Passover

Smajovics describes meeting two elderly Yiddish speakers in America and talks about visiting his sister in Queens and his daughter in Miami, including Passover there. Kerler also talks about his own life in America and Israel, and a short exchange about the recording and papers follows. The beginning is partly garbled.

Kerler asks what languages were heard among the Jews in the camps. Herbst says most of his fellow prisoners were Hungarian speakers and that the Germans forbade Yiddish. After a short remark on the Haggadah, Herbst offers to sing table songs (zemirot) next time. Kerler asks for a Hasidic tune or a Yiddish song. Herbst starts a song about a butcher at the end.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Furman talks about prewar synagogues in Bălți and holiday food: Passover honey cake, Hanukkah latkes, Purim pastries and Shavuot dairy. Lemster asks about Purim plays and a travelling Yiddish theater company from Chișinău. He says the sukkah was built in the hallway of the house, and he also answers about Tisha b'Av and gefilte fish.

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

Katerberg gives recipes for kamish bread and esikfleysh, the Jewish meat dish in sweet and sour sauce. She also describes filled goose neck and giblets, stuffed fish, kishke and potato latkes made for Passover. Kerler and Lemster ask which dishes were Jewish and what they were called.

Asked about holidays before the war, Shmid recalls a cantor coming for Rosh Hashanah and a rented house used for prayer, as the village had few Jews. She describes Sabbath challah and fish her mother cooked, and the Yom Kippur fast and the meal that broke it. She adds brief memories of Sukkot with a sukkah of straw, Hanukkah money and dreidel, Purim, Passover matzo and Shavuot cheese pastries.

Shmid describes traditional weddings with the chuppah, honey cake and brandy, a meal and dancing. At Katz's request she gives recipes for gefilte fish and Passover latkes made with matzo meal, and describes how a cimes is cooked. Katz then starts asking about charms against the evil eye.

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.

Tkach says she studied composition at the conservatory in Chișinău, did graduate study in Moscow, and returned to Chișinău. She recalls Lozova, where the family lived in a small house with a front porch and hemp grew nearby. She speaks of her grandmother, her grandfather's death and Passover, when she was taught the four questions.

Lipovetskiy lists the Jewish holidays and answers questions on food customs, such as dairy dishes on Shavuot and cheese pastries and blintzes, and on the Purim headgear, gifts and shalakhmones.

Kishlyansky first speaks briefly about the outbreak of war: robbery, killings and beatings, then being driven in a column toward Ukraine. At Katz's request he returns to prewar life: Passover and burning the leaven, a cheder, a talmud torah, and the melamed Shaye. He lists the town's prayer houses, including the tailors' synagogue and the shoemakers' synagogue.

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.

Diner sings a few lines of a song about Itsik's wedding. Asked what she wants remembered about her shtetl, she describes the people of Fălești as fine, with many doctors and engineers, and tells of a young man who fell in love with a Jewish girl whose uncle liked a drink. She answers questions about drinking at Purim and Passover, wine, and non-Jews who understood Yiddish. She names a Russian doctor, Putsyata (?), who treated poor patients without payment.

Mitlaeva retells stories about Hershl Ostropoler that she heard from her mother. In one he buys a chicken and his wife cooks it, and a friend is frightened away. In another he stays in a rich house promising to show a diamond, and a third has him claim his wife has died before Passover. Kerler asks about the details.

Mitlaeva says her mother made gefilte fish for Sabbath and holidays. She speaks about the Jewish klezmer musicians she knew, including a neighbour. She then describes how her mother salted meat and washed it, and recalls going to the shochet. She also talks about her mother blessing the Sabbath candles, and recalls her mother's matzo dishes.

Muchnik describes how two Jewish soldiers from the barracks sat at the family seder, and how the household managed without a maid. She tells about their Moldovan non-Jewish helper Moshe Alekseyi, who carried water and did Sabbath tasks, and an anecdote about the wine of the plagues. She also tells of his belief that he was Alexander of Macedon. Lemster asks whether non-Jews spoke Yiddish, and she says she did not know any who did.

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

Manevich says her father read Yiddish when he had time, but her mother was unlettered in Yiddish and later learned to write Russian. Russian was the language used in the city. She names Jewish holidays she remembers (Passover, Hanukkah, Purim) and the Soviet holidays celebrated at home, such as the anniversary of the October Revolution, May Day and Constitution Day. Asked about a New Year tree, she is unsure. A discussion follows about Sholem Aleichem in Russian-letter versus Yiddish-letter editions.

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

Shmid says her family went to the city for the High Holidays and synagogue, while Passover was spent at home with matzo bought and a chicken slaughtered. She started school at seven. After four village classes she moved to her eldest sister Rakhel in Chișinău and continued studying there. Rakhel owned a bakery.

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

Akkerman describes Sabbath at home: her mother's baking, cholent put into the oven, and her mother's generosity. She recalls Passover matzo and kugel, but not Hanukkah customs. She remembers the Purim baked goods (hamantaschen) and says there was a Purim play, though she cannot recall who performed it, and answers Lemster's question about theatre visiting Edineț without remembering details.

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

Grinshpun remembers her father praying and singing and making the seder. She recalls her mother's tkhines, and the shroud he left for burial. She says she has lived in Peresecina since 1962, where her son was born. She tells of a relative returning from Argentina and her mother-in-law's family.

Sharhorodskij answers Kerler's and Lemster's questions on how holidays were kept at home. He mentions Passover, Shavuot and fasting on Yom Kippur, and describes his mother's baking for Purim and the dishes she cooked. He does not remember the recipe for the fish dish.

Sharhorodskij speaks of his sister Frume, who finished school in 1941, studied law after the war, worked as a notary, married in 1958 and died of tuberculosis. Her daughter lives in Israel with her family. Kerler asks about the neighbor Shepsl who served the Germans. Sharhorodskij also describes his parents' observance: his mother's Friday candles, his father's prayer shawl worn in the kitchen after the war, and the seder.

Kotliar says Jewish weddings in her time were mainly Soviet-style, without a huppah. She recalls a Sukkot sukkah at home and her mother's food, especially stuffed fish, stuffed fowl, and holiday dishes. Lemster and Kerler ask about stuffed fish, stuffed poultry necks and intestines, and the names of dishes. She mentions her mother's baking, borscht and other dishes.

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

Boiarskaia describes how her mother prepared cholent: the oven heated on Friday, the dishes sealed in, and the noodle kugel everyone waited for. Lemster asks about Passover dishes such as kezl, malakekh or pletselekh from potatoes, stuffed derma and goose fat, and she names some terms from Bessarabia. She goes on to the braided challah, her mother's chopped fish with matzo meal and onion, and horseradish, beet borscht and its uses on Passover and Shavuot.

Plotnik says she worked as a telephone operator for forty-five years and as chief operator, without any complaint against her. She talks about her grandmother, who stayed with a son in Lublin and came to visit, and about her prewar Jewish home. Her father led the Passover seder and sang well, though she does not remember the singing.

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

Kerler asks about prayers she learned from her mother, and she recalls Sabbath preparation, challah, Sabbath fish, and fasting. She mentions the Purim customs: sending gifts and making filled pastries (flodn), and children going from house to house. Kerler asks about Purim plays and how the pastry is made. She also mentions Passover baking.

Talks about her parents' house and her grandmother, who baked home bread and Sabbath challah and kept a small shop. She mentions Passover baking, her father as a good provider, and that the family sold their house. The transcript does not clearly show a move to Soroca before the war.

Milevskaya recalls her pious grandfather, who prayed constantly with a Torah or prayer book and a black velvet bag embroidered by her grandmother, now with her sister in Israel. She remembers her grandmother baking matzo a month before Passover and making potato latkes, and her mother's subscription to a Yiddish journal from Moscow. She also mentions school antisemitism and the former rabbi Fishl who celebrated all the holidays and has since left for Odesa.

Dunaevskij describes keeping the holidays at home, with his father conducting the Passover seder. He recalls cheder in Ştefăneşti followed by Feinstein's school. After the war he worked as a builder, then studied in Moscow and qualified at a technological institute, and was chief engineer at the factory in Bender until today.

Dunaevskij describes how holidays were kept at home before the war, including Passover with its seder, four cups of wine and children asking the questions, and dairy foods on Shavuot. He says he now prays in synagogue from a Russian-language prayer book. Asked about Purim in Ştefăneşti, he recalls Purim plays by the school, visiting, and his mother telling the story of Esther. Kerler asks about the reading of the megillah, and Dunaevskij speaks of a pious man who taught the children.

Luminskaia says her grandfather's sons in America sent him kosher wine and other items. He kept separate kosher dishes in the attic and ate from them when he visited, while her mother kept the household kosher for the visits. She also says the family ate matzo at Passover.

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

Asked about the holidays in Talmaz, Grinberg says her parents observed Passover and Jewish custom, keeping separate dishes. She mentions that the family had a cow. Prompted on Sabbath, she names the blessing of the candles and speaks of Hanukkah. Her account is halting and mixed with Russian.

Asked about childhood in Chişinău, Moisei recalls a courtyard with three synagogues, the street name Shmiter(?), and his father going to synagogue while he did not. He describes Passover under the Romanians, when a Jewish charity gave out matzo, potatoes, eggs and wine, and how dishes were koshered. He answers Kerler's question about Purim, mentioning baked goods and mishloyekh-manes.

Moisei compares matzo distribution then and now. Asked about Purim plays, he talks about a second Purim and the Purim story; Lemster asks about masked boys. He recalls Yiddish songs sung by workers in Chişinău, though he says he has forgotten them.

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

Elizaveta describes Jewish dishes she remembers, including fish, kneydlekh, stuffed items, a sweet dish with nuts, honey and lemon, and Passover dishes. She says she learned gefilte fish after her mother's death and talks about tsimes and beans. Lemster asks about the custom of throwing things at Jewish beards and about converts; she says she does not remember them.

David talks about his work for the Jewish community in Botoșani. He recalls an episode involving his sick mother and a kosher butcher, mentions that he was a professor and coach of basketball who travelled to other countries, and describes the Jewish bath and mikveh. He describes how, as community head, he arranged Passover and Yom Kippur meals, a children's club, and help with the municipality, and speaks of the small number of remaining, elderly Jews in Botoșani and other Romanian towns. Lemster asks why he gives himself so wholly to the Jews.

Finkel says there were three or four synagogues in Sulita and about three hundred Jewish families. She tells how her father led the Passover seder at home but remembers little of the customs. She did not go to weddings and says there was no Yiddish theatre in Sulita. Prewar Sabbath practice is touched on briefly.

Brief speaks about hearing Shvartskop a couple of times. He recalls children's customs in the synagogue at Passover (playing with nuts in holes) and a performer who sang and danced. Kerler and Lemster try to get him to recite the Four Questions from the beginning, and Brief mentions someone in New Jersey. He starts a riddle-like rhyme about a pot with holes.

Grunfeld describes his pious grandparents, the family Passover seder led by his grandfather, and how he learned much from his maternal grandfather. He then answers Lemster's questions about his schooling: three or four years in cheder in Zău, one year in the Talmud Torah in Cluj, and Romanian-language gymnasium in Bucharest. He names the melamed in Zău.

Hershkovich talks about prewar life, including non-Jews who knew Yiddish. They discuss using Hebrew words so that outsiders would not understand, and the term mame-loshn. He sings or recalls a Passover song and a song about the Messiah, and says he spoke little Hungarian until the labor service, where he spoke more of it. Kerler then asks Dr. Lemster to put some sentences to him.

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.

Grimberg answers Kerler's questions about holiday customs, saying she does not recall Hanukkah food but mentions latkes and other Passover dishes of matzo meal and potatoes. She describes her Purim baking today and her mother's custom, and recalls children with masks going from house to house singing greetings. She talks about the Tishah b'Av customs and about visiting graves, and she is asked about postwar Purim celebrations in the 1950s.

Kerler and Lemster thank Grimberg and close the interview. She shows a photograph of the Ştefăneşti rebbe and talks about a painted Passover matzo cover. She says she brought it from Israel, and the inscriptions are discussed. The camera also records parts of the apartment.

Lipovici tells of a shoykhet-rabbi with four daughters and two sons, and a story of miracles connected with the Ştefăneşti rebbe, including a wolf found in a pit. Kerler asks him about a Purim greeting and song and about wine at Passover and Purim. He then speaks about life today: community leaders, no pension, and smoking.

Isidor recalls the war years: crowded quarters, the dead carried out each morning in Mohyliv and Sharhorod, and his mother working in a canteen where staff could take nothing home. Asked about Yiddish, he says he learned it over time among Jewish children at school. He tells of a Passover when he and other boys drank water from a barrel, and of the rabbi's penalty for it. He then talks about kashrut, the need for a Jew to be present at milking, and his present household.

Hirsch and Kerler discuss gefilte fish and "false fish" (made when there was no fish), and whether the fish was sweet or salted. They discuss a Passover potato dish, sweet pastry and bundlekh, then the dishes for each weekday, including the weekly soup with meat on market day and Sabbath cholent. Many dish names are garbled.

Chajim tells of playing in the military band in the army and of Passover with German soldiers and Jews, and of being locked up for several nights. He answers questions about Christian terms and sayings, and about a custom, apparently against an evil spirit (?), of placing a stone in water at night. He seems to say he was born in 1906, but this is not clear.

Chajim says he used to sing while sewing. He recalls that his mother did not sew but cooked, including Passover food. He says he still gets matzo each year, sent by the Bucharest rabbi, and mentions his small pension. He recalls working during the war in several Bessarabian towns and a cemetery, and speaks of Jews from Edineț, whom he can still talk with.

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.

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.

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.

Shvartz talks about his schooling and Hebrew reading, and recalls his cheder teacher who kept a goat. Asked about Jewish life in Bîrlad, he says there were eight synagogues, named by trade, and a large temple, and describes holiday attendance. Several voices then discuss Passover foods and baking and synagogue matters, but the transcript is largely unclear.

Shvartz says Yiddish books were not read in Bîrlad, only prayer books, and he does not remember Sholem Aleichem being read there. He then discusses gefilte fish: his mother made it, sweetened with sugar, but he did not like it. He also mentions latkes made from potatoes or matzo meal, vareniki, and his father's drinking of brandy.

Freundlich continues on yeshiva life, saying he could not pay for a study partner and so asked others for help. He reflects that his youth consisted mainly of hardship. He recalls being taken out of study before Passover to help in a matzo factory, carrying matzo to the oven. He also mentions work around Sukkot and Purim.

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

Bercovici shows the team her German encyclopedia and a prayer book, and the conversation moves to Romanian. She talks about her friends, Jewish and Catholic, and the synagogue. She says her mother was observant and her father less so, and that Passover was kept at home. Travelling Yiddish theater came from Chernivtsi; she recalls a Purim for children and an Atlas grandmother who died in Mohyliv, and the Stern family from Siret and Poland.

Weinberger recalls the end of the war, when he met Soviet soldiers and a Jewish army doctor who spoke Yiddish and came from Ukraine. A Jewish officer also spoke Yiddish with him, gave him chocolate and explained the front situation. Kerler asks whether they held a Passover seder together, and Weinberger describes his return home and his relief.

Milchenko talks about Jewish holiday food that her mother made, such as strudel and potato dishes, and what she herself makes for Passover. Kerler and Lemster ask about foods and their Yiddish names, such as pancakes and tatshiklekh (?).

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

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

Epelman recalls a Yiddish song about hardship and then answers questions about words and expressions: thanks, forgiveness, a curse term, words for floor and festive greetings. He also covers Kerler's questions on food (potato latkes, kugel, matzo, filled fish, sweet foods) and holidays at his grandparents' home, including Hanukkah money and the four questions. He ends by describing the folk practice of 'speaking away' (curing) the evil eye, as done by his mother.

Borukaeva answers questions about the family and prewar religious life: her grandmother died in the ghetto, and she attended a Russian school, not a Yiddish one. She recalls her mother's cooking for Passover, the Purim pastry, her mother's Sabbath prayer and her father's synagogue attendance. She explains that her father and the father of Mulerman were brothers, and that his family lived in Kharkiv. She also mentions the one remaining Jewish woman in Pyshchanka and says she used to sing.

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

Kazakevich says she studied in a Ukrainian school with Jewish and non-Jewish children and was not taught Yiddish there. A Jewish school existed in Lityn but she did not attend it. In answer to Kerler she says her parents spoke Yiddish at home and kept Passover. Her father's death is asked about at the end.

Vaynman describes Jewish life in Bar after the war, when survivors returned and lived in the few remaining old Jewish houses, which Kerler asks about (white walls, benches outside). She says her mother observed the holidays, her stepfather less so, and that she herself still keeps Passover and eats no bread then. Kerler asks about her mother's songs and Yiddish songs known from childhood, and about stealing the afikoman at the seder.

Asked about life in Khmelnyk before the war, Zhovtis recalls it as good and speaks of low prices. He recalls antisemitic insults, the fear he felt under the Germans and keeping quiet about being Jewish. In reply to Kerler he describes the synagogue, Sabbath and weekday prayer among older men, and not having seen a rebbe. Kerler then asks about Passover, and he describes koshering utensils with a stone and hot water, and pancakes or dumplings made of matzo meal.

Shor says he spoke good Yiddish at home. Kerler asks a few questionnaire items, such as the Yiddish for the prophet Elijah and the drinking at the seder. Shor cannot recall them, and others in the room chip in.

Beyle Vaisman describes her father's daily prayer with tallis, his learning, and a university degree finished the year the war began. Isaak Vaisman says Passover was kept without bread, and Kerler asks whether a mezuzah was allowed. They say they lived in the same courtyard on a street whose name is garbled in the transcript (Makhnovka(?)), and that his mother often borrowed money from her family.

Fania describes how her mother observed Jewish holidays such as Passover and kept to tradition. Her father was jailed as a party man. She went to the synagogue with her mother, who said such observance would die out with the older generation, and contrasts this with the young today.

Skobilitskii answers questionnaire items on words for 'to make', street, washing and a ball. He explains words in loshn-koydesh that his parents used so the children would not understand, such as one for apples, for a watchman and for a non-Jewish woman. Kerler asks for the Yiddish for the cup of Elijah and for the afikoymen, and mentions a break.

Furman answers questions about holidays in the home before the war: Passover with matzo baking, the four questions asked by the father, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Asked about the morning prayer, he does not remember it.

Soyfer discusses religious life in Berdychiv. All synagogues were closed before the war; after the war the communists were asked and a synagogue reopened within a year, though children were not allowed to attend. He recalls charity before Passover, the closing of Yiddish schools, antisemitism in Kyiv, and being evacuated.

Soyfer speaks about his grandmother Rukhl, who spoke Yiddish, Ukrainian, Polish and German but no Russian. In her village, non-Jews could speak Yiddish and ate at Jewish tables, including at Passover, and he recalls a related story from his father. Lemster asks about her sayings and about Christians who spoke Yiddish.

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

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

Berzon says the family celebrated Purim, Shavuot, Passover and other holidays at home, and that she went to synagogue after her mother died. She gives her father's birth year and death in 1946 and speaks again about his trade as sieve-maker and his brothers' printing works in Poland.

She recalls prewar Passover at home, with the large table, the whole family gathering and the grandfather leading the seder. Asked about Purim, they say they remember nothing particular. They add that the family lived comfortably though not wealthily, and her father knew Jewish history.

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.

Snook says her son has two daughters who live in Israel. She recalls Passover baking and the fast of Tisha b'Av. She says she married in 1939, before the war. Lemster asks about the return home, and she says the house was found wrecked.

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.

After the interview with Leiderman ends, an informal conversation follows with local people. They discuss Hebrew prayer, the blessing over bread, candle blessings and the four questions of Passover. They say Passover was kept in Yiddish in many Bershad' families. Much of the speech is hard to follow.

Opens with a remark that the first seder in Bershad' after Soviet rule took place in 1991 (?). Kerler then runs through dialectological questionnaire items, asking how words and phrases are said in Yiddish. These include words for hunger and tiredness, forms of address and politeness, kinds of vessels, flour, colours, a deaf person, a healthy person, the verb 'to breathe', and 'from another town'. Answers come mainly from a second voice, with Russian words used as prompts.

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.

Gvinter describes his mother and grandmother attending synagogue, with the women sitting upstairs. He recalls Passover bread and Sabbath meat. He then tells of a Soviet-period episode in Bershad' involving a local official who visited and checked on the household after a letter to the authorities about his brother at the front. The details are hard to follow.

Kerler and Lemster ask about singing in the Bershad' ghetto and about a song, and Feldman recalls fragments of it. Other people in the room then ask what it means to be a Jew in Ukraine today. Feldman answers with her relations with a non-Jewish neighbor who brought her food when her arm was broken, and says that she herself eats matzo because she is Jewish.

Outside the house, Gvinter explains how he makes gefilte fish: fried onions, matzo meal or bread, eggs and pepper, cutlets, long cooking and horseradish for Passover. Lemster and another man ask about cooking times and compare their own recipe from Bershad'.

Feldman cannot remember postwar synagogue holidays and answers a greeting exchange that Kerler tests her on. She describes celebrating Passover at home, with chicken soup cooked for her children and grandchildren, with no formal seder. She talks about Hanukkah, including Hanukkah money and latkes made from potatoes. She also mentions a Christian neighbour's grandchild who does not speak Yiddish, and an interruption by a Russian phone call.

Teitel talks about a distant relative of her mother-in-law and about her own family, her husband's death and her grief, and holidays kept only while the older generation lived. She tells of antisemitism in Sarata and why the family did not speak Yiddish, and says her husband praised Soviet power and asked for a Russian burial. She talks about Israel and the Jewish wife's role, and about her own long work life. Near the end Kerler and Milevskaya discuss matzo, the unwillingness of older people to pass Yiddish on, and the postwar atmosphere.

Loyf describes Passover customs in Dzegovka: neighbors gathered to bake matzo, and a non-Jewish woman did tasks on Sabbath. She says her mother prepared Sabbath food, and she reconstructs her move to Boryslav in 1953 and marriage in 1956 (dates discussed back and forth). Her husband came from Podkova (?).

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

Khavin recounts the postwar prayer house in Chernihiv, bought by returnees from the army and evacuation with money collected around the town. After a story about the closing of the synagogue under Khrushchev in 1956, when the police threw out the prayer books and the matzah machine, he says the churches were closed soon afterwards. Private minyanim followed, until the last Torah reader died in 1989.

Lifshitz recalls Passover as a child: his mother cooked and matzah was eaten. Jews saw to it that each family had matzah. He mentions his siblings, some of whom died, and that the family was poor. He says both parents were Jewish.

Khavin describes the Passover seder in his parents' home before the war: the search for hametz, the foods, the seder plate, and his father's song. He also mentions Purim gifts carried to relatives, Shavuot as a favorite holiday, and the Sabbath songs at home. Kerler asks whether songs were sung for Purim and Hanukkah.

Burg reads aloud his own short Yiddish story "Eykho", about a train journey on which the narrator meets a Warsaw ghetto survivor who fought as a partisan. The reading turns to memories of the Warsaw ghetto uprising on the first day of Passover.

Geinik describes the good life under Romanian rule and the seven classes she attended at a Romanian school. She recalls speaking Yiddish with friends, playing with dolls, her grandparents, her Yiddish name Henye-Sure, and her mother's Sabbath baking and fish. She talks about holidays at home, including Sukkot, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, Passover and Shavuot, and the dishes made.

Shternberg describes the Romanian school, where the Yiddish teacher took pupils to his home for extra lessons. She recalls her grandmother, family singing at Simchat Torah and her father's Rosh Chodesh and Sabbath songs. She also talks about recording cassettes with a composer at the Hesed. She sings Passover songs, a Purim play song and a melamed-in-America song.

Shternberg describes preparing the kitchen and baking for Passover, and is asked about Passover songs. She recalls the visiting cantor and singer Fushman and the songs he sang, including one about paper children and a comic song about marriage. She also sings a wedding-related song and answers Lemster's question about the phrase 'Moshe, kum arayn'. Kerler explains the archive's purpose.

Lemster asks about prewar holidays such as Passover and Purim in Yanoshpol. Shames says all Jewish holidays were observed and the synagogue was in use, but she gives few details, and says she cannot sing. Kerler asks whether the town's name has changed and whether there was a cheder, and she is unsure.

Shames remembers only buying matzo at Passover; she recalls no other holidays. She says her mother died long ago and she is alone. She mentions an aunt in America and a cousin who went to Israel.

Gammer answers questions about prewar Sabbath and holiday food. She mentions challah, fish, noodle kugel, cholent and vinegar meat, and discusses terms for chopped fish and a jellied dish. She recalls Hanukkah latkes and children singing a Simchat Torah rhyme, which she repeats for Lemster to record. There are brief answers on Purim and a Passover memory of her grandfather, the dishes and the four questions, with goose fat for Passover. She says her mother died two weeks before the war, so she has no memories of her blessing the candles.

Gammer talks about Passover matzo: how it was baked before Passover, the smell of matzo in the street, and how today's matzo compares with it. She recalls the coarse "shmire" matzo her grandfather's generation ate, and Kerler and Lemster ask about matzo from Israel and steamed matzo. Kerler explains the "poor bread" of the Exodus. The talk then turns to Shavuot dishes made with kasha and cheese, with Kerler asking about the term for them, then to Tisha b'Av and Yom Kippur customs.

Kerler asks about her earliest memories. She says she studied at a Ukrainian school and that Jews spoke Yiddish among themselves. She recalls Passover being kept as Jews did at home and that she was the eldest sister.

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

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.

Kerler asks about Shavuot, Hanukkah, Yom Kippur and Passover food and customs; Shekhovich remembers little, saying that her parents spoke Yiddish but the children Polish, that her family was not so religious, though Yom Kippur was fasted and Passover had a seder without bread. She says her daughter makes gefilte fish very well, but declines to give a recipe, calling it women's business. Later there is talk of Polish and Ukrainian language, her birth year (probably 1919), and her views on Israel and troubles there.

Shekhovich talks about prewar Sambor, which she describes as a Jewish town with one large synagogue and small prayer houses. She recalls her mother's Sabbath fish and her own knowledge of how to prepare it, the Passover seder led by her father, and food made from matzo. She says she cannot remember Purim plays or a prewar wedding. Polish was the language of the town and Yiddish that of the home. She says she remembers few Yiddish songs.

A formal interview, mostly in Russian, with an elderly woman from Odesa who says she knows no Yiddish. She recalls her grandfather's Passover seder and her father, who trained as a draftsman and architect in Odesa and studied in Switzerland. She also describes her private Russian gymnasium, antisemitism around Palm Week, and the hardships of revolution and civil war. She speaks of regretting not learning Yiddish, a Ukrainian husband who knew a few Yiddish words, and an episode at work in Bershad' when she could not understand a conversation in Yiddish.

Beigel remembers Passover seders and the prayer book she kept. She also recalls a wedding canopy at her own wedding in the 1940s, with scant food. She talks about her grandsons and what her son understands of Yiddish and Jewish holidays. She confirms that her parents were from Tyvriv, not far from a town whose name is unclear.

Beigel answers questions about food customs. She makes gefilte fish herself as her mother did, with a little sugar, and she makes matzo kugels and potato latkes. Kerler and Lemster ask about the dish names and what the latkes were eaten with. She says she has already told them what she lived through.

Kerler asks Fishman about Yiddish songs and Jewish weddings, which he does not remember in detail. Fishman says his father was a Communist, and that religion was persecuted but old Jews gathered in a house. He says they marked Passover and that his father secretly sent food. Kerler asks how the prayer shawl was called.

Vertman answers questions on holiday customs and food: kiddush on Sabbath, Passover dishes, Sukkot with the opened roof of the building, Hanukkah candles and potato latkes, Purim gifts and hamantashn, and Simchat Torah. He also describes Shavuot, when greenery was brought from the river to cover the floor, and what was eaten then (meat, fish, blintzes).

Lys says he heads the local Jewish community and gathers Jews in its office for Sabbath and holidays, since no one in town can lead prayer. He recalls his mother's candle blessing, and baking matzo at home with boards and a Russian oven. He begins on Samarkand, where his mother arranged Yiddish lessons from yeshiva students.

Lys speaks of his granddaughter, who studies Hebrew, lights Sabbath candles and visited Israel, and his hope that she will marry a Jewish man. Kerler then asks about prewar holidays. Lys recalls his mother's strict Passover kashrut and Sabbath, and his grandfather, a kohen. He also recalls his father, who read Yiddish and Russian books and Sovetish Heymland, the seder with the four questions in Yiddish, and that he holds a seder himself now.

Lys offers to show his mother's old baking dishes used for Passover kugel. A woman, possibly his wife (?), explains how the matzo kugel is made, with soaked matzo, eggs and salt baked in the oven, while Kerler asks what the dishes were called. Lys then begins on a letter about the Lys family name.

Kerler asks about Hanukkah and Purim foods and customs. Geller recalls Hanukkah money for children and potato latkes, poppy-seed pastries and Purim gifts (shlekhmones), and Passover matzo, noting the use of matzo meal in baking at a memorial meal.

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.

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.

Yarmolnik says that Yiddish was spoken at home, while at her Russian school she spoke other languages with friends. Asked about Yiddish songs, she sings a fragment of "Bay mir bistu sheyn" and recites a dialogue song about two lovers weighing each other's families, and she sings "Papirosn". Her account breaks off with her mother baking secret matzo.

Kaviner tells the story of his father, a cooper who made barrels in Bessarabia. A beggar who orders dumplings at the home of a kind householder vanishes, and a rabbi tells the couple they have seen Elijah. He then tells a second story, from a poem by Avrom Reyzen that he read in Sovetish Heymland, of Reyzen's Passover seder in Warsaw after the war, where a stranger guest vanishes. Kerler asks whether Kaviner read Reyzen.

Lemster and Kerler ask about prewar holidays. Vaisblai says that at Passover no bread was eaten and the poor tried to get some meat. At Purim they prayed and heard the megillah; he thinks the rabbi dressed up and people wore masks, though he knows this only from his father. He cannot recall a Purim song and begins to sing a Friday-night song.

Kramer describes his parents' home: his father was a religious man who had gone to kheyder and was otherwise self-taught, good at mathematics and able to write Russian and speak Polish. Yiddish was spoken at home. He recalls Passover matzo baking and Passover dishes made with matzo meal, and how his father rose early to pray with tefillin. His mother also prayed and had studied for four years at the Russian gymnasium in Berezdov (name as heard), which raised the problem of Saturday attendance. Kerler then turns to Russian, and Lemster announces he will ask some Russian words.

Kaviner tells several stories about Hershele Ostropolyer: his search for the rebbe's nose, his eating the varenikes the hostess left on the oven, his trick at the Passover market to bring down a peasant woman's price and his dealing with a peasant selling straw at the mikveh. Kerler then begins to ask about a two-language Yiddish-Ukrainian song.

Snook describes the small prayer room in the village, with three Torah scrolls, and the dwindling Jewish community in Khust today. She tells of her siblings (six children, her father in the First World War), who led the seder, and her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, with five grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Israel who speak Yiddish and Russian. Kerler asks about Sukkot, Shavuot and Simchat Torah, and she tells how betrothals were arranged at Simchat Torah. She also exchanges words with Katz about his age and home in America, and she mentions knowing Hungarian and Russian, though only Yiddish was spoken at home.

Snook recites the prayer 'God of Abraham' for the end of the Sabbath at Kerler's request, and she remarks on Kerler's colleague as a young man who can write Yiddish. Kerler compares life in America and under the Soviets. They discuss whether the synagogue in Khust stayed open under communism and Sabbath observance. Kerler then asks about Purim performances after the war and Passover songs, and she mentions children noisemaking on Purim.

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

Katz asks about childhood prayers: the morning prayer modeh ani, the blessing over bread and the Passover seder with the four questions. Smelanskii recalls little and says he reads the Haggadah now. He mentions that he had asked someone about the Torah portions before the interview, and Kerler intervenes when the questioning sounds like an exam.

Katz and Kerler ask Smelanskii how things were said and done before the war: prayers read or sung, Passover songs, and a Passover play. He says he does not read them any more and recalls little. He recalls Hanukkah dreidels and small children being led into the synagogue with a flag and a red apple, probably on Simchat Torah. Kerler also asks about latkes made from rye flour or potato, and what the children threw at old men's beards. Katz then begins the Russian-to-Yiddish word questions.

Braverman describes holiday food: buckwheat latkes with goose cracklings and fat for Hanukkah, and potato latkes for Passover. She then recounts how her father's younger brother, a Zionist who founded a Jewish gymnasium in Solkhov, fled during the civil-war period, went through Poland and settled in France, and how the relatives there lived. She talks about her cousins in France, a cousin's birthday, and her own parents' fates: her mother was killed in Kalinovka. A discussion of where Kalinovka is follows.

Braverman describes the layout of prewar Solkhov, the main road, and the absence of electricity until after the war; Semyon Braverman adds remarks on Ukrainian villages. She and Kerler discuss local food and dairy terms. She speaks of the Jewish population, the kloyz and the synagogue, the low riverside site, the mikvah her mother took her to, and the seder at her grandparents'.

Braverman recalls her Hasidic grandfather's household: bringing the lulav and etrog, the prayers she learned as a child, and Passover customs. She discusses Sabbath breads (kuletsh versus challah) and a favorite baked treat (name uncertain). She remembers her mother's heavy baking work, her grandmother preparing the fish head on Fridays, and her father bringing a carp from the villages. The segment ends with Kerler's question about how the fish was made.

Asked for his earliest memories, Torchinsky describes the Jewish town of Skvire with its synagogue and prayer house and the preparation for Passover. He recalls going to synagogue with his grandfather on Simchat Torah when he was about six, and discusses whether his grandfather could read Yiddish or Hebrew and the term for the holy tongue. He tells of his uncle Shmilik's attempt to take him to Palestine in 1924 and his running away to stay with his mother, and of his childhood pranks of stealing unripe fruit from a garden and throwing bread into the Passover borscht.

Torchinsky discusses a mischievous child, as in Sholem Aleichem, and how he too was a prankster, growing up without a father with his widowed mother and two sisters. He says his grandfather, perhaps a carpenter, gave them a small part of his house. He recalls how the relatives in America sent 25 dollars so that his mother could buy proper flour for Passover latkes, and that the flour was stolen at night, in the mid-1920s.

Questionnaire on food and drink words with Kerler: kugel and babke and their ingredients, rasl (brine or juice), tomatoes, baked goods and pastries, strudel, flodn, kamish bread, evening meal, and the word for vodka (bran(t)fn). Torchinsky says Jews drank brandy on Simchat Torah and Purim but not wine, and that vodka was not drunk on Passover. Kerler also asks about 'dibek' (a bad person) and 'goylem' (golem).

Answering Kerler's questions, Torchinsky recalls the prewar synagogue and bes-medresh in Skvyra, where only men went to pray and women sat apart, and describes praying there with his grandfather. Kerler asks about klezmorim, wedding customs and a place name (apparently 'tsvinter'). He continues with expressions used when mentioning the dead and then with greetings, thanks and congratulation, the word for stomach and for book, and the difference between 'sick' and 'sleepy' (the transcript is unclear on some of these). Torchinsky mentions his own Yiddish-Ukrainian dictionary of six thousand words and begins to read another poem, about Passover and the Exodus.

Torchinsky reads three of his poems. The first is on Passover (dated 1992), retelling the Exodus from the baby Moses to the crossing of the sea and the seder. The second is devoted to Sholem Aleichem and his museum in Pereyaslav (the transcript does not give the year). The third, to Yiddish-learning children, is dated 1990. Kerler brings him back after the first poem to the seder at his grandfather's, and S2 and the Russian asides note the recording and technical details.

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

At the request of a second voice for more about the synagogue, Rusakovskaia describes how Jews went to synagogue on all holidays and how her mother prepared for them at home. At Passover her father led the seder from the prayer book and neighbors without a husband joined the family at the table. Kerler asks about the four questions, but her father read alone.

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

Vider answers Kerler's questions about the Jewish year as he remembers it from Hîrlau: the days before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with slikhes, going to synagogue with his father, the pre-fast meal, tashlikh, and shmura matzo baked at the rebbe's. For Sukkot he describes the sukkah and its roofing, the etrog and lulav, and the hoshana rabbah/Simchat Torah hakafot, singing a few lines. He then speaks of Hanukkah candles, songs and money, and foods for Hanukkah and Purim (latkes, pancakes of potato or flour, krepl), and the dreidel.

Krotsh answers questions about holiday food, such as Hanukkah foods and Passover latkes, and about differences between Yiddish in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. Kerler then puts questionnaire items with Russian prompts, such as greetings, thanks, a big and small word for a person, a house, a cut, windows, and Krotsh gives Yiddish equivalents and notes loanwords.

Grayf recalls the arrival of the Soviets in 1939, when people were glad and expected better times. Tanks passed and the Poles left. He describes it as a quiet time with work and no persecution. Religious life and schools continued until the Germans came. After the war the synagogues were closed, so Jews prayed in private houses on Sabbath and holidays, including Passover. He gives his birth date, family name and address, and his telephone number.

Biter speaks briefly about Franz Joseph and the Jewish attitude toward him, and about the one remaining Jew in Snyatyn today. Asked about his parents' home, he describes Sabbath and Passover customs and foods, then Purim masks, the Hanukkah dreidel, Sukkot, latkes and doughnuts, learning tefillin in cheder, and his later gymnasium years away from prayer. Kerler and Katz then explain to the household that they are collecting Yiddish folklore and dialect material for American and Lithuanian universities.

Krotsh describes the rebbe's court, with rooms for guests and for horses. He recalls that matzo was not baked there but special shmura matzo was. He tells of a Rosh Hashanah when the cantor overslept and the rebbe proposed Gedaliye, a singer who drew people from far away. He then names a great tsadik of Iași (?) and his father.

Katsman says he does not remember his grandmothers. He describes his mother as a pious woman who baked matzo for the town, came from Chopovychi, and prepared for Sabbath with baked challah and candles. Kerler and Katz ask about Sabbath songs and tefillin, and he describes his grandfather's and father's habits of prayer and study.

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

Katsman talks about his parents' home: the grandfather, who is named, and Sabbath customs, including his mother's gefilte fish and challah. Kerler stops to ask how to say a term and what the dish tasted like, and Katsman answers. He describes the Passover seder and Shavuot dairy food. He recalls sleeping in the family sukkah and sending Purim gifts of food to ten houses as a child. At the end he starts a story about a sanatorium in Kislovodsk.

Skop says that until 1937 everything was as before, then schools were closed and synagogues turned into warehouses. Katz asks about childhood prayer, and Skop recalls Hanukkah money and the dreydl, Purim noisemakers, asking the Four Questions at his father's seder, and the labor of baking matzo. He then speaks of Lubavitch Hasidim, who were beloved in Korosten', and of a well-known rebbe whom people from far away, Jews and non-Jews, visited, with trips to a tsadik's grave and how it was spoken of. Katz asks about the Litvaks, and Skop describes the Yiddish of Vilna and Belarusian Jews as hard to understand and tells of his parents speaking Yiddish with Germans. The passage ends with healing practices and a story of a blind child brought to a rebbe.

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

Leiderman and Obodovskii speak about her mother's holiday cooking: gefilte fish, and her keeping geese and goats at home, with eggs and meat at Passover and a type of baked dish. Kerler asks about Purim food and the way Purim is named in different places, and mentions his Jerusalem visits.

Asked about holidays, Gershtein recalls Shavuot as the day the Torah was given and the foods eaten, including blintzes with cheese or meat and dairy dishes. He mentions the custom of putting greenery in the house and asks about Passover songs, including Khad gadya. He recites the four questions and says he asked the Passover questions as a child. A book on the Jews of Kovel' is also mentioned in Yiddish.

Kerler asks whether non-Jews converted to Judaism before the war, and the informant says there were such cases. They also discuss Jews who converted away from Judaism. Kerler then asks for the Four Questions of the Seder to be read, and they talk about Yiddish and Hebrew wording of some of the phrases.

Dorfman confirms his four years at the Tarbut school, taught in Yiddish and Hebrew, and its director Slobodsky. He dates the Soviet arrival to 28 June 1940 and his parents' imprisonment in July for eleven months. He describes his parents' religious observance, including seders, with soldiers as guests, and starts to recite the Four Questions at Kerler's request.

Nisman says she now keeps the holidays in memory of her parents, with only a few guests, mostly non-Jews. In Soviet times she kept Passover with matzo and potato pancakes. Kerler asks about the terms for potato pancakes, and she says she made them at Hanukkah and displays a menorah, burning candles for eight days.

Nisman recalls Purim as a joyful holiday, with her father playing dreidel with the children, and visits to the Sadagora rebbe's courtyard, with singing and dancing. She recounts how Rabbi Mark walked with the cardinal. Passover recollections: the search for chametz and burning it, and who asked the four questions.

Nisman shows a new Haggadah that she was given, with the death toll in Bessarabia, and a certificate and handmade work from the day centre. Kerler asks whether Purim plays were staged in Rezina, and she says theatre troupes came and mentions the Jewish National House in Chernivtsi.

Shvartzbroit talks about her work after the war. She was a foreman in a tailoring (?) workshop and then ran a matzah factory in Mohyliv, where many people worked in shifts. Her husband Yankl worked as a baker at a factory.

Shvartzbroit explains how she makes a layered noodle-and-meat dish and then how to prepare gefilte fish: choice of carp, proportions of eggs, onions and water, baking in a pot and cooking for hours. Kerler asks about sweetness and about matzah-meal cutlets. The tape ends with thanks, blessings for a safe journey and talk of Kerler's next visit.

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.

Lemster asks about Jewish life in Luts'k after the war. She says Jews gathered in a private apartment on Sabbath and holidays, there was no synagogue, a man was imprisoned, and she fasted on Yom Kippur. Few knew when holidays fell; matzo came from Israel. Questions about minyans and schools follow, and Lemster asks for a Jewish story or anecdote, which she cannot recall.

Shoikhetman remembers his grandmother's kosher household, with separate Passover dishes kept in the attic and glasses marked for Passover. Kerler asks about the dishes. Near the end he starts on something connected with his brother, which is unclear in the transcript.

Kaplan describes his father as a soap-maker and cantor, and talks about Sabbath food and customs, a Russian neighbour lighting the stove, Hanukkah, Purim, and Hebrew lessons. He tells of the camp at Pechera, the escape of a group of Jews with a Ukrainian guard's help, the walk home along the river, and the family's hiding in the cellar of Polish neighbours (Zbigin?) until 1944. He covers the Jewish police, the drowned orphans off Constanta, commemoration work led by the late rabbi Sobol, and a ghetto song. He also tells of secret Passover matzo baking after the war, the three cemetery fields, non-Jews who speak Yiddish, the word Litvak, and the term for a 'good Jew' (rebbe or tsadik).

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.

Nayman answers questions about his early life: cheder moved around, with a different rebbe each year, and he had brothers and sisters. His family made wine, some of it sold, and they had a vineyard. He recalls an uncle in Brooklyn and sleeping with his siblings. He recalls Passover songs and then recites prayers from the holidays, part of it garbled.

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

Tzentziper says a Yiddish theater existed in Dobroye, later closed and turned into a Yiddish club, where people sang and danced and traveled to other colonies. He says holidays were observed by his family, who baked matzo themselves, and recalls a synagogue and a rabbi who lived several kilometres away. Kerler asks which Jewish colonies he remembers, and Tzentziper names Poltavka (?). He also recalls the school trip to the new Jewish district in Kherson region. He then begins to sing "Lomir zikh iberbetn".

Dubinskaia gives her name as Sonia (Sara/Sotsl) Dubinskaia. She was born in Berdychiv in 1927, and her son and husband have died. She gives her father's name as Azik and her mother's as Reizl, and says there were five children, naming siblings Yasl, Sima and Dvoyre. She recalls how her mother salted meat before Passover. Her father and others were killed in 1941, when she was 14. She does not remember his trade.

Cherner says holidays were barely observed at home, there was no matzo baking, and the old men marked them. He describes the shoykhet in a large courtyard after the war, who slaughtered poultry for Jews every day, and the custom of kapores. He answers questions about words for a field and a village, about dialects, and tells of his grandfather Israel Cherner and Khayim Zise, who was with them in the ghetto. A relative died in Moscow. The synagogue stayed open until the early 1950s, and few Jews now speak Yiddish.

Medved recalls Passover celebrated with Russian neighbors and the Yiddish theater in Bershad', which her father loved to attend. Kerler asks about Purim and Hanukkah food and customs, and she describes her mother's fish cutlets and the cooking method. She also mentions buying live fowl and a shoykhet in Odesa before the war.

Tokar describes how Jewish holidays were kept before the war even by non-religious Jews, and recalls a homemade toy gun at Purim. He says literary accounts of the Purim-shpil describe something old and that most Jews were secular. He speaks of study circles, burial society, two study houses, about a thousand five hundred Jews in Zheludok, and fewer gentiles. He recalls prewar Polish antisemitism, then comments on postwar Poland and the Jedwabne killings.

The couple say that Brodsky's parents did not speak Yiddish to the children, but his paternal grandfather did, and he was a synagogue warden (gabbay) and an honest man. Brodsky gives his father's name as Abraham Yankel and his Yiddish name as Berl (Russian Boris Abramovich). His father attended synagogue on holidays only, and worked in textiles or as a manufacturer (a doubtful Russian word); his mother, Basia, sewed at home. The synagogue is named as Chabad Lubavitch. The interviewers talk about their American university and give Brodsky a card.

Stotland says Jewish holidays were not marked in the orphanage. As a child he and others ran away to his maternal aunt and uncle in town for Passover. He recalls five synagogues in Ovruch, including a large wooden one near the orphanage, where the children went for treats. The aunt and uncle were poor, with five small children.

Stotland explains how as a child he ran from the orphanage to his poor aunt and uncle, a tailor with many children, for Sabbath and Passover. They gave him a piece of matzo. Katz moves on to the questions that follow.

Start of the formal interview with Turovskaia, who talks about her work and observing Sabbath and holidays. She says she was born in Veledniki near the holy tsadik's grave. She gives her Yiddish and Russian names, her parents' and grandparents' names, her married name Turovskaia and maiden name Feldman, her address and telephone number. She was born in 1924, three days before Passover, and explains a custom connected with her birth.

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.

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

Turovskaia recites blessings, including the candle-lighting blessing for Sabbath and the festivals. She says her father had her write down how many blessings are said on each holiday. She says the mourner's kaddish for relatives, lights memorial candles and sends memorial notes to Opshtshina (?). Katz tests her on Hebrew month names. She asks about the eleven months of kaddish and the leap year, since her husband died on 14 July.

The conversation turns to religious life today, including where a rabbi might be consulted: Zhytomyr, or a rabbi who comes on Sabbath. Turovskaia says there is a prayer gathering on Lenin Street, and she names local Jews who live nearby. She recalls how her father led the seder before the war. She says two visitors, one from America and one from Israel, came recently for Passover, with a translator. Kerler asks about the word for translator and then about the dybbuk.

Turovskaia describes her memorial practices, including saying the 'El maley rakhamim' prayer, and that people from Kyiv and St Petersburg ask her to say kaddish for their dead. Katz and Kerler ask her to recite the traditional prayer as her father said it, and she hesitates. They ask about other blessings for women, such as the 'modeh ani'. She says her father had her write down the blessings. She recalls her mother's geese, schmaltz and matzo for Passover.

Turovskaia says she and her husband spoke Yiddish at home but did not teach their children in Siberia. Kerler gives a Yiddish saying about being well everywhere. She goes on to the dishes she keeps for Passover.

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

Turovskaia answers questions about Passover and Purim in her childhood home: her father asked the four questions and read and told stories, and she recalls the custom of banging with feet on Purim. She describes her mother's Passover preparations with geese and fat and sending food to a poor neighbor, and her mother's generosity to the needy.

Turovskaia recalls collecting money from Jewish houses to help people, and talks about holiday food: geese and ducks, challah baked every Friday, and the custom of throwing a piece of dough into the oven. She describes the seder, her father leading it, the kittel her mother sewed, wine, Elijah's cup and the afikoman, and mentions young yeshiva graduates.

Turovskaia speaks about two yeshiva graduates and what they could learn about Jews, then about retelling the story of the Exodus, Moses and Aaron and the ten plagues. Lemster then asks about Yiddish writers.

Turovskaia answers Lemster's and Kerler's detailed questions about food: meat with onions and vinegar, stuffed derma and intestines, cutlets, and a layered dish she made in Siberia. She also covers Hanukkah latkes made of buckwheat flour and potato pancakes for Passover, with discussion of the Ukrainian word for them and Yiddish terms.

Answering Kerler's questions, Zak recalls her mother blessing the Sabbath candles and crying, and says Jewish holidays were kept in Yiddish in the home. She describes the Sabbath cholent cooked in the oven and the Passover seder, where her brother and father said the four questions. She says she knows many Yiddish songs but is shy about singing.

Zak says there were anti-religious posters and propaganda at school. In the 1930s, around 1935, there was less matzo at Passover. Kerler asks her about the library she set up after the war.

A long continuation of the dialectological questionnaire. Kerler asks Zak for words for household things (bed, window pane, porch, the animals mouse and pigeon), kinship terms (mother, father, grandmother), numbers, dates, 'wine' and 'vodka', and words for taste. He also asks for sentences to translate (about a crying child, living on a street where only Jews live, hearing, being right, whose child this is), words for suddenly, back and again, and the verb to pray. He asks about Passover food after the seder and about the rich, a row and a wagon. In between, Zak remarks on how her Yiddish was laughed at when she worked elsewhere. At the end Kerler asks her to sing one more song.

Vainsheinboim describes the sukkah with a roof raised by a rope, and Purim balls for the wealthy. For Hanukkah he recalls potato, buckwheat and corn latkes and giving Hanukkah money. Kerler also asks about shalakhmones and Purim plays, and the family seder where Vainsheinboim was the youngest.

Litvak sings the song 'Bulbes', about potatoes served every day of the week. Kerler notes that the word bulbes is not Yiddish, and S2 says a Lithuanian Jew brought the song. Asked about Passover songs, she recalls Chad Gadya only vaguely.

She did not light Sabbath candles, since she had no opportunity: she worked on Sabbaths and holidays. She still says that a holiday is a holiday. Her mother baked with matzo meal for Passover, and her grandfather Alter used to say that whatever they are, they are Jews.

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

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

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

Kleiner answers questions on Sabbath, going to synagogue with his father, and the Sabbath and Sunday school days. He speaks about bar mitzvah, and Passover customs: removing and burning leaven and kashering. Kerler asks about holiday songs, and about Purim and Hanukkah. The terms for the river and for 'tehom' are asked. He says the Torah scrolls of Shepetivka were hidden and returned after liberation.

Krasner says she reads small religious books in Russian, because she cannot read Yiddish. She is not religious, but says one reads a little at a holiday. Her favorite holiday is Passover. She says she bought a few books from a Christian woman, and the talk touches on Sholem Aleichem.

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

Krasner says a few words about the seder in the late 1940s (?) and before the war. She says the family house stood nearby and was ruined and plundered by Romanians. Kerler and Katz then arrange the trip to the cemetery.

Liberzon remembers attending the Yiddish school for five classes and being told in 1941 to buy Russian textbooks as Jewish schools were closed. She recalls anti-religious agitation: an anti-religious meeting poster on the eve of Passover, and a teacher giving her sister money to buy a roll. After evacuation to Krasnoyarsk she attended a Russian school, where a teacher made an issue of pork. Russian remarks by others interrupt.

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

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

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.

Answers questions about Yiddish in Starokostyantyniv versus Polonne: she says the local speech is basically the same and mutually understood. She states she studied Yiddish for several grades and could read and write it. Kerler asks about Sholem Aleichem and Leyb Kvitko (?), and S2 asks about matzo baking.

Bivson says matzo was baked in Starokostyantyniv after the war, that matzo is now sent to them, and that her father turned the wheel on the matzos.

Klein recalls that she was still a schoolgirl when the war began and that many relatives were lost. She says she finished the Yiddish school and then a Russian school for the tenth grade, with the war breaking out a day after graduation. She describes her religious mother, who baked matzo, and her grandfather, who managed an estate for a landowner and knew several languages. The name Sakhnovytsi comes up again.

Klein says she makes gefilte fish without sugar and discusses holiday foods, including dairy and meat dishes for Passover, in a Jewish home. She says the town was Jewish before the war and that Yiddish was still spoken afterward. She mentions the Russian school and the languages taught there.

Kerler puts questionnaire items to Tartinets, such as the Yiddish for body parts, Passover matzo and hametz, and beets cooked in the war; she answers partly in Yiddish and partly in Russian. She is asked about Sabbath food such as cholent, kugel and challah. She then returns to the wartime work on beets and maize, being sent from her village, and says she raised two children alone. Kerler asks whether she knows a Yiddish song.

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.

The interviewees identify people in old photographs, including grandmothers and a father, and Kerler asks how things are said in the local Yiddish. Petrunenko answers questions on terms such as street, well, buckwheat porridge, potatoes, shop and flowers, and sentence translations. They discuss Passover potato fritters, Hanukkah food and the miracle of the oil. Kerler asks about the evil eye and spoken charms; one woman declines to share most of them but explains that rolling an egg relieves fright, which is partly shown. The passage ends with thanks and farewells.

Kerler is led to the home of the Zhivokritskiis and interviews them. Alexandra, born in Tomashpol' and named Sure, says she was in the ghetto at Zgivka with her uncle, a tailor, while her father was in the army. She recalls her marriage in 1950, buying the house, her two sons (one now in Israel), her parents Grisha and Libe, and Passover at Uncle Yankl's. Her husband grew up as the only Jew in a village. They describe Sabbath fish, the difference between gefilte and chopped fish, grated-potato dishes, and life today. The rest is a long word-list questionnaire: household words, adverbs, kinship, the evil eye, Hasidic terms and sentences to translate.

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).

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Shveibish talks about gefilte fish: her grandmothers loved it, and she now makes it for holidays for the community, together with Passover noodles and matzo meal. She insists on matzo and no bread during the eight days. She tells in outline how she makes it, with minced fish and ingredients such as onions and egg, matzo meal or a substitute, and sweetening and salt. Kerler then begins the dialectological questions.

Kerler asks about Bershad figures such as a shoykhet and cantor who was killed, and Kogan describes a prayer house that still exists and fear of the militia when baking matzo after the war. He says his father had been in America and returned. A brother (younger) lives in Indianapolis, where Kerler also lives, and he had two sisters who died. The conversation turns to Kogan's contact with his brother, his brother's illness and whether Kerler can carry greetings or a photograph.

Presler and a second woman discuss the help of Ukrainian peasants, without whom they say they would have died. Presler tells how she and two other girls went out from the camp at Passover to beg for food, hiding from shepherd boys and from the police. An old woman gave her bread and potatoes, and she took beetroot mash meant for pigs; she carried the food back to the camp, where her mother shared it with the inmates.

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.

Golfeld mentions his army service of four years after the war in Kamchatka, where he was the only Jew, and his return to Tul'chyn to work. He recalls prewar holidays at his mother's home, including Passover, Yom Kippur and Shavuot, a holiday with red apples (Simchat Torah, with a flag), and potato pancakes.

Presler mentions hunger and thirst, when people ate grass. Kerler then asks the birth years of her parents and sisters, and she gives some years. He asks about holidays at her parents' home, and she says she has fasted since age ten. She mentions Passover and holiday soups with milk.

Presler explains how to make Passover potato kugel from grated, squeezed potatoes and describes making matzo-meal pancakes, noodles and kugel, including how to use potato starch. Kerler asks about the words tatsh(?) and babke(?), and she explains that babka is the non-Jewish word for kugel. Kerler closes by asking for recipes for malai, mamaliga and gefilte fish.

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

Yurkovetskij tells of being taken in by a Polish priest and then of the village, before going to a Ukrainian school (not a Yiddish one). In 1936 he was sent to driving courses at a machine and tractor station in Bratslav. One brother was killed in the war and the other went to America. He remembers a poor childhood: playing football in worn shoes and getting help from Jews at Passover.

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

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

Efim describes Passover customs: bringing down the Passover dishes from the attic, baking matzo communally and the foods made from matzo. He also describes the seder and the four questions, which the son recited, though he has forgotten them. Kerler asks about Chad Gadya and Hanukkah, and they discuss lighting candles and potato (?) latkes for Hanukkah. Latkes are said to be called blinis in Russian.

Motl, with Efim, explains how gefilte fish was made, from skinning and chopping the fish to stuffing the skin and cooking it with sauce, and discusses whether it was sweet or peppery. They also describe fish cooked in layers with beets, and also sweet meat dishes made with jam or sour salt. Kerler asks for Yiddish names for potato latkes, rugelach-like pastries with raisins and nuts, honey cake and kamishl, and for the braided breads kuletsh and challah baked for Sabbath. Some Russian and Ukrainian terms are named.

Rubin says that great numbers of people come to Uman' for Rosh Hashanah, Purim, Hanukkah and Passover, and that he has been going for fifteen years. He gets kosher matzo at Passover, reads Yiddish letters only a little, and says there are no prayer books in translation. He and Kerler talk about a Yiddish story book and a siddur with a Yiddish translation. Rubin also speaks about Matl's ill sister, a son who lives in Jerusalem and works at a dairy firm (?), and his own visits to his mother's grave in Israel.

After 1936, Jews prayed in private homes and asked that the authorities not know. Liudmila recalls her mother gathering women on holidays and reading to them in Yiddish from a prayer book, and being sent out when they wept. The couple name the Jewish holidays, then recall matzo baking in the war years, with Liudmila's mother ill, and communal baking by several families after the sale of machine matzo stopped.

A woman speaks about Jewish observance before the war, saying each person kept it as he wished. She recalls the Passover seder, the four questions asked by the boys, and her father's teaching of religious duties. She closes with an exhortation to remain faithful Jews.

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

She describes her father singing at the Sabbath table and the children joining in. He sang with words, in Hebrew and in Yiddish, and sang on Purim, Hanukkah and Passover. Kerler asks about the songs, and she recalls only a couple of words of a Purim song. Kerler then asks about a rabbi in Vinnytsya.

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

Barshteyn describes kosher meat: the shoykhet slaughtered, the blood was drained and the meat was salted for an hour. She describes Passover preparations, with the dishes brought down from the attic, a special oven for baking bread, and the house cleaned and whitewashed. Her father baked matzo using a perforating wheel. Lemster asks about the fillings of Purim pastries (poppy, jam and similar), and Kerler asks about the evil eye and a remedy using a glass, which she half recalls.

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

Sobol talks about her childhood while her mother was alive, a poor but quiet home, and being orphaned at fourteen. She describes Passover poverty, her father leading the seder, and a relative who asked the Four Questions. She also covers kashering the house and storing the Passover dishes in the attic. The questions turn to holiday food: Passover dumplings, Hanukkah latkes, Purim treats and the Sabbath cholent. A remedy against the evil eye (a red ribbon) is also touched on.

Fishman talks about his mother's varnishkes with buckwheat kasha, which he can make himself and also stuff. He recalls holiday foods from her kitchen, such as matzo and lekach, but says he does not remember the holidays at his grandfather's.

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.

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.

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.

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

Kerler asks Lebvol about the term 'good Jew' for a rebbe, charms and remedies, the evil eye, and a pilgrimage site, then about Litvak, gefilte fish (sugar, pepper, onion and matzo), vodka, dybbuk, golem and sentences for the prayers for the dead. Lebvol answers each of these, with some Polish loanwords. In the last seconds S2 asks about the war years.

Shpitz recalls kheyder, whose teacher was the local shoykhet and who also fed the children, and says he learned to read Yiddish. He describes his father, a poor religious cobbler, attending the cook-shul and prayer on Passover, Purim and other holidays. He tells of carrying gifts to the shul and Simchat Torah, and says he no longer remembers the morning prayers; he also talks about observance today.

Mixed questionnaire work and memories. Shpitz is asked for words such as cart or wagon and 'road', and says that his family had no wagon and that Jewish occupations included fish dealing. He explains golem, the dreidel, the ceiling and cleaning the floor for Passover. He also describes the interior of a house.

Geller describes the synagogue, prayer house and Itzik the crooked (der krimer), who served as helper and caretaker. He recalls the Jewish director of the Ukrainian school who had children throw stones at worshippers, and talks about childhood friends, one killed by the Germans. He also speaks of non-Jewish classmates, Passover matzo given to them, and non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, then answers questions on the use of Yiddish at home.

Questions on a word connected with the prophet Elijah and the opening of the door at the seder. Geller explains Passover pancakes made from matzo meal and potatoes, and the oven needed to bake them. Kerler and Katz also ask about Hanukkah latkes, buckwheat latkes, and goose cracklings.

Geller talks about Hanukkah goose cracklings and about those unwilling versus unable to observe, then describes baking matzo himself. He explains the roles of the rollers, the kneader, the perforator and the person who puts the matzo in the oven (the "shiber"). He distinguishes hand matzo from machine matzo, and says matzo was baked in Soviet times near an old synagogue. The passage ends with Kerler asking a few further word questions.

Word questions on forms such as "everything", with proverbs and sayings about the poor man and about being laughed at. Katz and Geller compare Yiddish and Polish words for cheese, "one and a half", and building a house. They also touch on a half matzo hidden at the seder, on documents, and on a riddle-like saying.

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 (?).

The woman from Zvil recalls a large family, her grandparents and her father baking matzo, and her grandmother Faige. She says she is two years younger than Chane Gitl. She mentions Yiddish singers and actors visiting Zvil, and recalls her grandmother's Yiddish songs and fragments of a wedding song.

Food customs and dialectological questions with the woman from Zvil. They cover the word for potato, her grandmother's honey cake used with the kiddush wine, gefilte fish and its sweetness, and Passover dishes made from matzo meal. Word questions follow: grandmother (bobeshke), a ladder, and a thing the transcript renders as tsulem (unclear).

Burshtein recites from memory, in a Yiddish and Hebrew mix, a Shavuot piece and parts of other prayers, including the Four Questions. Katz asks about the Passover questions and Kaddish. He says he prays alone daily and learned Rosh Hodesh prayers as a child, and he says he needs a siddur.

Groisburg recalls the Passover seder, with her brother asking the four questions to their learned father, who knew five languages. She then remembers Hanukkah and sings a Hanukkah song from childhood twice, mentioning dreidels and doughnuts. Kerler and Katz also talk with S4 about Russian.

Groisburg says she learned German and French and that her father wanted her to study English. Kerler asks about Purim and about celebrations before the First World War, but she answers mostly about Passover matzo and holidays at home.

Shpitz recalls attending a Yiddish school before the war, on a street whose name is unclear in the transcript. He mentions subjects such as physics and chemistry, and that he was poor. Asked about Yiddish literature, he says he read the classics, Mendele and Sholem Aleichem among them, and loved Yiddish books. Kerler notes that he still reads Yiddish today, and the passage ends with a turn to Passover and the four questions.

Shpitz describes the poor Jewish life of a shoemaker with eight children. Lemster asks about Purim, Purim plays and masking, and Shpitz says little about them. He recalls Passover preparations with new dishes brought down from the attic. He says Jewish life passed quickly and thanks God for his years.

Answers Kerler's questions about weddings. Nibulskiy says certain older wedding customs belonged to his parents' time, and that he remembers cookies dipped in wine at a wedding. Under Soviet rule Jewish weddings were not allowed. He recalls how matzo was baked at Passover and Kerler asks how Passover is said in his dialect.

Nibulskaia recalls the holidays at home, with her father leading the Passover seder, and the food her mother cooked, including a sour-sweet meat dish, borscht, and Passover kugel and latkes of matzo meal. She mentions Purim without masks, since it was a Soviet land. She also recalls a good teacher at the Yiddish school who played the fiddle, and says her children do not speak Yiddish.

Nibulskaia talks about Jewish life in Zhytomyr. Her father went to synagogue every day until his death in the 1950s (?), and baked his own matzo at home before it began to be baked at the synagogue. She says he was a strongly observant man while she and her siblings were nonbelievers.

Nibulskaia says her father, Meir (son of Menashe?), held a real seder every year until his death. He attended synagogue daily, in Korosten (three synagogues then, closed later) and in Zhytomyr after the war. She also mentions his work and small pension, her mother, and the hard life.

Margolis speaks about language and religion at home. Russian was spoken mostly, with some Yiddish words, and religion was suppressed under Soviet law. He recalls Passover matzo baking, and bringing flour to the synagogue. He then talks about his work, which ended when he became disabled in 1983 (?).

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

Nibulskiy tells Hershele Ostropoler anecdotes in Yiddish with Russian and Ukrainian dialogue. In one, Hershele tricks a cloth seller. In another, he tricks a landowner by claiming to need tefillin, gets a horse and sells it to Gypsies. Last comes a story about a peasant, a Passover turkey and a beating.

Nibulskaia says that pupils of the Yiddish school were all brought up as nonbelievers. At Passover they marched in the street singing anti-religious songs and shouting against religion, and children's rhymes mocked it. She says she no longer goes to synagogue but believes in God, and Kerler asks how it all looks to her today.