He also describes his school class, in which few of the eleven girls and nine boys survived, and says about half the town was Jewish before the war.
13:57
From the machine transcript
Litvak remembers non-Jews who lived on the Jewish street and spoke pure Yiddish. She contrasts the prewar neighbourly solidarity there with today's more individualistic attitudes. Kerler asks about non-Jewish converts to Judaism, which she did not know of before the war.
41:28
From the machine transcript
Litvak describes how her father built a sukkah from cornstalks beside the house, with a bench and table inside. Every house on the Jewish street had one, and some people kept building them even after it was forbidden. Kerler asks for the Russian word for cornstalks.
57:14
From the machine transcript
Litvak says there were Hasidim in town before the war and that people visited a revered rebbe or holy man, but she cannot remember details.
59:55
From the machine transcript
Litvak recalls the Jewish bath in town and says her mother took the children once a year to the mikve, which was part of the bath. Her mother told her not to tell anyone.
25:23
From the machine transcript
Litvak describes the kosher butchers' shop by the market in her town before the war. Several men slaughtered all day, and everyone came before the Sabbath. Kerler then turns to his next group of questions, in which he gives Russian sentences to translate.
19:27
From the machine transcript
Shteingart recalls his prewar Kovel' childhood: he lived on a street near the railway station, with many Jews and about ten prayer houses and a great synagogue. He attended cheder from age three for six years, studying Humash with Rashi and prayers, and still has a siddur and tefillin and prays daily. He then did not study for a long time and began working in a pharmacy.
38:48
From the machine transcript
Shteingart answers questions about Jewish sports in Kovel': swimming, chess, football and volleyball, with Jewish teams such as Maccabi and others, and play against Ukrainian and other Jewish teams. Kerler asks about the swimmer Zishe Breitbart.
42:41
From the machine transcript
Shteingart answers questions about theater and cinema in Kovel': a Polish theater and Yiddish amateur groups who staged plays such as The Dybbuk. He recalls a cinema, probably Jewish-owned, and then begins to talk about a lullaby he knew from home.
15:25
From the machine transcript
Recalls the outbreak of the war, her evacuation, and letters from her brothers, who served as a pilot and in rocket forces. She was the eldest of three children. She worked in Novohrad-Volynskyi from 1933, and a bystander gives the town's alternative name.
16:50
From the machine transcript
Khiterman says she had a Jewish wedding at home with a canopy, officiated by the rabbi of Berezhov (Berezov?), with many Jewish guests, music and singing. Kerler asks about the town, which had many Jews who were later killed. Her father was a forest overseer. Kerler then thanks her and winds down the interview.
35:11
From the machine transcript
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.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Opening of the interview: setting up seats and camera, then talk about Rivne's former pharmacy and streets. Fish says almost no Jews remain and that perhaps three people still speak Yiddish, one an old woman whose husband was Christian. He says he has no one to speak Yiddish with except the rabbi from Israel, and mentions his wife's death. Kerler asks about names of local Jewish women.
19:51
From the machine transcript
Fish describes the mikve and bathhouse next to the great synagogue, where he went weekly with his father. He adds that the Jewish theater stood near Shkolna street.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Fish recalls going to synagogue with his father and his mother lighting Sabbath candles on Friday evenings, and that challah was baked at home for Sabbath and holidays. He describes the street where the family lived, with its streets and its mostly Jewish residents, and answers Lemster's question about Yiddish stories. He ends on the point that under Soviet rule Yiddish could hardly be used.
18:44
From the machine transcript
Fish shows the interviewers old issues of the Forverts and Hebrew papers, passed to him by relatives of a Rivne man who has since died. He says he can read Yiddish with difficulty but little Hebrew. Lemster and Kerler ask whether Jews born in Rivne remain, then about the evil-eye custom and a word for ritual blessing (?); Fish answers vaguely. Kerler then asks what should be remembered about Jewish Rivne, and Fish begins to answer that Jewish schools matter most.
24:28
From the machine transcript
Pressed by Kerler to say what should be remembered rather than done, Fish says Jewish schools and the teaching of children to be Jews matter most. He adds that the millions of murdered Jews, including children, must be remembered. He recalls that under Polish rule Jews lived as Jews and spoke Yiddish from childhood, and worries about children of mixed families. The interview closes with thanks.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Vaisman says there was a ghetto in Sharhorod and recounts his sister's belief that Ukrainians helped the Jews. He names a Ukrainian woman, Ksenia Vasilovna Loyanich (spelling uncertain), who brought his family food and whom he wants recognised. He says he does not remember the war, and that the Romanians did not kill Jews in Sharhorod but brought their own Jews, thousands of whom starved and were buried in the local cemetery. He tells a Hershele Ostropolyer story about a poor guest at a Sabbath meal. He recalls the Passover seder, with his mother's matzo bagels and kugels and the bakery that needed official permission to bake matzo, and also Hanukkah, Purim and the Ninth of Av. Katz and Kerler ask many dialect questions on bird names (a dove, a small bird), the colour of the sky, words for ugly face, back, house, 'almost', Lithuanian Jews and converts to Christianity, the town as shtetl, and the word for life. Vaisman also recounts the case of a local Jewish man who converted. In the last part the daughter shows an album of Jewish childhood friends who spoke Yiddish and have mostly emigrated to Israel, America and Moscow. The talk turns to Yiddish and Jewish life in America and Israel, Vaisman's brother in Israel, and his father's relatives, who were killed during the war.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Yerikhman talks about his parents. His father was a trader or dealer who went to the front, and his mother stayed at home with the children. After his father died in 1958 he went to an old man's small prayer room, said Kaddish for eleven months, and recalls the old man's Jewish books and a possible Torah scroll. He remembers Sabbath food (soup, fish, cholent) and then answers a long series of questions about Yiddish: Russian words to translate, greetings, words for non-Jews, a Litvak neighbor's accent, and the names of card games such as blandzh. He also speaks Yiddish with Jewish colleagues at work. Later he recalls his mother's brothers and sisters, some of whom are in Israel, the hunger of the war and 1947, his father's return, and his part in a Yiddish film made in Sharhorod. He mentions the cemetery with two tsadikim and Romanian Jewish deportees who died of hunger and disease. Near the end he turns to relatives in America and Israel, relations with neighbors, and Jews leaving for Germany.
46:00
From the machine transcript
Kleiner remembers that, when she was about five or six, a single radio loudspeaker served the whole town; she cannot give the year.
7:56
From the machine transcript
Kleiner recalls two years in cheder and the Ukrainian school. He says he was pressed to join the Pioneers and refused. He describes the synagogue, beis medresh and kloyz of Yampil' and the cheder teacher, known by a nickname from his house. He mentions the synagogue building's later use and his own part in the prayers. Kerler also asks about dialect.
26:02
From the machine transcript
Asked about the Jewish population, the second voice gives a figure of fourteen thousand for Shepetivka. Few Jews survived or returned, in Shepetivka or Yampil'. Kleiner used to travel to Yampil', about seventy kilometres away, and talks about the river.
23:09
From the machine transcript
The team asks Krasner whether there was a ghetto in Shpykiv; she says she lives among Christians now and asks where the Jews are. Talk of Jewish houses and a plan to walk down the street. Someone asks about the poems of Perets Markish.
17:46
From the machine transcript
Krasner speaks about the local tzaddik Rebbe Shlomo (as the name appears), also known by other names, and his daughter Feygele. The daughter married beneath her status, the son of a shoemaker or tailor, and the couple emigrated to Romania in the early 1920s. A boy of the rebbe's household drowned bathing in the river. Kerler asks how old the rebbe was and whether her mother remembered him.
1:22
From the machine transcript
Footage from the van and the street in Shpykiv. Krasner points out the former ghetto and houses where Jews once lived, some now occupied by non-Jews, and says only a handful of Jews remain in town. Katz asks about this and about the number of people in Shpykiv. Kerler has a long exchange with her about how a mother counted guests, and she describes the former synagogue. The stretch is full of Russian chatter, banter about the camera and Americans, and speech that is hard to follow.
2:29
From the machine transcript
Shvartsburg talks about the remaining Jews of Skvyra who still speak Yiddish: a few very old people, among them a woman of eighty-eight who barely leaves her house. He also mentions a woman who survived the war with a non-Jewish family and no longer speaks Yiddish. Kerler and he discuss who the best Yiddish speaker in town would be.
9:06
From the machine transcript
Shvartsburg describes the grave of Itsik Twersky, the father of Rebbe Dudl Twersky, who lies there with two children, and how Hasidim found the neglected site. He is an engineer by training and built the site for the Hasidim. He also built a large synagogue in Skvyra with a hotel for 120 people and two mikvehs. A few Jews remain in the surrounding villages, among them three who were hidden as children and have forgotten Yiddish.
25:08
From the machine transcript
The tour continues with talk about fundraising, including a portrait and the Chabad rabbi's contribution, and about the burial place of Itsik Twersky. Shvartsburg recalls that a synagogue was built in 1860s (?) and that the Soviets later closed it. Kerler asks about the postwar period and who still prayed there.
32:09
From the machine transcript
On the drive to the grave of Rebbe Itsik Twersky, Kerler and Shvartsburg talk about the large hotel built for the Hasidic pilgrims, who come in large numbers on Yom Kippur, and about the town's river, which Kerler asks whether it is a river or a lake. Russian directions are given to the driver.
16:51
From the machine transcript
Formal introduction: after the date (5 May 2003) is given, she gives her name as Malka, in Russian Maria, Liberzon. She says her mother was a Tverski, her father a Liberzon, and his mother a Shapira, linked to Reb Moshe Shapira, the Slavuta rabbi. She tells of the Slavuta press, its fine paper and print, and the Russian bookbinder Yuri. The owners were accused when he died, flogged and exiled to Siberia, in 1835, and pardoned after Nicholas I died in 1855.
50:34
From the machine transcript
Liberzon returns to the Shapiro brothers: Reb Pinkhas Koretz, his son Moshe, and brothers Shmuel and Pinkhas, who quarreled over who should go first. Their descendants moved the printing house to Zhytomyr. She tells how relatives from London visited Slavuta to find their roots, and how her father made wooden fences for graves after the war. The wooden fences were burned in wartime for heating.
14:35
From the machine transcript
Liberzon talks about the hard years after the revolution and the war, when many rabbis died, including relatives, some of them with relatives in America. She says that after the synagogue in Shepetivka was closed, people travelled to Slavuta for the High Holidays.
25:14
From the machine transcript
Liberzon and the team discuss familiar interviewees and the writer-teacher Berlman, who lives in Germany and writes about Slavuta klezmers and food. S4 mentions an old man who prayed in the synagogue and his wife. They also talk about where Berlman publishes.
46:26
From the machine transcript
Liberzon recalls a Polish count whose estate and factories gave work to Jews and who helped the Jewish poor at Passover and the synagogue. A street in Slavuta bears his name. She says Poles and Gentiles who worked with Jews spoke Yiddish, and she mentions Jews working in the surrounding forests.
51:44
From the machine transcript
Liberzon recalls the old Sabbath before the revolution: the shamash warning against carrying, the fence round the town, and young people picking berries in the forest. A forest owner knew Yiddish and Hebrew. She says she was a representative for a holiday (?).
56:22
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about Yiddish words for a good place, a holy place and the cemetery, and Liberzon says she knows beis-oylem and beis-khaim. Talk about the Polish cemetery and church in Slavuta follows, with some Russian.
48:17
From the machine transcript
Last questionnaire items on pronunciation variants such as 'various'. The interviewers then say they are looking for a wooden synagogue, and the informant speaks about wooden buildings and a wooden shul. Her Yiddish is praised, and she says that English-speaking Jews would be different.
3:25
From the machine transcript
Vainshelboim recalls that the Soviets arrived in 1939 and he was taken into the army. He describes Ostroh before the war as an entirely Jewish town with many synagogues. The great synagogue still stands, and he tries to recall the Hebrew inscription in gold letters over its entrance, without success.
10:54
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about pride in the great synagogue of Ostroh; Vainshelboim speaks of an old cannonball that still hangs in the wall. They discuss how a circumcision was held, with prayers, the rabbi and the mohel. He says Ostroh had one yeshiva and at least fifteen small synagogues, including a butchers' prayer room inside the great synagogue.
22:48
From the machine transcript
Klein recalls her school: a Yiddish school that became Russian, with the same teachers. She mentions the Yiddish literature taught — Sholem Aleichem, Mendele and Peretz — and Yiddish theater visiting the town. She mentions that non-Jews spoke Yiddish, and that only Jewish children attended the Yiddish school. She notes that about 20,000 Jews were killed in the town.
27:01
From the machine transcript
Klein speaks about her family. Her father Shmuel, born in 1894, worked as a carpenter and furniture maker and later headed an artel. He was evacuated to Omsk as a specialist. She gives the names of her mother Rivke, grandmothers Mirl and Beyle, and her siblings, and describes their street, the synagogues and her grandmother's attendance at the Beys-Medresh. Kerler also asks about a Yiddish library before the war.
1:00:09
From the machine transcript
Klein and Kerler talk about the Yiddish plays shown in the town, performed by Moscow Yiddish theater. She names plays including 'Tkies-kaf' (?), and mentions that Goldfaden was born in Starokostyantyniv. They also discuss a street naming and a Soviet writer from the town.
1:40
From the machine transcript
Klein and Kerler speak briefly about the Jews who perished in the war: six million overall and, as people say, around twenty thousand from Starokostyantyniv. She mentions mass graves, some of which are still unknown today. Kerler then turns to ask about gefilte fish.
5:37
From the machine transcript
Bivson describes the good if not wealthy life of working people among many Jewish neighbors in Polonne. She recalls her father making prayer books and the Passover seder: opening the door for the Messiah, the festive food, and Passover dishes kept in the attic. She also describes Purim, with baking, gifts to the poor, singing, dancing and masks, all in Yiddish.
21:41
From the machine transcript
Bivson says she worked as a telephone operator for forty years. She describes postwar Jewish life in Starokostyantyniv, with a rabbi, a synagogue, a minyan and a shoykhet who came from Khmelnytskyi. She also answers Lemster's question about the Yiddish name of the town.
1:31
From the machine transcript
Bivson, born in Polonne, recalls a good childhood there: her father was a laborer and her mother worked. She attended a Yiddish school for five grades, later a Ukrainian school, and describes the Jewish life of the town. She mentions the poet Peretz Markish as a native of Polonne, the many shoemakers and tailors, and the synagogue, and says she fled on foot when the bombing began.
31:01
From the machine transcript
S2 asks Bivson about Jewish life in Starokostyantyniv after the war. She says there were several large synagogues and they still attended, and mentions a woman, Bella, and the lack of Jewish loneliness. Much of the passage is garbled or in Russian.
12:29
From the machine transcript
Klein names her grandfathers (Berl and David) and a grandmother (Mirl), most of whom she did not know. She describes her mother's family, with its educated sons. Kerler asks about prewar Starokostyantyniv, and she says Yiddish was spoken on the street and her mother also spoke Ukrainian. She begins to say where the family was evacuated and when they returned.
16:03
From the machine transcript
Klein says her family was evacuated to Central Asia for about three years, while her father was mobilized as a specialist to the Donbass. They returned in 1948, to a town with far fewer Jews. She says the town was known prewar and that few Jews remained afterward.
17:43
From the machine transcript
Klein says an old castle (zamok) and a church still stand in the town, and that as children they were not interested in such things. The talk turns to her mother and then to making gefilte fish.
25:49
From the machine transcript
Klein talks about Yiddish writers from the town. She names Avrom Ber Gotlober as born in Starokostyantyniv and mentions a grandson of Lenin's family named Blank (?) and another local man who died in exile. She says her books on them are unavailable and that Kerler knew some of these people.
28:41
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks about folk customs, including pouring wax, an egg for fright and prayers for the dead, which Tartinets mostly does not recall. She says the Jews in the village were poor and worked with horses and carts, and that after the war she returned at about fifteen and worked. She mentions a Jewish wedding that was beautiful, burial customs, the word for the Jewish prayer house versus the church, and an American visitor. The conversation also touches on Kerler's speaking a different kind of Yiddish.
46:10
From the machine transcript
The group drives toward the synagogue in Lviv. A guide mentions a synagogue wall, a street named after a historical figure and a poet, and a terrorist-turned-good man; the transcript is partly garbled.
48:25
From the machine transcript
The team enters the synagogue; a guide, speaking Yiddish and Ukrainian/Russian, arranges a phone call and refers to two professors from a Jewish university in America who are filming. He says that this is a new synagogue, built over several years from 1924 and opened in 1931, one of forty that worked in Lviv.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Yakuta describes the synagogues of Teplyk before the war, among them a small wooden one near her house and the Great Synagogue, which had two floors. She explains where the men and women sat, how the women could hear the cantor, and that small girls were not allowed near the bimah. She recalls women being allowed in on Simchat Torah, when there was dancing, singing and great joy. Kerler asks the questions that clarify the layout.
3:23
From the machine transcript
Marinina talks about the Russian converts or Sabbath-keepers, called Gern or Subbotniki, who lived near the kolkhoz. She names a family (the name is unclear) and recalls one who learned at a Jewish technical school. Some were registered as Jews in their documents, and she tells an anecdote of a man declaring himself a Jew in court. Kerler asks how they spoke Yiddish: the older generation with a Russian accent, the younger ones better, and some married Jews.
38:05
From the machine transcript
Gliazer says he studied in a Polish state school for seven classes. In the late 1920s, he says, he went to learn the printing trade in a printing shop in Podgaytse. He lists the work printed there: documents for merchants, posters and brochures for Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish organizations, and pamphlets for Catholic clergy. The shop also printed some Jewish material, including Hasidic leaflets. He remarks that the community had been rich and lively. Kerler adds a break and a question about reading.
44:28
From the machine transcript
Gliazer describes his reading as a young person: Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish books, and several libraries in the town, with more Polish than Jewish books. The Jewish library was run by young people from Zionist groups including Hashomer Hatzair and the Revisionists, who wore brown shirts and belts, and books were lent free. He recalls Sholem Aleichem and some secular and Ukrainian writers in Yiddish translation.
50:52
From the machine transcript
Gliazer names local writers, including Rosenthal and Poliak, who wrote in Yiddish about small-town Jewish life. Katz adds names of regional authors including Abraham Moyshe Fuchs of Ozerna. Gliazer says Bialik was well loved and his books and songs were known. He also recalls the Dybbuk, a book he owned, and gives its meaning as an evil spirit. Kerler asks what a 'good Jew' means, and the passage turns to the Hasidic rebbes his townspeople visited.
4:12
From the machine transcript
Gliazer describes Jewish amateur theater in the town, where a club staged plays in Yiddish and Polish in a hall or in the synagogue. Kerler asks about Purim, and Gliazer recalls it as a joyous holiday on which children got new clothes. Kerler recites a Purim begging rhyme, and Gliazer calls it typical of small Jewish towns.
30:51
From the machine transcript
Kaddish is recited at the memorial. Afterwards the guide and Kerler discuss a planned uprising in the Kremenets' ghetto, drawing on Samuel Schutzman's writing, and the manuscript held in Ternopil. She mentions eyewitnesses, and that Germans carried out the shootings openly, so local boys watched from trees. She recommends Stanisław Szeybel's (?) memoir in Polish held in the museum, and mentions a list with over 30 relatives of a named person (Paivol?). Katz asks about a rabbi and a shoykhet, and the area of the former ghetto is pointed out.
40:53
From the machine transcript
At Cross Mountain, the guide explains that several mass graves of victims of one shooting action lie there, and that the dead included Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and Russians from the intelligentsia. She speaks of a museum house, and of Hasidic and Israeli visitors who find the climate cold, even in summer, and cannot manage the slope in winter.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Gliazer lists the trades and professions in the prewar shtetl: porter, shoemaker, tailor, doctor, lawyer, engineer, and four or five Jewish doctors. Kerler asks about the water-carrier and his yoke, buckets and barrels, and about Polish-influenced words for the vessels. Gliazer does not remember the term for the water-carrier.
11:03
From the machine transcript
Gliazer describes the Subbotniki as a group who kept to themselves with their own traditions and lived in about three nearby villages. They were tolerant of Jews, believed in God and held that one should be good and help others.
16:33
From the machine transcript
Gliazer says he lived in Chortkiv and moved to Ternopil' in the 1960s. He estimates 150 to 200 Jews in Ternopil' and fewer in Chortkiv, and says the synagogue in his hometown stands empty and unharmed. He recalls the wooden synagogue in Chortkiv, torn down by non-Jews for building wood after the war.
44:13
From the machine transcript
Gliazer describes the town's fire brigade, which had a paid core and Jewish volunteers, and its orchestra. He mentions sport, mainly football, with a Jewish team whose name he forgets, and says he lacks a clear memory of the details.
36:32
From the machine transcript
Liza Petrunenko joins and gives her name and Yiddish name. The talk covers her parents and grandfather, and the family's work in the kolkhoz. Reznik and Petrunenko recall prayer in private houses, the many prayer houses of the town, and Sabbath and Passover customs. Reznik names her siblings and recalls childhood games. They discuss non-Jews who spoke Yiddish before the war and today, and Reznik shows the old mezuzahs on doors and windows and her old house.
3:24
From the machine transcript
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).
0:00
From the machine transcript
Questionnaire session with Tkach. She is asked for Yiddish equivalents of Russian and Ukrainian words and sentences: verbs, adjectives, synonyms for 'sick', words for honest and religious people, a convert, a midwife, family terms, house and household words, the dreidel, and sentences to translate. She says she has not spoken Yiddish for some fifty years. Katz and Kerler then ask about earlier songs, pious Jews and a poor 'tsadik' in Kleyn Chernevits (Mala Chernivtsi?), tsadikim's graves, the abandoned houses there and Yiddish writers she has read.
16:12
From the machine transcript
Formal interview with Sapozhnik, who says she is a native of Tomashpol' and speaks Yiddish with her brother in Israel. She talks about her parents Nusn and Rukhl and the kolkhoz, her siblings, the old synagogue and how women prayed, her father's siddur and her poor childhood. She recalls the war, with her brothers drafted and the killings and ghettos under Germans and Romanians. She also mentions the town's remaining Yiddish speakers, and answers Kerler's questions on Yiddish words and on fish, melay and Passover food. Katz adds a general question about the best years.
51:19
From the machine transcript
Interview with Dora Guzman, who is welcomed into her flat. Katz states the date as 28 June 2005 and asks about her earliest memories. She was born in Tomashpol', attended the Yiddish school up to the fourth class and then Ukrainian school in Pishchanka, where she stayed with her mother's brother. She names her father Benyamin/Bentsion Abramovich, who worked in the clothing trade, was pious and prayed in one of the three synagogues, and her mother Sara, from the Odessa region. Katz also asks about Yiddish songs, the rabbi, Passover seder, Purim pastries, Hanukkah, the Sabbath and fish dishes.
8:41
From the machine transcript
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.
0:00
From the machine transcript
The questionnaire with the woman continues. Kerler and Lemster elicit Yiddish equivalents for Russian words: near and later, very, sick and sleepy, honest or religious, cross and Christian, peasant. They also ask for words for relatives, village and street terms, potatoes, shop, half and a liter, and sentences to translate. Along the way she talks about her father making wine, and she recalls a Jewish wedding in the 1950s with a chuppah and baked goods. She also says that no Jews remain on her street.
36:11
From the machine transcript
Miaskovskij is interviewed after a move to another room. He gives his name and his father's name, and gives dates of death for both parents and for a sister. He tells an anecdote about a Soviet delegation and a KGB minder who understood no Yiddish. He says he finished ten classes in Tomashpol' in 1941 and then served at the front, with orders and medals. His father was a factory worker and his mother a seamstress; the family was once rich but lost everything after the revolution. He names childhood friends and other townspeople. He mentions that he wrote a poem and sets it to music, sings Tum balalaika and other Yiddish songs, and says his father's books are still in the attic. He studied at the Moscow institute and says he cannot read Yiddish.
9:09
From the machine transcript
Kerler and Lemster talk with Vasili Mukha (b. 1933) about his Yiddish. He spoke it with Jewish friends as a child, has forgotten much of it, and is asked for songs and sayings. He says his father's brother was a Jewish shoemaker. In the war Jews slept in his family's house, with the transcript suggesting they were hidden. He is asked whether there were beautiful Jewish girls, about life after the war, the town's Jewish trades and streets, and his own work.
0:00
From the machine transcript
After opening chat among those present, Shusterman gives her father Toyva's name and says he was born in Tomashpol' in 1901 and died in 1995 aged 94. He worked in several jobs, including at a bank, and wrote well in Yiddish and Russian. She describes him as an honest and pious man who prayed daily and led the Passover seder. After the war he acted as a kind of rebbe, saying kaddish for the dead, and the militia broke up prayer gatherings. She says she cannot tell about Jewish life before the war and then talks about his singing and her own love of music. She talks about her own accounting career, leaving work at 53 to care for her blind father, and then knitting and selling at the market. She also covers her own illness and depression. The few Jews left in Tomashpol' (eight) gather for holidays and yortsaytn, and she explains why she will not emigrate and a relative in Germany. She says antisemitism was present earlier, and she describes her wartime evacuation to Mordovia and the postwar housing and compensation. She also talks about her husband, a non-Jew, and a lost love from Odesa. The passage ends with Kerler's thanks, a promise to send Yiddish songs, and fragmentary talk.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Futiran gives his Yiddish name and age, and says he was born in Tomashpol' and comes from a long line of local people. He names his father, a coachman (balegole), and his mother, an orphan from Tomashpol', and says there were six children. Two brothers were killed at the front in 1944, and other brothers are named. Futiran says he later learned the hatmaker's trade from Jewish masters, and he worked for decades as a hatmaker. He mentions two marriages, the second to a non-Jewish woman, and two sons in Moscow and Israel. He recalls a poor childhood, four years in a Yiddish school before a Ukrainian one opened, and a Jewish library. He also recalls Yiddish songs, klezmer music, Jewish weddings with a huppah, and visiting Yiddish artists. He speaks of hunger in 1933, evacuation and work during the war, and eight synagogues in the town. Kerler and Lemster ask about coachmen's stories and songs, and the father's song is mentioned. The passage ends in his workshop with a Singer sewing machine and hats the visitors try on.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Shusterman talks with the interviewers before leading them to another informant. She discusses relatives and neighbours who speak Yiddish, and her poor health and dizziness. She also describes high prices, pensions, a bank loan for building work, and money sent from America. She mentions a relative in Israel who has had several operations. The interviewers ask how many Jews remain in Tomashpol', and the answer is seven.
33:53
From the machine transcript
Mukha recalls his Jewish friends and neighbours in Tomashpil' as all Jewish, names a few of them (garbled in the transcript), and mentions the games they played as children and a song. Kerler asks which friends he remembers and how they played. At the end Mukha points out where his house is, and the talk turns to livelihood.
35:51
From the machine transcript
Mukha speaks about his life today and before the war. He is on his own, and says his family have died, and that he misses his friends, who have scattered to Vinnytsia, Odesa, Kyiv, Israel, America, Zaporizhzhia and Moldova. He recalls that there was a Jewish school and a Jewish prayer house in Tomashpil' before the war, that Jews made a living there, and that older Jews prayed, though the transcript is unclear. He remembers the war as a hard time, with Jews sleeping in his house, and Kerler asks about a telephone to reach him.
45:05
From the machine transcript
Shveibish in Tul'chyn describes the present-day Jewish community: about 172 Jews, including children, many of them elderly, living on small pensions, with some 35 helped by Hesed and the Joint through patronage. She tells of old people and a man aged 91, and of lost state support and closed factories. She describes organising a bus trip and meeting at Pechera with former prisoners from Kyiv and a school group, with television and radio present, and how she raised money and food for it. She also speaks about relatives of acquaintances who emigrated to Israel or America, about antisemitism, distributing matzo, and says some thirty Pechera survivors remain.
4:56
From the machine transcript
Shveibish gives her birth year and says she spent her life in Tul'chyn, apart from the Pechera camp. After the war she studied in Vinnytsya, became a nurse and worked for over fifty years, and is now on a pension. She gives her parents' names and says her father worked in a sheet-metal (?) shop and her mother was a housewife with three children. Her grandfather David was a carpenter and the other grandfather a trader, and she describes Tul'chyn as a town of tailors, shoemakers and other artisans with many thousands of Jews before the war.
9:24
From the machine transcript
Shveibish says that visitors come to Tul'chyn from America, Germany, Israel and Australia, drawn to the graves of relatives. She mentions a visiting Swiss delegation (and a man from Switzerland who comes twice a year), whom she took to Pechera, and says few people remain who can lead the prayers at the cemetery. She speaks about a visit to Germany, saying she could not bear to hear the language and would travel only to Israel. Kerler asks about Zionism, and she answers that prewar Tul'chyn was a Jewish town of many specialists, a cheerful and good place, and begins on earlier persecution.
26:53
From the machine transcript
In her office Shveibish shows the visitors an old damaged Torah scroll and a gravestone, and talks about the synagogue taken down before the war. The talk then turns to the old market inn, and a Jewish innkeeper named Rubin is mentioned (name uncertain). The speech is partly garbled and little is clear.
0:00
From the machine transcript
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.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Presler gives her parents' and grandparents' families: both parents were born in Tul'chyn, and her mother had six sisters and two brothers. Her maternal grandfather was a glazier, and her father's family were musicians who played in a klezmer band for weddings, Purim and holidays. She describes growing up in the Kapsynivka quarter by the little river with crowded houses, and the family gatherings there with food, dancing and Yiddish songs. She recalls the 1933 famine, in which a relative died, and the dollars her sisters sent from America. She describes prewar hunger and poverty, and discusses her sisters' wartime and postwar lives, one of them marrying a non-Jewish officer. She answers Kerler's questions about plural forms, Yiddish words and dance names, and recalls Purim and weddings. She also talks about her grandson's singing and her prewar religious life, a synagogue building taken over, and her father's prayer. The passage ends with photographs of Pechera camp survivors, including one from 1990, the year her husband died.
19:24
From the machine transcript
Kogan speaks about the Yiddish school in Bershad', which still stands with three floors. He mentions a Soviet official named Kogan, a distant relative, and an episode of Jews being tried. Kerler asks the year.
43:56
From the machine transcript
Kogan recalls Bershad' as a Jewish town with Yiddish songs in the Yiddish school, and that Bukovinian and Bessarabian Jews were brought in. Rumors of killings in Zhabokrych had reached them. His mother hid him in a chimney. At fourteen he was taken to forced labor by Romanian gendarmes and marched on foot to Pishchanka, hungry and with sore feet. There he worked in the camp kitchen. A Bershad' man named Abrashe planned an escape with him through the woods.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Shveibush, with a second man adding comments, talks about the village of Horyshkivka and its Jewish kolkhoz named after Stalin, where his mother was a team leader with six children. Kerler asks about Jewish holidays kept quietly in secret, about food such as gefilte fish, and about his father's amateur theatre. Much of the talk concerns the village as Sholem Aleichem's Kasrilevke, the Yiddish stage production of 'Tsigele', pigs on the kolkhoz, Simchat Torah customs and kerosene lighting; the passage ends with thanks and goodbyes.
12:40
From the machine transcript
Vainer-Shpak gives personal information (born in Vinnytsya in 1921; the address of her prewar home) and names her family: her father Froyke, a Bratslav Hasid, her mother Dobtse from Pryluky, brothers, sisters and grandparents. She tells of her Jewish model school in Vinnytsya, her studies as a dental specialist and the assignment to a sugar factory village in 1940, then her journey toward Odessa on foot at the start of the war and her return, hiding and survival in Vinnytsya, with her husband. She also talks about her parents' religious life, Sabbath, Purim and Hanukkah food and customs, the synagogues of Vinnytsya, and a story about Haman and Esther.
1:20
From the machine transcript
The group talks in the car with the guide, who is directing the driver through Tul'chyn. Kerler asks whether the young people present know any Yiddish. The guide, speaking Russian, points out old Jewish houses to photograph and tells the driver where to stop.
17:58
From the machine transcript
A woman, probably Shveibish, explains that Tul'chyn is marking its 400th anniversary this year and that materials on Jewish Tul'chyn will be collected for an exhibition. Lemster thanks her.
4:02
From the machine transcript
Shveibish speaks about visitors, including a group from Petersburg who talked with her husband, and about restoring the Jewish cemetery with help from Uman. She describes the sites near Pechera and the memorial there, and the difficulty of visiting them in rain. She also discusses people who left, an American landsman, and the local name for Bila Tserkva.
9:37
From the machine transcript
Shveibish talks about the synagogue gabbai and about the Tul'chyn community's relations with Zhytomyr and with Vinnytsia. She discusses what the larger communities send, such as help at Purim and Passover, and the money collected for the Tul'chyn community. Lemster then asks who the Yiddish speakers in the area are, and she begins to name some.
13:11
From the machine transcript
Shveibish gives biographical details about local Yiddish speakers, including a woman who was in the camp at Bratslav and then at Pechera and lost her family there. Kerler asks about researchers who wrote about Pechera and about the Petersburg group's Yiddish programme. She notes how few Jews remain compared with the thousands before.
0:59
From the machine transcript
The interview with Shveibish begins. After exchanges about the gift of vitamins and the cold winter, Kerler asks what is happening in the community. She replies that the community is shrinking and that people are dying, and mentions deaths of local Jews, including a man named Mishe Shvartsman (?) who had been in Pechera.
MDV 728Lev Shayevich Kolodenker; Aleksandr Shayevich Kolodenker; Pesia Kolodenker and 1 moreTul'chyn, 2009
42:22
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks Pesia about her illness in the camp. Lev then speaks of working at fifteen in the Tul'chyn factory, of factories closing, prices and cooperative housing in the Soviet period, and of leisure with music. He says Tul'chyn had fifteen thousand Jews before the war.
MDV 729Lev Shayevich Kolodenker; Aleksandr Shayevich Kolodenker; Pesia Kolodenker and 1 moreTul'chyn, 2009
5:42
From the machine transcript
Pesia Kolodenker describes the famine of 1933 in Tul'chyn: her grandmother's work and how a non-Jewish woman brought grain and a cow to the family. She mentions wealthy people, including non-Jews, who were deported. Kerler and the others then discuss what made someone wealthy and whether Tul'chyn had Jewish millionaires.
36:59
From the machine transcript
Pesia and Lev tell how the large synagogue, built in a dispute with Count Potocki, was later used to store grain; they recount an accident with a brick and a bird. Kerler says he does not fully follow the story of the building and asks for clarification.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Yurkovetskij answers questions about his life, mostly in a loosely ordered conversation. He says he trained as a driver in Bratslav in 1937 and drove for decades. During the war he drove in Poland and Finland and served in Odessa; he was wounded in the leg, sent home, and later spent a year in the Pechera camp. He drove a general through Budapest, Prague, Vienna and Berlin, and describes the hunger in Budapest and a general's profiteering. He describes the 1919 pogrom in Tul'chyn, in which his father (a hatmaker), mother and grandfather were killed by a bandit band, and how his grandmother raised him and his brothers in poverty, with a Polish priest involved in his rescue. A brother died in the war, and his sons now live in America. He also names the Jewish streets of Tul'chyn and gives the Jewish population as over ten thousand. He talks about Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin, his school, an old synagogue, Poland and Finland in 1939–40, being wounded in Odessa when the war began, the ghetto in Bershad', and the visitors' own homes.
0:59
From the machine transcript
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.
14:26
From the machine transcript
Gvinter is asked to repeat a sentence in Yiddish about how Jews lived on the streets before the war, and speaks of Jews living close together. She tells of reading books by Sholem Aleichem and Mendele and of giving her books away when she left for Israel. She also says the ghetto was very large and lists places from which Jews were brought, including Chernivtsi, Mohyliv and Sharhorod, and recalls Jews being bound in chains.
25:06
From the machine transcript
Concluding the Bershad' visit, with wishes of health exchanged. Local people talk about the Jewish community, the Soviet and Jewish schools, and the writer Brodovsky (?), who lived in the town for some years and had no luck there. Part of the passage is town footage with voices in Russian.
32:55
From the machine transcript
Kerler takes down contact details and names: Matvei Vladimirovich and Efim Isaakovich. Both were born in Uman' and moved with their parents to the town of Buki, fifty kilometres away. Matvei was born in 1928 and Efim a little earlier. He says many Jews were killed in the area and the family fled to a smaller town; in 1940 he was at a military school in Odessa.
9:50
From the machine transcript
Motl and Efim talk about the first hydroelectric station, built near Buki on the river Hirskyi Tikych and shown at an exhibition in Moscow. It was later merged into a chain and closed. Kerler stops to ask for the Yiddish name of the river. Kerler then turns to cheder.
14:30
From the machine transcript
Efim recalls the famine of the early 1930s, when people ate frogs from the river and many died, though he does not remember Jews of Buki dying. He lists the town's Jewish trades, such as tailors, hatmakers, shoemakers, tinsmiths and wheelwrights, and explains the terms for those who make wheels and wagon parts. He also tells his father's story of straw roofs being burnt so that tin could be sold.
19:14
From the machine transcript
Rubin talks about the many klezmer families in Buki and nearby towns, who played at weddings. He recalls a wedding entertainer who spoke in rhymes and the klezmer slang for words such as water, bread, money and meat. Kerler then asks about Purim plays, and the speakers recall visiting Yiddish theater troupes from Kharkiv, Kyiv and Moscow, and a play seen in childhood.
4:17
From the machine transcript
Inside the community center, the guide and Kerler discuss who still speaks good old-style Yiddish in Uman'. The best speakers have left or died, including a man of about eighty-five and another near a hundred who died half a year ago. The remaining Yiddish-speaking Jews are mostly Romanian Jews, and Kerler asks whether people came from elsewhere.
6:15
From the machine transcript
Conversation in the community office about Teplitskaia and other possible interviewees. A woman called Manya Faynkold (?) is described in Russian as the one person in town who still speaks Yiddish perfectly; she went through the ghetto. They also discuss pilgrims coming to Rebbe Nachman's grave, the lack of a year-round rabbi, and Uman' before the war, when about 32,000 Jews lived there and about 25,000 were killed by the Germans.
6:15
From the machine transcript
The team and guide set out on foot toward Teplitskaia, who is already waiting for them. On the way they talk about a woman said to be the last good Yiddish speaker in the city, about Bratslav pilgrims and the lack of a resident rabbi. In Russian they speak of the old Jewish places, and a speaker gives the prewar Jewish population of Uman' as about 32,000, of whom 25,000 were killed.
58:10
From the machine transcript
Answers questions from Kerler and another person about whether Ternovka's Jews knew of Nahman's grave before the war, and she says they did not. Her father did not know of it or go there, and he worked all day. She says there were few Jews in Ternovka and that her father died after 1977 (?). She says people began going after the war.
26:00
From the machine transcript
Kerler and S3 discuss a saying of Reb Nahman, then the origin of the name Uman', with a story about a woman named Manya who drank tea. Kerler says the team is going to Bershad. Asked about Buki, Rubin recalls that houses were roofed with straw, and that a man was paid to set fire to the roofs at night so that people had to buy tin from merchants.
40:12
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks Waldman to tell about her earliest childhood memories from before the war and about Jewish life in Uman'.
40:28
From the machine transcript
Waldman says she loves her town, which before the war had about fifty thousand people and was divided into three districts. She describes the largest, Rakovka, where many Jewish families with many children lived, among them the writer Polyanker (the spelling is not clear in the transcript). She says many people, including her grandmother's children, died of the Spanish flu, and mentions factories and craftsmen.
44:59
From the machine transcript
Waldman talks about the start of the war, when her mother left and her father stayed. He was called up and taken for work or service in the first days of the war. She also describes Uman' before the war, with Jews living in the center and non-Jews in the outer districts.
MDV 741Nukhim Moiseevich (Moshkovich) Gvinter; unidentified informant (Bershad'); Efim VigodnerUman', Bershad', 2008
22:34
From the machine transcript
Town footage as the van drives around Bershad'. Kerler asks the guide whether there is a legend explaining why the Bershad' synagogue was never closed, and a passenger comments on the lack of Jews in the district leadership. They stop by a house said to have been where the Gvinters and Oystrakhs lived.
53:49
From the machine transcript
Halpert answers Kerler's question about religious life in Soviet times: a small study house continued in Mukacheve for Jews not tied to state work, whereas before the war the town had seven. He notes that the war reached the area only in 1944, by which time the Jews had been deported or killed, that there was no rabbi, and that Jewish life began to revive under Gorbachev.
59:37
From the machine transcript
Halpert and the interviewer discuss the words for war (milkhome, shlakht, krig) and Jews in Munkatsh who spoke a Germanized Yiddish (daytshmerish). Asked what was known in 1941–44 about Jews in Ukraine and Poland, he says very little because of censorship. Under the Hungarians Jews could mostly still live Jewishly, with prayer houses and communities, despite some laws and Jews working as lawyers, doctors and factory owners.
11:53
From the machine transcript
Kerler returns to prewar Mukacheve and Halpert recalls his cheder in the courtyard of a study house on a street whose name is given, with the melamed Reb Mendl, and how he stopped at bar mitzvah to work. He recalls the Shapira rebbe, whose leavings he went to eat, and the grandson who later bought the old court and held a bar mitzvah there.
16:28
From the machine transcript
Halpert describes Jewish life under Czechoslovak rule: full rights, religious instruction in the Czech school, and Jewish books in Czech. He talks about Sabbath preparations at the slaughterhouse and mikveh in the Jewish street, with shochets working on Thursday and Friday. He says Jews and neighbors lived well and that antisemitism came only with the Hungarians, among a few young fascists.
20:39
From the machine transcript
Halpert explains the forms of his name in different settings (home, cheder, Czech and Hungarian school, Russian, the synagogue), and gives his birth year and his parents' names: his father Shiye ran a shop, his mother Perl was from the Kalush family. He recalls Hasidic life and rebbes in Mukacheve, the visit of the Spinka rebbe, and the wedding of the Shapira rebbe's daughter to Rabinovich, with a week of celebration and cheder children greeting the rebbe with flags.
34:22
From the machine transcript
Halpert describes the Czech school, where Jewish children spoke Yiddish among themselves and Czech with the teachers, who were not antisemitic. He talks about his reading in Yiddish, Czech, Hebrew and Hungarian, including Sholem Aleichem, Mendele and Wells, and a satirical Yiddish book on Jewish life by his uncle Shloyme Moshkovich of Mukacheve, whose family went to Haifa. Jewish bookshops in the Jewish street sold Yiddish and Hebrew books.
54:28
From the machine transcript
Halpert explains the difference between a besmedresh, which was Hasidic, and a shul, which was more modern, and answers Kerler's questions about prewar movements in Mukacheve: Zionist organizations, Mizrachi, the Jewish gymnasium, Hashomer Hatzair, Betar and others, and the absence of the Bund. The passage ends with drinks and a chat about Tokay wine and Jewish communities today.
0:00
From the machine transcript
At the former Great Synagogue, now a concert hall, Naybauer and a guide (Russian-speaking) describe its architecture, including the women's gallery, the pseudo-Moorish style and the hall's acoustics. The hall was built in 1904 (per the Russian). Katz and Kerler ask about the layout of the men's synagogue, the ark and the bimah. Naybauer says he prayed here for some years after the war until it was closed. He regrets that no plaque marks it; one was put up and taken down after a few days, and the guide dates this to 1989. The guide recalls American rabbis offering to buy and dismantle the building, and talks about musicians who played there. Kerler thanks the staff and the group moves on.
11:35
From the machine transcript
The tour continues past a former Jewish theater and along the former Jewish street, where Naybauer points out Jewish shops, the rabbi's house and a bridge destroyed in the war. He says his father was a very pious man and that his parents and siblings died in Auschwitz. He describes the Sabbath afternoon promenade, going to cheder until thirteen, and the former mikveh and shoykhet's house. He recalls that Jews hid their belongings in a former synagogue before the ghetto and tells how a policeman or soldier threatened his uncle. He also mentions his grandmother's death in 1935 and the word the Jews used for non-Jews. The garbled stretches make the details uncertain.
29:26
From the machine transcript
The group meets two local men on the street; one is a former yeshiva student. They talk in Yiddish about Hungarian versus Yiddish at home and the yeshiva. Naybauer then talks about his working life: he learned tailoring with his uncle, later made suits for the intelligentsia including professors from Moscow and Budapest, and worked forty-five years. He also talks about his late wife, his children and grandchildren, a kidney operation by Professor Polansky (?) in Kyiv, and the economic hardship of pensions and rent today. He says he was in a concentration camp at the age of twenty. He ends by pointing out the site of a former Jewish mill.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Naybauer first tells of a rich neighbor's family and a priest who was sentenced after the war. Asked by Kerler about Purim before the war, he describes Purim customs: drinking, a Purim play put on like a theater, and children going from house to house reciting the play in the morning and bringing shalakhmones in the afternoon. The play was staged in a widow's house and the children were taught by their cheder teachers. He tells a joke about a matchmaker and a rich man. He recalls the roles of Haman and Esther. He also answers questions about Purim in Uzhhorod.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Naybauer answers dialectological questionnaire items from Kerler and Katz. They cover number and plural forms (counting family members, 'wagon(s)'), words for attic, beam, bridge and floor, names such as Nisn, and expressions such as 'wealthy man' and 'various things'. Near the end he talks about helping visitors find graves in the Uzhhorod cemetery, a book of graves kept by a Reizman, and the age of the oldest gravestones. Kerler then thanks him and closes the interview.
40:39
From the machine transcript
Zinger describes returning in 1946 to find that his parents and the rest of his family had been taken to Auschwitz and no one was left. He moved to Uzhhorod, into the house of his sister Khaye, which he inherited. His family had five members: his parents, his sister Khaye and his brother Leyb. His sister's husband and child also perished, and he alone came back. He calls Velykyi Bereznyi a fine little town.
5:26
From the machine transcript
Mixed, poorly recorded material at and around the Berdychiv cemetery: talk in Yiddish and Russian, a man saying he was born in Berdychiv, and a long prayer-like text delivered by Kerler. Others discuss a building damaged some years earlier, antisemitism in Ukraine, and Jews emigrating. A name and dates on a gravestone are discussed, and someone photographs. Much of the speech is garbled and the attributions are uncertain.
7:03
From the machine transcript
Grigorii says he began studying at age seven in the building of the former large synagogue, which had been turned into a Yiddish school. Kerler checks that it was a Yiddish Soviet school.
8:38
From the machine transcript
Grigorii describes the wooden synagogue: a women's gallery upstairs, seats paid for and assigned along the walls, the central reading platform, the Torah ark and the decoration. He recalls his father taking him on holidays, and the Torah being carried and kissed. He says it was closed in 1935 or 1936 (?), and the Yiddish school building was later wrecked under the Romanian occupation.
19:40
From the machine transcript
Poberevskii gives her birth date in July 1914 and says that Yiddish birthday greetings were brought to her by acquaintances. She finished the Jewish school in 1930 at sixteen and then worked as a typist in the court and procuracy. Her father, known as the Stanislavchyk rabbi, preached in Zhmerynka. She names an uncle Elye who was a ritual slaughterer in Moldova and later worked in a kolkhoz. She remembers Stanislavchyk as a Jewish shtetl with Jewish craftsmen and a market, where Christians worked the fields and her mother made ovens. Her father travelled to Proskurov and came back with accounts of a terrible pogrom there. She says there was no pogrom in their own town and relations with neighbours were good. The family left because her father wanted to go to Romania and sold the house cheaply, but they ended up buying a small house in Zhmerynka.
36:07
From the machine transcript
Poberevskii describes Sabbath before the war. Her mother lit the candles and went to synagogue, and on holidays and fasts as well. She says there were four or five synagogues in town, including the butchers' synagogue, the main synagogue and the beys-medresh, where women prayed upstairs. Her father died in 1937 and had given sermons in the beys-medresh. Kerler then says he will ask a few words.
39:14
From the machine transcript
Chirkova says her father prayed in the beth midrash in Krasne and that craftsmen such as shoemakers and tailors had their own synagogues. She puts the number of synagogues at two or three, and cannot recall the name of her father's.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Chirkova speaks about teaching in a dance class for children for about six months, and Kerler asks whether her parents took her to synagogue in Krasne. She mentions separate prayer groups of the shoemakers and tailors and answers questions about Hasidim in the town. She then moves to her postwar working life, studies and a long, partly unclear story about an illness and treatment.
36:19
From the machine transcript
Asked by Kerler about earliest memories, Furer recalls being sent to cheder at six or seven. When classmates mocked him at the Yiddish school, he ran from the melamed. He also describes the Yiddish school and the town's synagogues, one of which later became a theater.
22:13
From the machine transcript
Barshteyn describes the great synagogue of Sharhorod and her mother's story that a wall was found in the earth when it was built. She recounts how the Soviets took it over for a factory, and how, during the Romanian occupation, deported Jews were forced into the synagogue and beit midrash and many froze to death in the winter; the bodies were thrown into a pit. She also mentions a German unit's short stay and a German who worked in the mill.
34:04
From the machine transcript
Barshteyn describes the synagogue for Levites in Sharhorod: the shames lived on the ground floor, a cantor and a kohen were present, and the women prayed in a separate room, hearing through a window, with women's prayer readers. She says the synagogues were closed by the state after the war, in the 1950s, and that praying and Yiddish were forbidden.
36:39
From the machine transcript
Barshteyn says non-Jews took over the Jewish houses. Lemster asks about stories, and she says her father told Yiddish stories, including an anecdote about a joker and a stern rebbe. She recalls the town cantor and describes weddings with klezmorim brought from Moldova and Bessarabia, the chuppah held at the synagogue, and the women's gallery upstairs. Better cantors were hired from Zhytomyr and Moldova.
41:24
From the machine transcript
Russian talk among the group and locals, with Katz commenting. A local man speaks English, saying he has led the Jewish community since 1994 and that very old Jews are gone, buried in the cemetery or emigrated to Israel, Germany and Australia. Kerler then asks whether Jews kept dogs. Barshteyn says she had a dog and a cat, in a house lower down near the river.
45:55
From the machine transcript
Lemster and Kerler ask what 'Litvak' meant in Sharhorod. Barshteyn says it was not pejorative, only a person from Lithuania or Latvia. She does not recall special Jewish games, and says Romanian Jews who came during the war sang many Yiddish songs, while older local Jews no longer understood Yiddish. Interviewers and locals then discuss a Christian who still speaks Yiddish, the Bible museum and the keys, and a robbery at the synagogue. Items mentioned as stolen include a gramophone, Jewish books, candlesticks and samovars; furniture and books remained. Much of this is in Russian.
4:39
From the machine transcript
Barshteyn tells how the synagogue was built from an ancient wall found in the ground, many years or even thousands of years ago, according to her telling. She describes the large building, visiting cantors, and its size (some hundreds of worshippers). She says that during the occupation only Bukovinian Jews prayed there. She recalls the beautiful beis medresh, which was crowded with Romanian Jewish refugees, and says many died of disease. Kerler and Katz press her on dates; the passage ends with Russian talk about going to a café.
0:00
From the machine transcript
At the Sharhorod Jewish cemetery, Barshteyn explains that a man is paid to look after the graves. She points out her father's grave and says he was a kolkhoz bookkeeper. She wants the team to photograph a notable sculpted monument and talks about other tombstones.
2:51
From the machine transcript
Barshteyn reads inscriptions on graves of local people and of a cousin of hers, and comments on the rich families buried there. She and Kerler then identify the building where the dead were prepared for burial and discuss how it was used.
17:17
From the machine transcript
Barshteyn says she forgot many songs and that Bessarabian songs were very sad. She then tells how Jewish refugees from Bessarabia and Moldova came to Sharhorod, carrying little. Many froze in the severe frost, and she saw with her own eyes how the frozen bodies were carted away to a common pit. She begins to speak of the Germans' arrival.
28:07
From the machine transcript
Barshteyn says the Romanian Jews went home after the war and names several towns they came from. She returns to describing how many of them froze to death and were taken to a mass grave. Kerler asks whether 'Romanian Jews' meant Bessarabian Jews.
18:40
From the machine transcript
Sobol answers questions about the river and the bathhouse, and recalls the big synagogue on Stavyshche (?) Street that her parents attended. She says that today there is no minyan and the Kaddish is paid for or read in Russian letters. Asked whether Christians spoke Yiddish, she says yes. She says her husband knew Yiddish, Romanian, German and some Hebrew but no Russian when they married. She also tells how her husband had lost his parents and how they lived in her father's house with her stepmother.
31:16
From the machine transcript
Sobol says that Yiddish theatre troupes used to visit before the war. Her husband told stories about the good Jew of Shishkivtsi (?), whom people travelled to, and about Jewish soldiers asking for Passover leave. She explains the word for a shepherd, and speaks about postal telegrams from relatives in America. Kerler asks about the Kozenits camp; she describes work under the Romanians, the rich buying their way out, and Ukrainians helping Jews with food.
12:15
From the machine transcript
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.
17:00
From the machine transcript
Fishman recalls two prewar visits to Medzhibozh, the second at age eight in 1939, and four visits in the last ten years. He mentions the large synagogue built by American Jews by the grave of the Baal Shem Tov, where only two Jews remain. He remembers a river near his grandfather's house and the geese and feathers, and retells a story his mother told about Hershele Ostropolyer as a poor guest who pours soup on his fine coat.
22:13
From the machine transcript
Fishman discusses where his Yiddish comes from, mainly from Yampil, and then his career moves. He was sent to Yampil after the institute in 1953, was transferred to head a bank office in a district centre where Jews had been shot, probably Tyvriv, and moved to Vinnytsya in 1959. He describes Jewish life in Vinnytsya, with one synagogue on Krasovsky street that was crowded on holidays, and says that before the war there were many synagogues.
39:29
From the machine transcript
Tsodikovich says he lived in the Kopayhorod ghetto as a child, apparently at a station about five kilometres from the town. At home the family spoke Yiddish with his mother and grandparents. He recalls that his grandparents were strongly observant and that the town had two or three synagogues. He remembers Passover, Purim and Hanukkah gelt, a hard year in 1946, and that his family left in the 1950s. He also remembers good relations with non-Jewish neighbours.
45:00
From the machine transcript
Tsodikovich recalls Kopayhorod, whose population was about half Jewish, half non-Jewish. He says there was no antisemitism, and that non-Jews helped during the ghetto. He names Jewish neighbours, a water seller called Avrom Rud(?), the rabbi and the shoykhet Leyb. He says a mohel was brought from Sharhorod or Zhmerynka, and matzo came from Mohyliv(?). He describes festival dishes, and mentions Yankl, the shoykhet in Vinnytsya. He also gives dates: studies in Zhytomyr, army service on Sakhalin and Kamchatka from 1958 to 1961, and a wedding in Kopayhorod around 1961, without a khupe but in the club, with Jewish klezmer in heavy snow.
59:44
From the machine transcript
Asked about songs in Kopayhorod, Tsodikovich cannot recall any Yiddish songs, nor wedding songs or customs. He says the town was half Jewish, half Christian, with good relations, and that only one Jewish woman remains there now.
1:02:20
From the machine transcript
Asked by Lemster to tell more about Jewish life in the shtetl, Tsodikovich says only that it was hard after the war.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Tsodikovich answers Lemster's questions about Kopayhorod food customs, such as stuffed geese and cracklings, and says some things were not done in his family. He remembers his grandparents as very religious, with his grandfather praying morning and evening. They then discuss the town's tailors, barbers and shoemakers. Tsodikovich and Lemster try to recall local musicians and singers, a father and sons who played accordion and guitar, and Yiddish periodicals read in town.
6:58
From the machine transcript
Lemster asks about expressions and terms: the evil eye, a dybbuk, a golem, an apostate, and the word for a cemetery. Tsodikovich often does not know them. He then says a few things about Vinnytsya after the war: Yiddish theater troupes visiting, and a small synagogue on one street where many Jews stood outside on holidays. He also answers a question about the phrase 'a good Jew'.
24:04
From the machine transcript
Tsodikovich recalls a tailor's son in Kopayhorod who played the accordion. He says Yiddish songs were not sung in public, only among friends at night. They discuss the town's Jews after the war, and Yarmolyntsi, where few Jews remained. He mentions a woman from Kopayhorod now in Germany and a barber who cut his hair as a child. Kerler asks about non-Jews who spoke Yiddish: a classmate, a neighbor named Misha, and a teacher of Ukrainian who speaks it very well. They also discuss a Jewish school director, Weinstein, and the Chabad or Skverer rabbi, then Vinnytsya today, antisemitism and politics. Part of this is in Russian.
49:57
From the machine transcript
Lemster and Kerler introduce themselves and explain that they collect Yiddish language and folklore, including variant song texts. Khazin recalls an earlier research group that asked about surnames, and they discuss surnames such as Kerler, Zukerman, Lemster and Feikin. He tells of his work in supply organizations and sings 'Vyo, vyo, ferdelekh', mentioning a woman in Germany who knows more. He speaks of his mother, born in 1903 (?), youngest in her Nemyriv family, who attended the girls' gymnasium free through the princess and trained as a pharmacist. Her older siblings, including brother Naum, a Communist, are mentioned.
1:15
From the machine transcript
Interviewers talk on the street with a local woman, mostly in Ukrainian and Russian. She tells what she heard from her mother and grandmother, Pelageya Vasilyevna Demianchuk: Jews hid in the reeds and in a cellar during the war, a baby was born in hiding, and a later letter from the son seeking the family went astray. Kerler and Lemster then ask about addresses, houses and former Jewish residents: a Farber family that left for Germany, a shop, a former synagogue, the Grinman brothers, one now in Israel, and a hairdresser family. The passage ends with the group leaving for Yatskova's house.
21:11
From the machine transcript
Yatskova says she does not remember Murafa, as she was small, but that Kopayhorod was a good shtetl with many Jews who lived on friendly terms. She says she is the only one left and did not want to leave. Her son is a military colonel in Baranovichi, Belarus, but she cannot visit his fifth-floor flat because of her health. The passage ends as Kerler turns to the 1930s before the war.
39:40
From the machine transcript
Yatskova tries to recall the Israeli city where her brother Hershl (Tsvi) Kremer lives, perhaps Netanya (?), and when he left, and says he has not written for a long time. Lemster tells her about a 103-year-old woman he met in Vinnytsia. Yatskova mentions Arkadii Isaakovich, a local man who speaks good Yiddish. She describes the Jewish cemetery, where people from Bar and Vinnytsia were also brought for burial.
14:21
From the machine transcript
Kerler interviews Goikhman, who gives his name and birth in Pervomaysk on 1 January 1927. He tells of the 1933 hunger, his father's move to Birobidzhan, Russian schooling, factory work and mobilisation to Blagoveshchensk, and his mother's death in 1947. He came to Zhmerynka in October 1947 to his father's brother. He then recalls Pervomaysk as a large town with many Jews, synagogues drawing visiting cantors, and Yiddish-speaking Jewish and non-Jewish friends. He also recalls Sabbath, his mother's gefilte fish with sugar and pepper, Hanukkah gifts, latkes and Purim foods, and the Zhmerynka shul on Sovetskaya Street, later a children's library.
0:00
From the machine transcript
The drive through L'viv with Dorfman, mostly in Russian with some Yiddish, consists of looking for street numbers, stopping at a lot where an old building stood and recalling its former residents. The speakers comment on the old Yiddish speech of the city and on a Polish-speaking Jewish man in his eighties who might be visited. The Russian parts also touch on what is built there and on the place of childhood games.
1:03
From the machine transcript
Lebvol recalls the family sukkah built in the corridor, with meals, singing and prayer, and her memories of Simchat Torah when only boys and men went to the synagogue and women and girls came to watch. She describes the Great Synagogue and the difference between rich and poor worshippers and the large and small synagogues, and mentions going to hear the shofar blown on the High Holidays. The kinds of flags carried by the children on Simchat Torah are also discussed.
5:58
From the machine transcript
Lebvol explains that Polish soldiers were brought into the Great Synagogue on a Polish holiday before the war because it was famous throughout Galicia. She then recalls Shavuot food, which was all made with cheese: cheese varenikes and flat pancakes (blintzes) filled with cheese. Kerler and Lebvol then chat about his family and his American connection.
14:29
From the machine transcript
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.
14:13
From the machine transcript
Geller describes the shtetl in the 1930s: artisans were gathered into cooperatives and many left for Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Odesa to find work. The Yiddish school closed, and he studied in a Ukrainian school. He also mentions his mother's ability to write Yiddish and his father's work in a sugar factory when the famine began.
34:42
From the machine transcript
Geller recalls going to the bathhouse with his grandfather on Friday before the Sabbath, the Uman bathhouse, and going afterward to the synagogue and making kiddush. He also mentions the women's mikveh. Kerler asks where the word for the bathhouse comes from and how people say "thank you".
19:43
From the machine transcript
Burshtein talks about his father's trade as a men's tailor and about Jewish life in Govrove, which was safe under Piłsudski and became worse after his death under Rydz-Śmigły. He recalls antisemitic boycotts, signs telling people not to buy from Jews, and a Polish baker's window caricature of a Jew in a prayer shawl.
21:52
From the machine transcript
Burshtein recalls people gathering at the school director's apartment to hear the radio and learning of Hitler's speeches and what was happening to Jews in Germany. Jews who had come from Germany told them of the situation and sang Yiddish songs in the streets. He listened to the songs as a small child who started kheyder at six.
24:47
From the machine transcript
Burshtein sings a Yiddish song about a poor refugee who has lost his luck and become a street singer. He says he knows many songs from Poland, including love songs. He then describes the prewar synagogues: the shoemakers and tailors each had their own prayer house, and there was one big synagogue where the kheyder boys would go.
0:00
From the machine transcript
Burshtein sings a song he composed about leaving his hometown Goworowo and the longing for it, then a song of hope. Kerler asks about Hebrew songs; Burshtein says there was no Hebrew singing in cheder and mentions Sabbath and liturgical chants. He then sings Yiddish songs from Polish childhood about a wedding, an orphan child, love, hope of going to the Land of Israel, and a prisoner's return, with remarks on how they were sung.
3:04
From the machine transcript
Geller narrates the journey with his father and brothers after leaving the Germans. They walk through burned villages and forest, meet Russian soldiers, and are taken to Zembrów (?), then Białystok. In Białystok they stay in a club and are hosted by local householders for Sabbath. They are then taken by truck to a commune near Babruisk, where his father works in a factory. He goes on to describe German-Jewish refugees in the 1930s whose songs he learned, and sings two of them. Kerler and Geller briefly discuss Yiddish and German speech, the ban in Russia on criticising Germany, and a Moscow Yiddish newspaper.
7:12
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks Antsis to describe the town of Lyubar. She names trades such as shoemakers, cobblers, tailors and smiths, and the Yiddish and Ukrainian words for them. She also talks about two wealthy men, one named Katz, who left when the war began, and about the local doctor Refild (?). She remembers the cinema in town and a film about going to Birobidzhan, and the conversation turns to the Yiddish words involved.
29:21
From the machine transcript
Antsis continues with childhood memories of Lyubar: boards laid across puddles, and in summer villagers singing at night in the surrounding villages. She describes Lyubar as a poor little town and begins to be asked about what kind of Jews lived there.
30:50
From the machine transcript
Antsis recalls refugees who came to Lyubar, in 1939 (?), and lived with her family, her mother giving them a room. Life was hard, and she speaks of the war as a blow to the whole Jewish world. She switches briefly into Russian and wants to continue in Yiddish.
36:51
From the machine transcript
Asked whether there was electricity, Antsis recalls the great joy when it was first installed. She retells her mother's story of the local man who understood electricity and wired the town, and whom people paid with eggs and butter to repair it. She mentions he was Jewish and an early Komsomol member, with a name that sounds like Shirovski (?).
13:00
From the machine transcript
Conversation in Berdychiv about the Jewish community today, apparently with the rabbi: about five hundred Jews remain out of a city of some ninety thousand, where Jews were once the great majority. Other topics are the hotel and its water supply, a song attributed to Avraham Fried, old synagogue items, a visitor's family from Slovakia and Skver, and plans for travelling on.
13:00
From the machine transcript
Same stretch as the preceding passage: talk in and around the Berdychiv synagogue about its old furnishings and how much of it is old. Also about the small Jewish population today, an American visitor's papers and visa, and the schedule for travel to Zhytomyr. The transcript does not clearly show a guided tour.
4:59
From the machine transcript
Camera and walking footage of Berdychiv streets. The guide points out the synagogue, a children's polyclinic, and an old journalists' building, and the group finds a gate closed and rings to be let in. They then reach a newly built yeshiva complex, where a mikveh is being built. Its funding is attributed to a rich man living in America, named something like Mendelevich (unclear). Much of the speech is garbled.
8:57
From the machine transcript
The team enters the Berdychiv yeshiva building and sees the prayer room, a Torah scroll and the dining hall. They briefly speak with students, who say they study mostly in Russian with Russian translation and that Yiddish plays only a small role. Kerler remarks on the former building being bought and taken away, and on the 'great miracles' of Jewish children studying there again.
17:06
From the machine transcript
Skobilitskii shows the house on Kachenivka street where he lived and his younger brothers were born. It belonged to a rich man whose family name sounds like Krupnik (?), and tenants paid him rent. He remembers sledding in winter, and describes the large synagogue that stood nearby, with a mikveh and bath fed by the river. He mentions friends from Berdychiv now in Haifa and Netanya, the mostly Jewish surroundings, and walking to synagogue on Shabbat.
22:55
From the machine transcript
Introductions and conversation with Chane Gitl and Zhenia Koyfman. Koyfman was born in Chernyakhiv, a shtetl about 30 km from Zhytomyr; her father was from Zhytomyr and her parents were bookkeepers. She says her parents told of a large synagogue that later became a theater and cinema. She recalls holiday gatherings in homes, matzo baked secretly behind closed doors, a Yiddish school in Chernyakhiv, and her family, in which two of six siblings survived (?).
31:27
From the machine transcript
Koyfman talks about Yiddish and Jewish life in Chernyakhiv. Few children there spoke Yiddish, there were no Yiddish or Hebrew books, and her parents did not teach her. She remembers a park where old Jews spoke Yiddish, and says only about twenty elderly Jews live there now.
50:14
From the machine transcript
Brief remarks about the word for 'ladder', then Geller (probably) gives the history of his hometown's names. It was first Kotozov or Kutuzov, was later named Volodarsk-Volynskyi after a Jewish Bolshevik killed soon after the revolution, and stood next to the former Jewish shtetl Pulin.
53:19
From the machine transcript
Mostly Russian conversation outside, about the state of Jewish cemeteries, documentation of cemeteries and mass-shooting sites, and a church being built on a cemetery. It also covers a speaker's name (Sergey, Baruch in Hebrew), a hotel, and farewells in Yiddish. The Yiddish lines are largely garbled.
3:59
From the machine transcript
Shraibman gives the names of his parents and of both grandfathers; the two grandfathers were brothers and his parents cousins. One grandfather starved to death in the war. He also mentions his archive research, including the story of a girl in the records. He says history is his hobby and that he served 26 years in the army.
10:25
From the machine transcript
Shraibman describes his grandfather the tailor, who served the villages around the town with a sewing machine. Old non-Jews still remember him and speak Yiddish in the town. He says that few Jews are left, whereas before the war the town was about eighty percent Jewish, and he recalls his grandmothers.
45:27
From the machine transcript
Shraibman mentions his granddaughter in Haifa and a cousin from America whom he had not seen for 26 years. Kerler asks him to show the town on the map. Shraibman recalls his grandfather's Purim custom of visiting the poor first and then the rich, and shalekhmones are mentioned. He says he likes having guests but has no kosher kitchen.
41:09
From the machine transcript
Burshtein sings Hebrew liturgical pieces from the Rosh Hodesh service, one of them with the text of Psalm 136. He then answers Kerler's question about the Jews in Gorove, saying it was a Jewish town with one big synagogue and a number of small ones.
51:38
From the machine transcript
Burshtein repeats the rabbi's pre-war call to take the Jews out of exile and the rabbi's walking round the beit midrash with the Torah scroll. Kerler asks if the synagogue was wooden. Burshtein describes it as having a Star of David on the roof and a larger interior, with a shammes in it. They then discuss the meaning of a dybbuk.
24:35
From the machine transcript
Groisburg recalls pogroms in the 1920s, when Jewish families from Zhytomyr fled to Berdychiv and several families stayed in her home. She mentions a local leader whose name is unclear and says that many young people from Berdychiv emigrated to Palestine and America.
26:13
From the machine transcript
She describes Zionist, Communist, Social-Democratic and Bund parties in Berdychiv and recalls an educated young man. The educated Jews spoke Russian, not Yiddish. There was also a Zionist school teaching in Hebrew.
28:26
From the machine transcript
Groisburg remembers the choral synagogue in Berdychiv, with a cantor and choir, and says she went there with her father two or three times. She names the Staromestnaya street synagogue and answers Kerler's questions about the building and its location. She then mentions that she buried her mother elsewhere.
54:32
From the machine transcript
Asked about Hasidim in Berdychiv, she says there were many and describes a rebbe living on Staromestnaya street opposite her family's lodging. The family lodged with someone named Nuz (?). She recalls a Hasidic demonstration and says the rebbe, who had a court and sons who studied, was a good man.
8:41
From the machine transcript
Geller and Lemster compare how the town's name is said in Yiddish and in Ukrainian, and he places Pyatka about twenty kilometres from Berdychiv. He describes returning from flight to the plundered house, where nothing was left and the family was destitute. Lemster then steers toward Jewish life and the synagogue.
16:54
From the machine transcript
Geller describes how, after the hunger, the beit midrash was turned into a carpentry workshop. A lame man, Itsik der Krimer, a veteran of the Japanese war, carried wood home at night, and a fire destroyed the building. Answering Lemster, he describes the Jewish fire brigade of the Pipchek (?) family, with its horses and pump, and says Jews and non-Jews helped each other and fought fires together.
19:17
From the machine transcript
Geller says the town's other inhabitants were Ukrainians with a few Polish families, and that no Jews remain. He describes a visit to Pyatka around 2005 with his daughter and grandchild, to his father's grave. The Jewish cemetery's gravestones had been gathered in one place and he could not find his father's. He also recounts the town's early history and a Jew from Berdychiv who began the settlement.
30:37
From the machine transcript
Burshtein sings Yiddish songs he composed himself, about his childhood home, about the town of Goworowo and the war, about hope, and about his mother. Kerler asks him about songs, including a coachman's song, and when and how he composed them. He says he composed the last song years ago, remembers lyrics from 1939, and has not written all of them down. A woman at the Jewish Agency office in Zhytomyr has transcribed twenty-two songs.
44:03
From the machine transcript
Burshtein talks about prewar Goworowo and its destruction. There was one large synagogue, where cobblers and tailors also had prayer rooms; the town had a police commandant, and bandits burned the synagogue and killed people. He mentions a letter from a man in Vilnius, and Kerler asks about Polish school. He then recites a Polish children's poem on washing in the morning.
37:38
From the machine transcript
Burshtein sings songs of the German Jewish refugees, about poor wandering refugees and a lonely street singer. He then performs two songs of his own about his home town Gorovo, one of them written in 1939 and expressing longing for home. He says he composed them himself.
4:39
From the machine transcript
Sandler says he does not remember how many Jews lived in Starokostyantyniv. He discusses speaking Yiddish in the streets and the term for people who say "tate, mame". He recalls going to cheder, where the rebbe hit the boys, and then attending a Yiddish school for four grades until it was closed and replaced by a Russian one, probably in 1934 (?). His parents were displeased because they wanted him to speak Yiddish. He says non-Jews in town spoke only a little Yiddish and mimicked it.
0:52
From the machine transcript
S3 sings his own song about his hometown Goworowo (Govrove). It recalls childhood, the war, the graves of the fallen martyrs and renewed life. In Russian he explains that he composed it, and Kerler confirms it is his own shtetl. Lemster then starts asking about Jewish weddings, mentioning a custom of serving the groom and the in-laws.
34:49
From the machine transcript
Geller talks about a yeshiva and a survivor of the thirteen students who studied there in 1938. This man, a rabbi's son, visited Pyatka a few years ago (2004 heard) and found only one Jewish house still standing. Kerler thanks him and they discuss the rabbi's address and directions, with a street named Dovzhenko mentioned.
48:21
From the machine transcript
Nibulskiy talks about poverty in prewar Pulen, with no factories and many poor people living on credit. A man bought furs and roosters in the German colonies to resell. His grandfather collected from the rich to bring Sabbath food to families like Nokhem the shoemaker's. He then tells a story of Shmilik, a bonder from Lithuania, who consulted the Baal Shem Tov (Reb Yisroel) and found gold in his oven, which led to a furniture workshop. Kerler asks about word meanings and the man's name.
55:31
From the machine transcript
Nibulskiy explains the origin of the surname Nibulskiy through a landowner called Bulski and the 1861 reform. He names his grandfather Avrom Alter and his father Yankl. He then lists nicknames used in Pulen, such as Rivinke Brilen, Shlapak, Khezkl Lasutre, Sobalyev the dark one and Khayim Ash the cleaner. Kerler finishes by asking about Avrom Malke.
39:32
From the machine transcript
The speaker tells of an underground yeshiva in Berdychiv and an archive of photographs of its students that was found after the war. He then recalls going to Pyotke with the rabbi's son to see his father's tombstone; he says many tombstones were removed and reused for building.
41:19
From the machine transcript
Kerler asks the speaker to travel to Pyotke with the team the next day, but he says he cannot manage the road. They compare the distance to Berdychiv. The others discuss a book that says Berdychiv, along with Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safed, is a place whose mention brings good fortune (a segulah), and Kerler asks for an email with its name.
5:29
From the machine transcript
Kerler states the date, 4 January 2009, and the place, Zhytomyr, and introduces Nibulskiy, who gives his name as Itsik, son of Yankl. His wife Yide is a little older than he is, and they give their birth years. Nibulskiy begins to describe prewar Pulen, with more than three hundred Jewish families, many of them hungry and poor.
7:09
From the machine transcript
Nibulskiy describes the poverty of prewar Pulen: no bread, no firewood and no pensions. Some craftsmen earned a little, and small traders bought food from German villagers and resold it in town. People had nicknames. Shopkeepers kept credit books in which customers' debts were chalked up, and Kerler asks how the system worked. He also mentions the three prayer houses, those of the shoemakers, the tailors and the merchants.
12:48
From the machine transcript
Nibulskiy describes the pedlars' trays carried round at Hanukkah and how his father said Hanukkah was always muddy. He then explains the street without paving, with ditches and boards laid over them for walking.
1:51
From the machine transcript
Nibulskaia recalls the arrival of electricity in Korosten, first only on the street and not yet in houses in the 1920s. She recites a school song about electricity. She then begins to talk about the Yiddish school and its good first-grade teacher, who played the violin while the children danced.
0:53
From the machine transcript
The team settles into Shraibman's apartment. Shraibman explains that his hometown is now called Volodars'k-Volyns'kyy and why. Kerler introduces the team members by origin (Russia, Israel, America, Poland). Shraibman muses that Jews did not all come from Egypt but from Russia and Germany.
34:02
From the machine transcript
Shraibman recalls four prayer houses in the prewar town, organized by trade and class (shoemakers, tailors, a poor people's and a wealthy people's one), all closed in 1937. At age seven he had to enter the Ukrainian school because the Yiddish one was closed. Old Jews prayed in private rooms, and after the war a minyan was hard to find. Kerler asks about the beis-medresh and about the custom of throwing burrs at older people on Tishe b'Av, and they compare the names for the burrs.
14:50
From the machine transcript
Asked about prewar Zhytomyr, Bluvshtein says little: his father went to the synagogue, and Jews kept the Sabbath. He and Kerler discuss how his parents made dairy ice cream in a mould and sold it from a stand near the post office.
19:31
From the machine transcript
Discussion of who spoke Yiddish in Oltkonstantin before and after the war. It was a Jewish town, and the speaker says even non-Jews spoke Yiddish, which Kerler questions, mentioning a non-Jewish woman he once interviewed. Kerler then asks about the best time of Sandler's life.
47:22
From the machine transcript
Nibulskiy sings a begging song about a poor man's hard life. He says it came from a blind old Jew who sat begging in Korosten, and he is asked to write the lyrics out. After a short exchange with Kerler about a word for abandoning one's family, Ida recites a poem about the coming of electricity. Nibulskiy adds a Russian verse about poles and wires, and recalls the first radio, the first silent films and the first power station in the shtetl. He also mentions a brother who was killed at the front.