Photographs and documents

Rezmovit talks about how well he felt in Israel and why he returned home to Hungary. His father was ill with cancer, and the three brothers could not decide who should go back to help their parents. He mentions a man named Friedman who called them returnees, and his sister Rivka, who was imprisoned. A photograph of his bearded father may have saved her, and she has since died.

Herbst says he worked at the sawmill with Russians, Ukrainians and Romanians and heard no Yiddish there, and that after the war he met few Yiddish speakers outside the hospital. He and Kerler talk about his Yiddish, which resembles that of Hungarian-Jewish Debrecen, and about the words 'Litvak' and 'pani' (thief) as Yiddish usage. Kerler asks about photographs, and Herbst describes postwar friends, including musicians, a pianist he met in hospital, and professors. He mentions a painter friend (name unclear, perhaps Anton Revis) who painted his parents.

Herbst explains the paintings on his living-room wall. The portraits of his parents were done by a painter friend and his wife. Another friend, a disabled artist whose name is unclear, gave a gift picture. A woman's first large work from art school, made from his father, and a village landscape and still life by another Jewish painter also hang there. He gives the Hebrew name Yona Binyomin ben Moshe Yisroel for one friend and tells how that friend asked him about the shofar blast. He adds that people in the hospital at first laughed at him.

Herbst describes another picture on his wall, a Garden of Eden scene he received as a birthday or jubilee present. Kerler and S2 briefly mention more pictures and a song.

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

Kerler asks for the year of the rebbes' return. Pearl says the Mukachevo rebbe came to Hungary in 1942, bearded and tall, and the Belzer and Bilgoray rebbes arrived in Budapest in 1943. He prayed once at the Belzer rebbe's minyan on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur 1943 and has a photograph. He worked in a military factory and later met the rebbe's gabbai David Spira and other Belzer Hasidim in the Bor camp, where they held a Belzer minyan.

Pearl describes the mikveh in Tállya: a spring with water from the hillside, heated with an iron vessel and wood. He answers Kerler's terminology questions about it and says the pious men went there daily and that it was fully heated on Fridays. He names Rabbi Mordechai Rosenberg and three young men, Teitelbaum and Markovitsh among them, who went with him to Dachau on the march and were shot. Pearl also speaks of the death march at Bor and says he can show the photographs from the book.

Pearl talks about his copies of the tsene-rene and a prayer book that his grandfather owned. He found the prayer book in a synagogue after the family was taken to the ghetto, around Passover 1944. He recalls Yiddish speech, Sabbath prayer and Yom Kippur in a labor camp. He also describes how he made pots from scrap metal to survive, and he names grandparents.

Katerberg lists his decorations, including the Order of Lenin and a number of medals. He says he was in the countryside but did not deal with agriculture itself, since specialists did that; he graduated in economics at Lipcani, a degree he completed in 1948 at the time of his wedding.

Shmid talks about her life today. After her daughter's death she has not sung, and she is alone all day, with her son-in-law as her only company. She was one of seven children and is the only survivor. A photograph made in Germany shows her grandson at his bar mitzvah. Asked about prewar photographs, she says none survive.

Shraybman talks about the pictures on the wall and exhibitions. The interviewers mention a phone number and photographs of writers and ask about America. The passage is brief and fragmentary.

Abramovich talks about material sent to her from Sholem Aleichem's house and about her visit to Israel and the Knesset. She shows a golden harp tie-pin given to her great-grandfather, which gained symbolic meaning when she graduated from the conservatory in harp and music history, and mentions Łódź (?). The talk turns to Mendele's children, who spoke European languages but not Yiddish, and to a poet grandson, Mikhail Abramovich. The transcript here is partly confused by the noisy Yiddish line.

Abramovich talks about what remains of Mendele's legacy: autographs, the library, the museum, and his translations and interest in natural science. She says the family fled in 1941 when she was seven. She mentions a Polish song and a poem by Maksim Rylsky dedicated to Mendele, stories her grandmother told, an album made in Vilnius and now in Israel's National Museum, and her father's pseudonym. The visit then turns informal: cake, Israeli press clippings about her, a tennis-champion article, and book sales and names.

Roif tells how non-Jews also went to the Ştefăneşti rebbe for help, such as her grandfather's neighbour. She says all Bessarabia, Bukovina and Romania knew of him. She says her husband has a small book about the Ştefăneşti rabbis at home, and Katz asks to see it.

Diner says which languages her books are in and names Tolstoy works she loves. She describes how in the Soviet camp she refused to smoke or to speak coarsely, how she found a book by Eminescu in the library and swore not to take part. She says she read Russian poetry to a fellow prisoner, Natalia Sats, for eleven months, and describes the few Jews among the inmates and what each had done.

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

Goldman discusses her father's religious observance: his synagogue attendance, his prayer shawl and tefillin, and how she donated family portraits and items to a new Jewish museum in Chișinău. She then answers Kerler's questions about the professional school: it was not religious but socialist/communist in spirit, run by two women, and taught Yiddish literature but little Jewish history.

Asked about her work after the war, Rojtman says she was a physician. She then talks about her grandfather Itsik, whose photograph she did not bring and who had a vineyard in Stukney (?), a poor householder. She says he later did some trade in the area, and Lemster identifies the place from the Russian side. She describes local goods and merchants and says workers were hired.

Kerler asks about her life in Chișinău before the war, but Shmid remembers little. She says she lived at her sister's, studied at the vocational school, and had Jewish friends from the district. Kerler clarifies that the Orgeyev district (zhudets) is larger than a raion. She talks about reading and the Yiddish theatre and photographs from Israel and America.

Kerler thanks Sharhorodskij for his long account, which closes the formal interview. Sharhorodskij says he has told only one percent of what they lived through and speaks of the few Jews left and the lack of Jewish births. Kerler asks whether he remembers a melody of the Rîbniţa rebbe, which he cannot give, and the talk turns to photographs and a portrait of the rebbe.

Footage in Rădăuți and a visit to the community museum. Grinberg shows items from her parents' home, including a megillah, her father's tallis, shofars and Hanukkah lamps. She says her parents were pious and that this made the museum possible.

He tells how his parents survived thanks to the prison and how aunts were taken to Auschwitz. He served in forced labour in the army and was held in a fortress. He has grandchildren in Israel and a Hasidic nephew in London. He then discusses Oradea, Satu Mare and its rebbe, and Hasidim near Czernowitz. He speaks of Sighet and Vișeu (Vișeul?) with many Jews, and shows a family-lineage document.

Freundlich says Yiddish was spoken at home in her childhood, and especially on Sabbath, while her husband's family mixed languages. She shows press clippings and pictures of her son, who has travelled to many countries. She says her son and daughter emigrated, to Canada in 1985, and that her daughter, a piano teacher, spent two years in Israel.

Miller tells how Rabbi Halberstam of Cluj, deported to Auschwitz, was freed by the Americans and, in his account, flown to America by Eisenhower. He tells of Halberstam's later life, including his money going to Netanya to build a yeshiva, synagogue and hospital. He then describes how in 1985 or 1986 (as heard) workers in Cluj found boxes of ritual objects and papers from his house on Dezsma street, and the dispute over them between Cluj, Bucharest and Netanya.

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

The talk turns to Chajim's Hanukkah lamp. Lemster and Kerler examine it and discuss where oil is put in. Chajim explains how Hanukkah candles were set in it and lit. Lemster mentions thirty dollars already given, and the visitors seem to want to take it.

Chajim shows the family hanukiah, and the interviewers ask how old it is. He says it is about two hundred years old, inherited from his grandfather and father. He recalls blessing and lighting the candles himself and, in the past, his father and brothers lighting them, and the interviewers help repair the object.

Grinberg describes her plan for a museum in Rădăuți about the Jews of Bukovina, gathering photographs and family items from Jews worldwide. She says the Jews deported to Transnistria took no photographs with them. She talks about her religious family, her father's prayer shawl and kittel, and her ability to blow the shofar though she cannot sing. The talk turns to the interviewers' wish to record her and to Yiddish teaching in Romania.

Shtaigman describes postwar synagogues in Rădăuți: two large ones, a small one, and shoemakers' and tailors' synagogues. He visited Rădăuți often after moving to Iași, and his mother later came to help with the children. He discusses a film by an American about the Jews of Rădăuți and a photo album, mentioning that locals felt they were filmed unflatteringly, and the community bath was demolished. Kerler asks about the word for 'built' as used by old people, then returns to the Litvak speech question.

Kerler asks whether a Yiddish newspaper appeared in Sighet; Mezei says she receives a Hungarian paper from Israel. She shows photographs of friends, including a man from Sighet whom everyone knows and his wife. She also recounts an interview given to students from the university in Cluj about the ghetto and Auschwitz, which lasted for hours.

Klimenko speaks of the end of the war and recalls that her parents spoke Yiddish at home. Her mother's parents were from Pervomaysk, and her father also wished to keep Yiddishkeit. Lemster asks about her mother's cooking and she gives little. She names her older sister Frume, who was sent to Odesa and later emigrated. She shows postcards from her sister's family.

Berman describes two German film studios that came to Bila Tserkva to make films about him, using wartime newsreel footage of his German-language work. He says the films were shown in Germany. He also says he went with the army from Stalingrad to Prague.

Berman continues on the army's advance to Prague, saying he reported on the liberation of ghettos such as Budapest. He describes his wartime exchange of letters with Solomon Mikhoels, who asked him what was happening to Jews in Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia. His wife burned the whole correspondence after the war, when antisemitism rose and she was afraid.

Berman talks about the Yiddish amateur theater he was involved in, which performed Sholem Aleichem pieces and took them to Kyiv and elsewhere (a Crimean place is possible but unclear). Kerler explains how the team had just met the widow of a local actor, who lent them a videocassette of Yiddish theater. The group discusses copying the tape, and Berman promises to search out and send his many films and photographs of the theater. Kerler then starts to ask his birth year.

Berman gives his birth date as 7 November 1923, and the interview pauses while he looks for something among his materials. Kerler then asks his wife for her maiden name from home, which she gives as Pritske.

The formal interview begins. Skobilitskii mentions a Russian-language book on the Jews of Berdychiv that includes an article about him. They discuss where to buy it. He names Yiddish writers he has read (Sholem Aleichem, Mendele, Peretz and others). Sholem Aleichem is his favourite, and he talks about Mendele's character Motl. He reads Israeli newspapers in Russian.

Vainshelboim shows and describes a family photograph with his parents, older brother and two sisters, and says his mother was very beautiful. An aunt of his mother's went to America in 1961 (?), and he mentions that his mother had many sisters. Asked by Lemster about Jews who farmed, he says there was a Jewish kolkhoz at the Berdychiv station, and that few Jews lived in the villages.

The interviewee recalls a home prayer room with a Torah scroll that was stolen in wartime, and says Yiddish is spoken in Berdychiv. She explains which languages were used at home and with her grandchildren. They discuss the Yiddish school, which she knows only a few letters of, and letters in Yiddish from her grandmother and mother that she will show.

Kerler asks about family, and Vainshelboim says his mother came from Ulanov (?), and gives her name, Faige. Her older sister Perl, who had gone to America, visited him in 1961. He describes how she kissed him and mourned his murdered mother, and speaks of a family photograph and his own photograph as a soldier.

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

Teitel says there was no chance to speak Yiddish after the war, and that her children understand some words. She then talks in Russian about her daughters' professions (a doctor in St Petersburg and a psychiatrist), her husband's work as a factory director, and her own work as chief accountant of a printing house. She describes the family's five years in Turkmenistan for earnings. She recalls her father's service as a German-speaking intelligence translator, his severe wounds in a vehicle crash in Bulgaria, his return in March 1946, his decorations, and his burial. She begins to say where she was born.

Burg recalls Vienna in 1937, shortly before the Anschluss. He met a circle of Yiddish writers there, including Abraham Fuchs, Mendl Neugroschl, and Turkow, and speaks about Neugroschl's wealthy family and his son in America. He heard Hitler and Goering speak. He describes being seized in the street and taken in a truck with other Jews to barracks outside Vienna for forced labor. He was released after speaking German and showing his Romanian passport, and was driven back to Vienna by SS men. He tells an anecdote of a Galician Jew waiting at a tram stop, and shows a photograph of the writers in Vienna, naming others.

Shternberg talks about a video interview made for a Ukrainian project, in which she sang two camp songs, and mentions Spielberg. She and Kerler look at a newspaper clipping about her late husband, a cantor at the synagogue, and about the Hesed. She then sings a song about childhood years and the house where she was born, and Lemster asks about the camp songs again.

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

Kapustina reads from a booklet about Passover, which has Hebrew text in Russian letters. She recalls that her parents kept Passover carefully, that her father fetched Passover dishes from another town and kept them in the attic. Her mother could read Hebrew and the prayer book.

Weiss talks about his Polish gymnasium: strict teachers, Latin, Ukrainian and German lessons, a favorite mathematics teacher whose name is given, and the German teacher. He earned money by tutoring. He recalls antisemitism, mostly in Lviv and also visible in Drohobych, alongside friendships with non-Jewish classmates. He then answers questions about Bruno Schulz, his drawing teacher, and tells about a cousin, Regina Hershdorfer, who was hidden, sent to camps and returned to Drohobych, where she died in 1990.

Answering Kerler's questions about songs, Kopyt sings fragments of Yiddish songs she recalls from a non-Jewish shoemaker neighbour who worked with Jews, and a toast at a wedding. She sings the tailor song again in full, adding one on Sholem Aleichem. Kerler notes how to pronounce Yiddish words in the Ashkenazic way. Lemster then asks about gravestones, and she says she has photographs showing the Babi Yar-type memorials (a mass grave of Jews and one for kolkhoz peasants).

Geller speaks of a nephew in Chisinau, whose family now lives in Israel. A relative's wife and son drowned in a shipwreck, and Geller mentions a Yiddish newspaper (Yiddish 'Vek'(?)) article about a man who grew up Jewish. Kerler and Geller then read a document granting Geller a pension supplement for special service to Ukraine.

Kerler asks about Geller's grandparents; he never met them, as his paternal grandfather died under Romanian rule, and he knew only a paternal aunt, whom he has photographs of. He recalls Passover in Kuzmin in the 1930s, when matzo was secretly available from a widow, and says the large synagogue stayed open until the Germans arrived. His father visited relatives in Chisinau before the war.

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.

The couple discuss books and Yiddish school, and how people come to congratulate Gaiviker on Victory Day. He says he is the only one of his age in the district and lists his medals, including Stalingrad and Latvia; a photograph is promised for later.

Zinger recalls the local shoykhet's prayer and recites the Shema and blessings. He tells how he was called to the haftarah and gives details of his bar mitzvah. He remembers a tailor and his parents, who perished. He speaks of Velykyi Bereznyi's trades and professions, naming a tailor, shoemaker, tinsmith and the Jewish doctor Munk. Kerler asks about a folk remedy, "quenching coals", and Zinger explains it. He mentions Hungarian interviewers and the cassettes he received from America. He tells of visiting his wife's grave and the Yiddish headstone designed by a rabbi.

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

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

Shapiro recalls that during the war all officers were called out and told they must join the Communist Party, and he became a member. He mentions commanding a unit that built bridges and says he was given a large sum of money. He shows a small book and a document, partly read aloud in Russian by Kerler, praising him as an engineer and colleague for more than twenty years. Shapiro describes a recommendation for a better-paid post and a dispute about a trip to a place connected with Shevchenko. Kerler then asks about trades in Vinnytsya.

At the start the team is received in the house. The hosts discuss some books they want to give away and Katz says Kerler can take them, and Shapiro's helper is from Vinnytsya and now lives in Kyiv. Shapiro mentions his work at an institute, a congratulatory address and a gift of money from a former institute director, and the talk ends with the start of an account of his family and his orphaned father.

Katz and Kerler divide the books: Kerler takes the Yiddish ones and the others are left with the Russian ones. The host's husband shows three small booklets he made about Jews in the war, and Kerler asks whether he wrote them.

Faina Braverman shows her tsene-rene, which belonged to an aunt (name uncertain) with inscriptions in Russian. She tells how she first learned Torah as a small child, starting with Leviticus, and Kerler examines a Bible translation she also owns. Semyon's father's calendar leaf and copies of the newspaper Eynikeyt are brought out. Katz and Kerler work out a date from Hebrew letters.

Melamed says he has no special knowledge of Yiddish, only a passive childhood knowledge, and that he attended a Russian school. He describes his earlier work as a literary scholar, including books on George Kennan and Korolenko and articles on Jewish themes. He describes finding unknown material in provincial archives, such as the rabbinical school's files, and reconstructing about 70 members of Bialik's family. He also describes his work with Project Judaica and his archival guide to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Melamed outlines his plans: a book on the Jewish world of old Zhytomyr, a recent article on the early history of the Zhytomyr Jewish community, and a series of archival guides for Ukraine under Project Judaica. He explains why Jewish genealogy is difficult: lost memory under the Soviets, name and registration problems, falsified revision lists and missing records. He says his subjects are mostly the dead, known from gravestones and archives. He says the search interests him more than the results and mentions Natan Eidelman's influence. Kerler asks what drew him to genealogy.

Kipnis speaks about the commemoration of her father, Itsik Kipnis, as a Yiddish writer, including a prize and media coverage. She recalls that after he came to Kyiv in 1944 (?), he went on the second day on foot to Babyn Yar. Kerler then sets up the microphone and explains the archive project at Indiana for recording spoken Yiddish, culture and literature. He says that they live near Chicago.

Kipnis talks about her father Itsik Kipnis after his return from imprisonment: his weak health, his arrest and interrogation, and the newspapers people came to read at his home. She describes his three libraries, his love of art albums and of Chagall, his friendships with Ukrainian, Russian and Yiddish writers, and his years in the camps, including a fellow prisoner and a small Jewish group marking holidays. She also mentions his diaries, now mostly archived in Israel, and his heart attacks.

Kerler puts questions on food terms (sour, sweet-sour dishes, tsimes and why it is made, latkes, chopped versus stuffed fish) and on the word 'Galitsianer'. Torchinsky then tells how the Sunday Yiddish school in Kyiv was founded, and shows the camera a newspaper clipping about it. Its president Levitas asked him to teach there, and Torchinsky was hesitant because of his limited schooling and decades without using Yiddish. A friend, the poet Yosl Bukhbinder, encouraged him. He later wrote a reader and poems, some printed in Birobidzhaner Shtern and Sovetish Heymland.

Khandros talks about his genealogical research in archives, where he is brought bundles of documents, including Russian-language census-type records from Ozarinets. He explains that Jewish children were named after grandparents (himself after his paternal grandfather, his brother after his maternal one), which let him trace his great-grandfather and his children. Kerler comments on the value of this naming custom for Jewish genealogy.

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

Khandros says the fairs ended with collectivisation, then shows articles and a book on the famine by a Ukrainian writer and a Russian one, complaining that he has never been invited to conferences on the Famine because he is a Jew. He praises his father, who was so loved as a teacher that his name alone sufficed in the village. He reads, in Russian, accounts he recorded from a widow in 1988 about the village where documents survive and about a death in 1933, mentions his two films and his writings, and says most pieces are about 1933.

Khandros shows a photograph of a gravestone about two hundred years old, taken for his film and book. Kerler asks whether a copy of the film can be bought. Khandros talks about the film's reviews, the English version he hopes to obtain, and his friend Borys Zabarko, a Yiddish-speaking man from Sharhorod. He says he has made more than thirty documentary films and has two feature-film projects that the actor Bohdan Stupka liked. Jerzy Hoffman is mentioned.

Derbaremdiker gives his personal data while Kerler fills in the form. He fled Berdychiv in early July 1941, and the Germans entered the next day and seized documents, among them his birth record in Yiddish and Hebrew. He names himself as Mordkhe, son of Levi Yitskhok, and his mother as Perl. His birthplace was the Kachanivka district of Berdychiv. He also tells what his younger brother in New York recalled of a house where Mendele Moykher Sforim once lived.

Rusakovskaia answers questions about what makes a 'good Jew'. She recalls her mother helping people in need and collecting money for them at the synagogue. She describes the separate Jewish and non-Jewish cemetery fields in Chornobyl', where her parents are buried. Only gravestones with Hebrew inscriptions remained after the war. Visitors from Kyiv came to the graves of their parents, and Jews gave money for memorial prayers. She describes women reading in the upstairs part of the synagogue and shows her father's handwritten copy of the prayer book.

The interviewers and Derbaremdiker exchange contact information, including his brother's address in Brooklyn and phone numbers. He says no university in Kyiv teaches Yiddish at present. He says he will turn 85 in July (?) and mentions that he has a copy of his Jewish birth record. They talk about visiting Rabbi Bleich briefly.

Kerler and Vider discuss the earlier recording of Vider and the people who photographed and filmed him, who asked about his father. Vider says he has a portrait of his father and mother at home, and Kerler asks him to show it. The passage also includes a Purim-type ditty from the recording. The transcript is too garbled to confirm what was shown on the computer.

Krotsh answers questions on old words and tashlikh, and names the small river at Ștefănești. He describes visiting his hometown at the Prut border in the early 1960s, after 17 years away, and the paperwork problems he had getting a passport. He begins his wartime account: in 1940 he and a brother crossed to the Soviets while his father and mother stayed.

Vider describes his large collection of Yiddish music cassettes. He says he recorded Yiddish concerts from television, in a place whose name is unclear in the transcript, using an old tape recorder, and that he worked winters and travelled in summer. Kerler asks whether a particular song can be found on the tapes and suggests listening to some. Most of the passage has almost no transcribed speech, apparently while the tapes play, with Russian remarks about a museum and photographs near the end and a mention that Yiddish songs follow.

Vider says his catalogue does not list the Yiddish items he has on records, and a song about a Jewish peddler selling cheap cigarettes is heard. He and Kerler discuss a theater and ensemble from Ivano-Frankivsk that perform Yiddish songs, Ukrainian artists who learned Yiddish, and a similar group in Chernivtsi. Kerler then asks for pictures of Vider's parents, and Vider and a woman look for photographs, partly in Russian.

Vider answers Kerler's question about a handwritten copy he has, which seems to be a prayer text connected with the penitential prayers (selichot, ?). He explains that he had no prayer book and prays at home, and that he copied the text down when an old woman came. The catalogue's recitation of the prayer is not visible in the transcript.

A man named Groysman, from Tarashcha, is introduced and speaks some Yiddish about his move to Korsun' in the 1950s (?) and later departure. The rest is a tour of the museum of the association of Jewish shtetls. A Russian-speaking guide explains exhibits: old family photographs, famous natives such as the Tverskys of the Chernobyl dynasty, writers including Ivan Kulyk, Shimen Dobin and Itsik Fefer, descendants of Mendel Beilis, and the 1919 Jewish self-defense unit of Korsun' with a saber from Kotovsky's cavalry. Other exhibits are pogrom committee papers, a 1926 Berdychiv prayer book, Yiddish-Russian documents from Jewish village soviets, a Jewish school open from 1924 to 1938, family silver, a gefilte fish mold, a clockmaker's tools, a mezuzah and handwritten calendars. The guide also describes how the museum was assembled with American help after the association was founded in 1993. Kerler asks about scanning and clock terminology, and at the end the guide shows books by Poroshenko and Malka Pen.

Khonigsman shows books from his library, including one by Sholem Aleichem and works by Hrynberg (?) and Markish. He talks about a Ukrainian Jewish writer who finished a Yiddish school and spoke fine Yiddish, whom nobody could bribe. Kerler asks his opinion of a book by Solzhenitsyn (?), which Khonigsman says is not a historian's work.

At the great synagogue, Dorfman explains that it survived the Holocaust because the Germans used it as a stable, and that after its closing in 1962 it became a sports club. He describes the present cultural centre with its library, Sunday school, Yiddish theatre studio, ulpan and veterans' section, and shows photographs of events. He mentions the opening of the memorial with Israeli and American representatives and the donors from Vienna, Tel Aviv and London.

Kerler and Lemster show a book about the town, with an English edition, and talk about the author and a film made there. Shvardovskaia compares the book and the film, mentions her grandchild, and talks in Russian about someone in Lviv and about relatives in Israel (Jerusalem) and America whose grandparents came from the town.

Asked about customs in Derazhnya, Shoikhetman speaks of circumcision and of laying tefillin at thirteen. The tefillin and a tallis came as a parcel from his father's brothers in Palestine. He recalls his family burying belongings in a tin from American canned food to hide them. He then shows an old prayer book with Hebrew and Russian text, with a date in the 1870s mentioned, and Kerler discusses who translated it.

Lemster and Kerler explain the project to Shoikhetman: Indiana University has been documenting Yiddish speakers for five years, and they leave him a Russian-language program sheet. The talk turns to a Yiddish book in Russian translation, probably Sholem Aleichem, and to postwar Soviet editions, including the 1947–1948 closures after the Jewish Antifascist Committee.

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

Tzentziper says he has a medal from Israel, sent as a letter or certificate in his name, which he cannot read. He then tells of his childhood in the colony. There were many children, only one or two of them still alive, and the colony lived reasonably well, everyone working.

Tzentziper says his best years were after the war, when he and his wife both worked and lived well though not richly. He had two children, a daughter and a son. The grandchildren live in Israel, and a photograph is looked at. Kerler then asks about Purim customs and songs, to which Tzentziper has little to say.

Vainbrand says he married after the war, and Lemster asks whether a wedding canopy was used and, after Vainbrand directs him to a photograph, about the son's birth. He says there were two shoykhets in town and one was the circumciser. His son married in Odesa under a canopy. He reflects that no one is left who remembers these things, and begins to speak of kosher meat.

Katz and Kerler ask Feldman about prayers around the Torah reading and the Sabbath service. He recalls studying the Pentateuch, the Hallel and Pirkei Avot, and the Sabbath morning prayers. He mentions the prayer books he inherited from his father, including holiday prayer books.

Katz asks about tzaddikim and she names one in Uman and mentions Vilna, saying she only knows that tzaddikim lived there. She also mentions receiving a Jewish newspaper from Opshtshina (?). Most of the passage is Katz and Kerler talking among themselves about finding a photocopying machine for her father's book.

Kerler asks about the Yiddish school. Turovskaia remembers a teacher named Avrom but not the subjects. Talk turns to a booklet of her father's stories about the tzaddik, which she has prepared for the interviewers. She says the tzaddik knew who came to him and why.

Turovskaia says her mother's wedding dress is kept in her wardrobe and recalls the wedding with a chuppah in the 1920s among relatives. She begins on 1942, when her father was released.

At the Peretz Markish museum in Polonne, S2 (the catalogue's Bentsianov) guides the team and talks mostly in Russian about Markish's life, with Kerler putting in a few comments. He covers Markish's birth in Polonne, cheder, singing in the synagogue, early jobs, his move to Yekaterinoslav, the Polish and Paris period, Palestine in 1923 and his return to Kharkiv and Moscow. He also mentions Markish's family, with pictures of the parents and siblings, his children Olga and Shimon, and his wife Esther. He describes the museum's collection of photographs and books. Zak is hardly heard in this passage.

Bentsianov explains Markish's career in Moscow and his standing in Jewish literature. He lists his books, plays and translations into several languages, including Hebrew, English and Chuvash. He tells how he collected materials from many countries and how the Soviet-era ban on Markish's books affected Polonne. He describes the 1965 jubilee and the renaming of a street after Markish, with letters from writers, and shows the porcelain-factory items made for the museum. Kerler and Bentsianov discuss the postwar memorial to Jews killed in the war and the Polonne ghetto, and Bentsianov proposes to play a recording.

Kerler writes an entry in the museum's visitor's book, and the team reads other entries and press clippings. The clippings are from Moscow, Kyiv, regional, Lviv and Israeli papers and one from Krakow. Bentsianov comments on the authors, including a journalist who praised the museum, a critical remark about the synagogue being turned into a museum, and an English-language entry.

Back at the museum, Kerler asks to look at Bentsianov's publications. Bentsianov shows an article about a Jewish boy, a congratulation on his seventieth birthday, and a certificate from the Jewish community. The talk turns to his articles on Markish and those translated into Yiddish.

Kerler looks through Litvak's Yiddish books and comments on editions, including Soviet printings from the 1940s, classics such as Sholem Aleichem, Peretz and Mendele, and a Polish-Yiddish author he knew. The recording is garbled and part of the talk is hard to follow.

Shvartzbroit names her sister Rivke and describes the deportation to the camp in cattle wagons, the Romanians and then the Germans, and the gold teeth pulled from prisoners. She tells of a Bessarabian Jew killed by a policeman, of Tulchin Jews like skeletons and of her mother. Her escape is told in detail: she walked about two hundred kilometres on foot as a child, hid in the forest and was helped by a non-Jewish woman, and some of it is hard to follow. She reflects that Jews are only guests in this world, and mentions a son in Israel and a daughter in Germany with two grandchildren, promising photographs.

Yerikhman argues against emigration, especially to Germany, saying people abroad struggle and that he is attached to Sharhorod, a Jewish shtetl, and answers Katz's questions about its future. The team then goes into the former synagogue, now a wine factory, with his nephew, who shows and reads from old religious books (a book of laments for Tisha b'Av, a handwritten letter, a kind of wedding gift); a man explains the building and the street. The team then sits in Luda's café-restaurant Dana, where Kerler explains that she learned Yiddish from her mother-in-law, and she and her family answer questions in mixed Yiddish and Russian about the town's Jewish population (a figure of 4,000 is mentioned), emigration, and her son Igor'. Finally the team meets Klara Kurman, who gives her name and her parents' names (father Leyb, a feldsher; mother Rivke), mentions her grandfather as an apothecary, and begins describing her work and hiding in a cellar during the war.

Kleiner says she married in 1945, after the war, with a cantor writing the betrothal contract and a wedding canopy. She mentions that her son is a painter and her husband a military man, and recalls that she has no wedding photographs. She remembers prewar Jewish weddings, with betrothal contracts (tnoim), klezmer music and the breaking of a plate. She then answers questions about folk remedies such as milk with butter or honey, potato compresses, rubbing with turpentine, kerosene for worms, and cupping.

Bivson and Kerler discuss her late son's presence on the Internet, with a portrait by an artist, Vilen Abramovich Kurman. Kerler notes visitors come from various countries, and Bivson closes with wishes for peace, health and not being forgotten. Kerler thanks her, in Yiddish and Russian.

Klein says her school taught many subjects and produced professors, and that many relatives were killed. Kerler and Klein discuss sending copies of photos and material through a Hesed. They talk about the great synagogue and about Gotlober, whose name she checked, and Kerler says he left memoirs and works in Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish.

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.

Sapozhnik shows Kerler and Lemster old photographs. They include the kolkhoz, which she says was Jewish, and her husband, son, brother Leib, her father, and a granddaughter in Moldova whose mother was non-Jewish. They ask when the kolkhoz photo was taken, and about window frames and a cellar. She also speaks about the ghetto and forced labor, a sister-in-law who emigrated, and her complaints about the repair of her house, the toilet and the local official. The team thanks her and leaves for the next interview.

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.

Presler gives her parents' and grandparents' families: both parents were born in Tul'chyn, and her mother had six sisters and two brothers. Her maternal grandfather was a glazier, and her father's family were musicians who played in a klezmer band for weddings, Purim and holidays. She describes growing up in the Kapsynivka quarter by the little river with crowded houses, and the family gatherings there with food, dancing and Yiddish songs. She recalls the 1933 famine, in which a relative died, and the dollars her sisters sent from America. She describes prewar hunger and poverty, and discusses her sisters' wartime and postwar lives, one of them marrying a non-Jewish officer. She answers Kerler's questions about plural forms, Yiddish words and dance names, and recalls Purim and weddings. She also talks about her grandson's singing and her prewar religious life, a synagogue building taken over, and her father's prayer. The passage ends with photographs of Pechera camp survivors, including one from 1990, the year her husband died.

Asked about the best years of his life, Yurkovetskij says they were after he returned from the war, when he reunited with his children, rebuilt his life and worked as a driver. Kerler wishes him long life, and they discuss old photographs and sending a message to Tul'chyn natives in America. Photographs for the exhibition are discussed.

Yurkovetskij answers questions about his life, mostly in a loosely ordered conversation. He says he trained as a driver in Bratslav in 1937 and drove for decades. During the war he drove in Poland and Finland and served in Odessa; he was wounded in the leg, sent home, and later spent a year in the Pechera camp. He drove a general through Budapest, Prague, Vienna and Berlin, and describes the hunger in Budapest and a general's profiteering. He describes the 1919 pogrom in Tul'chyn, in which his father (a hatmaker), mother and grandfather were killed by a bandit band, and how his grandmother raised him and his brothers in poverty, with a Polish priest involved in his rescue. A brother died in the war, and his sons now live in America. He also names the Jewish streets of Tul'chyn and gives the Jewish population as over ten thousand. He talks about Stalin, Trotsky and Lenin, his school, an old synagogue, Poland and Finland in 1939–40, being wounded in Odessa when the war began, the ghetto in Bershad', and the visitors' own homes.

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.

In Krasheny's flat Kerler tries to get a deaf man to talk about Uman' and Yiddish life there. S4 and S3 explain in Russian that photographs show a first minyan some fifteen years earlier, and that a man in them went to America. An elderly man (S2) rambles in Yiddish about the first pilgrims to arrive, Yom Kippur, his grandfather the tsadik and a dream; the transcript is too garbled to follow in detail.

At the former Great Synagogue, now a concert hall, Naybauer and a guide (Russian-speaking) describe its architecture, including the women's gallery, the pseudo-Moorish style and the hall's acoustics. The hall was built in 1904 (per the Russian). Katz and Kerler ask about the layout of the men's synagogue, the ark and the bimah. Naybauer says he prayed here for some years after the war until it was closed. He regrets that no plaque marks it; one was put up and taken down after a few days, and the guide dates this to 1989. The guide recalls American rabbis offering to buy and dismantle the building, and talks about musicians who played there. Kerler thanks the staff and the group moves on.

The team enters Chirkova's flat and sits down in the kitchen. She starts showing things on the wall and explaining photographs. Kerler asks about her books.

Chirkova explains photographs on the wall, including one sent from America. She says her brother fought at the front and was captured. She also mentions a sister who has died. Another voice asks what Yiddish books she has, and she offers a book.

Kerler asks about a photograph, and Chirkova says it shows her when she came back from the front. She tells of having it taken at a photographer's, and says she was at the front or working on supplies for it. She mentions a sister who worked in a factory and sent packages. Kerler asks which front she was on; her answers are unclear.

At Abrashe's closed house the team greets him. Kerler and Katz remind him of an earlier visit, mention photographs and visitors from America, and ask about his family, saying his grandmother has died. A short Russian exchange follows.

Shraibman recalls two very pious Jews, Moshe Yosl and Zelik, killed by the Germans; at eleven this was a tragedy for him. He describes holidays in his childhood and the grandmothers' Sabbath. Kerler asks about holiday food: foods for Yom Kippur eve, the sukkah of Moshe Yosl, dairy foods and blintzes for Shavuot, latkes for Hanukkah and hamantashn for Purim. He mentions his grandfather, the tailor, who walked on foot to Chernyakhiv, 25 km away, and shows photographs of his family.

Nibulskiy completes the story of a fellow student who was paralysed and cured after his wife went to the Velednik rebbe. He talks about visits to the Velednik rebbe's grave, where people laid coins, and shows a coin he carries with threads, with Kerler asking how a coin becomes a segulah. The word mashbie (?) is discussed, and he begins to say that his father taught him a prayer.

Nibulskiy says that on Sabbath he carried his grandfather's tallis and tefillin to the synagogue as a child, and that he can read prayers only in a Russian-language siddur. Kerler mentions that he has copied the prayer in Hebrew letters from his dictation, and Nibulskiy offers to give his Toronto relatives' address.