Theater

Asked by Kerler about Yiddish theater in Debrecen, Rezmovits says only the Bucharest Yiddish theater came after the war. He also says Hungarian Jews had difficulty understanding Yiddish dialect. He then addresses Hungarian Jews' negative attitude toward Polish Jews, and being mocked in Israel for his Hungarian accent.

Reti recalls the Joseph play episode of the pit and a creature whose name is discussed (a word rendered as a scorpion). He explains a children's game in which a prize went to the person who hit the target from twenty or thirty meters, and relates it to Sukkot, though the catalogue's name "nuts" is not clear in the transcript. S2 asks about the language at home and Reti says his father employed a Yiddish-speaking non-Jewish farmhand. He also mentions the family's fields and servants and the plays staged on Sukkot.

Lemster explains the aims of the dialect project and asks what 'pure Yiddish' means to her. She says many non-Jews spoke Yiddish and that many Jews lived among Christians. He then asks about words, among them 'meshumed', Lithuanian and Bessarabian Jew, and a 'good place' for a cemetery, 'Jewish field' being the answer she gives. Other topics are the town's trades, Yiddish papers and books, theatre, concerts and cinema, which she says were expensive, klezmer, a wedding with a rabbi, hasidim and a 'good Jew'. She says she knows few of the terms.

Boltykh says his father was born in Lipcani and his mother in Briceni, and speaks briefly of Yiddish theater before the war, which did not survive it. A stretch of mainly Russian speech follows on his date of birth and patronymic, which Kerler notes down together with the date of the interview. He then turns to his father.

Goldberg says her brother was younger than she. During the war the family was in Stalingrad and then in the Urals, where he worked at a mine. She says Yiddish actors visited Călărași before the war, but she does not remember details. Lemster then turns to the Jewish holidays.

Shpitalnik describes the districts of prewar Chișinău, including the poor lower town and the Old Bridge area, and the richer upper parts. She talks about the Teater Ekspres, the Auerbach family and two Jewish dancers named Seltser, who performed Yiddish theater and European dances.

Lipovetskiy describes a head covering of the kind a woman wears, in connection with a religious obligation. He explains the number of Hanukkah candles and the money children received from parents and friends. He recalls the metal dreidel and a Yiddish theatre troupe, including an actress named Sidi Tal from Bessarabia who later lived in Chernivtsi, in answer to Kerler's questions about Purim performances.

Sherman describes his mother's Sabbath and holiday food, especially gefilte fish (not peppery), sweet-and-sour meat, and a yellow cake at Purim; at Hanukkah children played with dreidels. He says there was no Purim play in Telenești, only the custom of noisemakers in the synagogue. When pressed he says amateurs staged Yiddish plays at Purim.

Diner is asked about Yiddish songs, films and her own Yiddish. She sings fragments of Yiddish songs she remembers: "A brivele der mamen", "Lomir zikh iberbetn", "Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib" and "Ikh bin farlibt in mayn eygenem man". She says she speaks no Yiddish with anyone now. The interviewers then ask about amateur theater in the town.

Kerler shows old photographs of Chișinău from around 1900 and Mitlaeva identifies buildings and streets. These include the main Aleksandrovskaya street, now Ștefan cel Mare, the Savoy and Bristol hotels, the fire brigade and the city bank. She also names the town hall, where King Carol II and Prince Mihai appeared, and the Passage, and mentions local theaters such as the Orfeum and a Romanian national theater. She also recalls her self-taught English and a merchant named Katarzhil (?).

Asked by Kerler what films were shown in Chișinău before the war, Mitlaeva names several Soviet films, among them adaptations of Tolstoy and Ostrovsky and a comedy, and recalls a Jewish film shown around Passover or Purim. They also touch on the circus and theatre and on the barracks and other buildings of the Romanian-era town, and Kerler asks her to recall verses she learned at school.

Asked about a Yiddish library, Goldman says there was one in another town and mentions relatives there, including his father's sister. He cannot recall what he read, whether Yiddish newspapers came, or Yiddish theatre, though he says there was one Yiddish book at home. Asked about the war years, he mentions two Jews with him, one named Shaykele Bikhman (?), who is now in Israel and unwell. The passage breaks off with Goldman asking to finish.

Dajch answers terminology questions, with Kerler asking for the Yiddish word for a Romanian term. She says she was in Iași from 1931 to 1936 and describes going to the national theatre there to hear Joseph Schmidt. She recalls Purim, with gypsy musicians going from house to house, children in masks and a Purim rhyme, and Sukkot customs, including the shoykhet's rounds, Hoshana Rabba and the shofar.

Dajch speaks about prewar Jewish organisations in Nisporeni: many Zionists and some communists, but no Bundists. She describes Simchat Torah, with men gathering in the synagogue to drink wine and eat nuts and bread, and women sitting separately. She explains that her mother read Yiddish books brought by Jewish students from Iași and nearby Boldureşti (?), that her brother studied in cheder, and discusses amateur theater at the Casa Națională.

Fershtman is asked about songs his mother sang; he recalls only Ukrainian songs recorded on a tape recorder and no Yiddish ones. He then speaks about Odesa after 1938, where the language of school and daily life moved to Russian even in the vocational school. He mentions that there was a Yiddish theater in Odesa.

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.

Kleyman discusses traditional Jewish weddings, which she says were the finest, including a wedding she attended as a girl in Briceni. She describes the wedding pastries and the flodn, and explains a flodn ingredient. She recalls what her mother-in-law said about Jewish merchants in Lipcani before the war. Katz asks about writers, theatre and the film or cinema in Lipcani, and Kleyman says she was a child then. Kerler ends by asking about folk remedies against the evil eye.

Lemster asks Shvartzman for old Yiddish proverbs, and she cannot recall them. She remembers her mother singing to the children. Later the group discusses Yiddish concerts in Briceni, a singer who performed Yiddish songs, and a second person's memories of Jewish actors and singers. Shvartzman then recites a popular Yiddish song about the little town. She mentions the author Fekhtman and his book about Lipcani and tells how she lost her house.

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.

Kigel recalls a Jewish couple who converted to Christianity. She says she did not learn to read or write Yiddish, because she avoided her tutor's lessons. She mentions a Jewish bank and Zionists and communists in town, and recalls going to the theater and the cinema, where the films were in Romanian rather than Yiddish.

Boiarskaia says she attended a Moldovan school in the village, and that Rîbniţa had a Yiddish school that was closed. Her father taught her brothers at home but not her. She recalls Yiddish books in the house and a Yiddish theater in Moscow that her father visited. Before the war, Yiddish artists still came from Chernivtsi to Rîbniţa.

Rolshut says she was in the Rybnitsa ghetto during the war. She then recalls prewar Soroca: its many Jews and large Jewish life, community, library and visiting Yiddish theatre. Visiting troupes included the Vilna Troupe and artists from Bucharest, and local amateurs staged shows in the club or cinema. She also mentions a penny library of small Yiddish books, including Sholem Aleichem, and says there was no local newspaper.

Mirenburg talks about her childhood friends, Jewish children and non-Jewish servants who spoke Yiddish, and mentions a Jewish girl who married a Christian, a rare case. She says there was a library of Yiddish books and recalls children watching the singer Sidi Tal perform Yiddish songs in a neighbor's courtyard; the interviewers ask whether she came from Chernivtsi. Kerler also asks about a fire brigade, which she does not know of.

She answers questions about the meaning of expressions such as a good Jew and a Hebrew term. She then describes the private tutor who taught her at home, with notebooks and arithmetic. She recalls the postwar Russian-language touring troupe of Dina Zlatiyaner, which performed songs in Russian and Moldovan. Kerler asks about conversion to Judaism.

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.

Moisei says he attended cheder, and when his father could not pay he took a private tutor who came to the house. Lemster asks about Yiddish theatre from Iaşi and Bucharest, the tea-house where his father went, and Yiddish songs and storytelling. He says little about the Jews of Arivë (?) and their business.

Asked about Romanian Yiddish writers, Meir names Itzik Kara of Iași and recalls the local writer and theater man Yisroel Berkovitsh, whom he knew. He also mentions amateur theater figures such as Yankl Halpern and Marian Ernberg.

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 recites a riddle and a humorous version of Tumbalalaika. The interviewers ask about gramophone records and popular Yiddish songs. He recalls a magician show and the cinemas and theaters of Chernivtsi, including Russian actors. S3 also helps.

Grunfeld says about twenty Jewish families lived in Zău, with a synagogue, cheder and mikveh, and he lived there until about the age of ten. He recalls Purim customs: sending gifts between families and going masked as a Romanian peasant child, with short Purim plays and visits to the Romanian teacher. Lemster asks for a Purim song, but Grunfeld says he cannot sing and recalls only a few words.

Hershkovich speaks about prewar culture and reading. As a yeshiva student he did not go to the theater. He read religious texts and stories of tsadikim in Hebrew, though he spoke and wrote letters in Yiddish. He says there are different Yiddish dialects, and that his own is closest to Polish Yiddish. He is asked about Litvaks, whom he describes as learned people.

Freundlich explains that at home the family spoke Hungarian on weekdays but only Yiddish on Sabbath, and that everyone knew Yiddish, the mother tongue. She describes her father's Purim meal and the Purim play, with youths dressed as women and a Purim rabbi, the charity given, and says she has a Hungarian translation of the megillah.

Freundlich says she was a soloist and that her husband was a precentor. A woman sings a Yiddish folk song about longing for the mother, and Freundlich then tells of a Hungarian-language theatrical production of Shir HaShirim that she criticised.

Lipovici talks about earlier times, apparently family and a brother-in-law, and about the present: health, relatives abroad and the lack of a pension. Kerler asks about a Yiddish theater before the war. The interviewers ask for an address to send material.

Chajim explains that he was a Communist because they gave him bread, and speaks of escaping from a camp. His father died in Israel, and he mentions sitting shiva for his wife. He names his mother, remembers her cooking (kugel, fish, gefilte fish on Sabbath eve) and her candle-lighting. He had six brothers and two sisters, and all the brothers are dead. His father and grandfather were tailors. He was also a tailor and president of a cooperative. Lemster asks about Yiddish theatre, which he does not remember.

The group talks about the Yiddish theater under the communists and the distance to Bucharest. Finkelshteyn then shows the former Jewish hospital and says that it is now an ordinary hospital. He describes an old people's home for the childless elderly, called an "azil" (?). The rest is camera positioning and talk among the team in Russian and Romanian, and Kerler arranges a gathering of Yiddish speakers.

Speakers at the Goldfaden memorial in Iași talk, in garbled transcript, about a Jewish hospital or old-age home and Jewish theater, apparently with reference to Goldfaden and the Romanian theater. The camera is probably recording the memorial.

Kaizerman describes preparations for Passover: cleaning and koshering the house, burning the chametz and eating matzo. His father led the seder and he asked the four questions. He recalls his mother salting meat to make it kosher. He then describes Purim, with sweets and preserves, and masked players going from house to house with the Esther story, together with Gypsy musicians and klezmorim.

Kerler asks about prewar Jewish weddings and the wedding jester, and Chirilau describes the huppah set up by the synagogues of the tailors and shoemakers, without recalling the entertainer's name. She also confirms that small plays were performed at the Yiddish school on Purim.

Chirilau answers questions about the town's cinema and visiting Yiddish theater troupes, which performed in a large school hall. She says she understood Yiddish plays and recalls singers. She does not remember a Zionist organization by name, but describes a hekhalutz group that met for dancing, talk and aliyah. She also names local musicians.

Freundlich talks about Purim plays in the community, which mocked communal figures such as the head of the community, the gabbai, the shamash and the rabbi, sometimes causing offence. As a child he dressed up as a bridegroom or hasid with a kaftan and shtraymel; he recalls that he and his brothers tried to put on performances but could not pay for talent.

Freundlich answers Lemster's questions on the terms dybbuk, golem and the words for a cemetery. He mentions having seen Sidi Tal perform in Sighet (?) or Baia Mare (?), his father's love of cantors and operettas, and neighbors gathering around the first radio in the street.

Freund briefly says he worked as an accountant after the war, including in the Ceaușescu period. He answers terminology questions: the Yiddish name of the town (Gros-Wardein, i.e. Grosswardein-type form), the word dibbuk, which he knew from a Yiddish theater performance by a Bucharest troupe visiting after the war, and the word golem.

Freundlich says he took no part in Purim plays because he had no talent and went around only for the money. He recalls his father telling of performing and singing songs while studying in Vienna. With Kerler he discusses whether Jewish Purim plays in German existed.

Freundlich continues his wartime story: a group of 47 men held by Russian soldiers, including Jews from the Carpathians who spoke Yiddish and Russian, and an officer who was Jewish. He calls his escape a miracle. Kerler asks about Purim plays and theater, and Freundlich recalls a Yiddish touring actor in Maramureș. He says there were few Hasidim in Baia Mare. He speaks of newcomers and rebbes, a dispute among rabbis, and a visit to a rebbe in Sighet. A passing question about the meaning of a word appears, but a clear dialectological questionnaire is not evident.

Sings the song about how what was is gone, with Kerler asking about the refrain's wording. She recalls the summer theater in Sighet, the Hungarian and Yiddish actors Strömer and his wife, and an actress who sang there. She sings a song that a Jewish girl needs a Jewish boy, tied to a woman who married a Romanian and later died in Auschwitz. She mentions her friends' fates after the war, including those who went to Israel, and the judge husband of the woman.

Marcus says he attended a Romanian school in Săveni. He estimates the number of Jews in the town before and after the war, and says his Jewish childhood friends spoke Yiddish and have all gone to Israel. He recalls studying with a private Hebrew teacher for several years at home, for two hours a day, and that he once could read Yiddish. He also says touring theater groups used to come from Bucharest.

Salamon talks about her grandparents, Esther and Yankl, and her grandfather's yeshiva study. Yankl was taken to Auschwitz, and he came from a village near Sighet (the name is unclear in the transcript). She describes her father telling the weekly Torah portion at the table and the absence of Yiddish theater and press in Sighet. She says she attended a Romanian school, while girls of the Beis Yaakov school learned in Yiddish. She explains that Hasidic visitors do not enter the Sephardic (?) synagogue, and that her two grandmothers were sisters.

Salamon says her mother sang Hungarian songs, and that her own theater experience was a Hungarian performance, as an uncle took her to the theater. She mentions that there was Yiddish theater before the war, although she never attended it. She names her mother's brothers and her father's brother, and her father's sisters. She also says prewar life was a beautiful dream and she found no one after the war.

Answering Lemster's questions, Kurtsberg discusses non-Jews who spoke Yiddish and says he has not heard of converts. He names the Zionist organizations in Siret (Yikhud, Maccabi) and the Jewish Democratic Committee through which people registered for emigration to Palestine. He also answers questions about a Yiddish library, newspapers, sports clubs and Yiddish theater performances in Siret.

Mehler talks about her life in Iași and about the few people who still know Yiddish or German. She recalls seeing Yiddish theater as a child, says Yiddish was not spoken at home, and says the Jewish community office is closed on weekends. Kerler explains the project; she mentions an American connection (Connecticut?).

Weinberger describes visiting Yiddish performers in Stropkov, among them singers with a harmonica and a Russian-Yiddish singer whose photograph he holds. He names the happiest time as Sabbath and holidays with his family, and describes walking to a mikveh and minyan from his uncle's village. He describes Sabbath and festival food, including fish, cholent and kishke, and says that a drink of schnapps and honey cake was a delight. He also mentions drinking and the preparation of schnapps.

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

Pivnik talks about her time in the Jewish autonomous region of Birobidzhan around 1938–39, where her sister had moved and where Yiddish was spoken; she worked there in a school-related job (unclear). Lemster mentions the poet Lyuba Vasserman. She recalls a prewar concert in Balta by Clara Young, a performer from America, and an acting couple who settled in Balta. Many Jews attended. The conversation turns to Balta's size and to Hershl Polyanker's writings, then to her reading in Russian and Yiddish.

Pivnik says she does not remember antisemitism before the war, and a Russian remark says there is none now. She and her daughter describe their housing and privatization, then life in the Soviet Far East during evacuation, where goods were cheap and she worked. She says her husband was an actor named Misha Petrov (?) whom she married in 1942. Her daughter explains she came to Balta at age three in 1947 and learned Yiddish from the large family of aunts, not her mother. Kerler urges them to speak more Yiddish.

Sonya briefly says she studied at an institute in the Urals during the war and then in Kyiv. She recalls her father's strict religious observance, including laying tefillin and praying, and that the synagogue was taken and closed. Kerler asks why she went to a Ukrainian rather than a Yiddish school. Berman then interjects about the director of the Yiddish theater.

Berman says that in the 1930s he and his family knew from the Yiddish press about the Soviet show trials. He names the Yiddish papers Volhyner Nayes (weekly) and Volhyner Yidisher Kuryer (daily) in Rivne. S4 asks about the actor Michl Weichert, and Berman recalls Maurice Schwartz's visit to Rivne.

Recalls seeing Mikhoels perform in Kharkiv, in the role of Tevye the milkman and in both Yiddish and Russian, and comments on the actor Ulyanov. The conversation then turns to the singer Appelbaum in Berdychiv, to the meeting of young and old on a bridge, and to sayings about youth and old age. Asked to sing a Yiddish song, the informants say they do not remember one, and mention a relative who knows a little.

Chukh gives the date and place of the interview and says the Berdychiv tsadik's grave is a pilgrimage site for visitors. She says she was born in Berdychiv, as were her parents, and was evacuated to the Caucasus during the war. Trained as a nurse, she wanted to go to the front but was kept at hospital work because she had a small child. She worked as an operating-room nurse and was later recognised as a war participant. She names her parents (father Yosl/Iosif, a sieve-maker from a place in Poland whose name is unclear; mother Tsirl, a quilt-maker) and her brothers, one in Germany. She describes her Jewish school (school no. 13, seven grades), her later nursing school and her long postwar nursing career in a Berdychiv hospital. She recalls childhood games, dolls she makes today from broken ones, and home life with Yiddish-speaking parents. She tells of the hungry early 1930s, when her mother sewed quilts to feed the children and the school later fed them. She remembers Soviet-era closing of synagogues, the synagogues of Berdychiv, the Hasidic rebbe's prayer house and holiday observance at home but not in school. Chukh also recalls Yiddish literature and press, a large library, visiting Yiddish theaters, the seltzer seller Itsik, and about 60,000 Jews in the town. She describes weddings with music and a rhymester, and Sabbath and holiday foods. She then answers Kerler's dialectological questionnaire: translating Russian words and sentences into Yiddish (greetings, household words, animals, colours, adverbs, body and illness terms), plus words like dybbuk and golem.

Skobilitskii describes prewar drinking customs, including Berdychiv's seltzer water, and remembers a Purim theatre and visiting artists from Kyiv and Moscow. He recalls a cantor from the Kyiv opera hired for Yom Kippur and a singer in postwar Berdychiv, whose name he cannot remember. He talks about learned Polish Jews who had settled in the town, including his father, who came from Poland. The talk ends with how their Yiddish differed.

Skobilitskii recalls anti-religious propaganda that called religion an opiate, and that school subjects were taught in Yiddish. He remembers mocking plays about Jews staged at school, with Yiddish songs. He also mentions a Jewish theatre troupe that performed Sholem Aleichem, cantors in the Koch shul, and the Jewish owner of the fire brigade with white horses.

Furman answers questions about cultural life. Yiddish theater came to Berdychiv with actors from Odessa and Leningrad, and he went to the theater often. He recalls the building opposite the synagogue, now a factory, and other synagogues. Asked about Purim plays, he does not remember any.

Kerler elicits Yiddish words from Soyfer, such as 'sick', 'pious' and 'honest', and he explains how his old grandmother used them. He says his wife is blind and bedridden and mentions the Joint's help and the loss of savings. Lemster asks about theater after the war, and Soyfer recalls a Jewish troupe from Moscow.

Soyfer says that after the war Jewish artists visited Berdychiv. He did not study Yiddish and read Sholem Aleichem in Russian. The interviewers ask whether he knows names of Yiddish writers and artists, then ask for songs, one of them a recruits' song.

Vainshelboim describes four years at a Yiddish school, where Yiddish was the language of instruction, followed by two years in Russian classes after the Yiddish schools were closed in 1939 (?). He names a strict director, Nirman (?), who taught mathematics and physics. He recalls the school hall, where students sang Yiddish songs, recited Sholem Aleichem stories and put on plays such as 'The Gold Diggers'. He also begins to speak of a communal soup kitchen.

Asked about Yiddish songs, Vainshelboim recalls a song about a Jew with seven daughters and sings a few lines of a tailor's song. He says his father played violin, mandolin and similar instruments and sang with young people on Sabbath. He mentions a Yiddish theater near the building of a former factory.

Asked about Jewish culture before the war, they recall visits of Jewish troupes and artists from Moscow, Kyiv and Odessa, concerts, and full synagogues at holidays. They remember Jewish weddings with a fiddle, and her father's work as an accountant and his many languages.

Soyfer remembers Yiddish performers who visited Berdychiv after the war, among them Clara Young, whom he could not get into the theatre to see, and the artist Epelbaum (?). He cannot sing but says there were many Yiddish songs.

Sara recalls that Yiddish actors and singers used to come to Berdychiv. Her elder brother played football for the Progress team, and she remembers going to the stadium that still stands.

Vainshelboim describes the Cook's synagogue, where food was prepared and worshippers could eat after prayers. He recalls a club in Berdychiv in the mid-1930s where Yiddish plays were staged, including one about Sholem Aleichem (?). He says Berdychiv was a Jewish city, called a Jerusalem, with tens of thousands of Jews, and offers to switch off the camera.

Kerler asks about Yiddish theater and Yiddish artists who visited, and about the Kol Nidre melody. Shor says one does not sing on Yom Kippur but only prays. Kerler recalls cantors brought to Bershad' for the holidays in the 1960s (?) and the fees paid.

In Russian with some Yiddish, Yatskova describes the Jewish theatre, Russian theatre and operetta on a street in Odesa, which she attended free of charge. She says she would like to go to Odesa to see where people were shot, but no longer has the strength. She also discusses relatives' inquiries about the fate of family there, and Kerler ends by asking the Yiddish word for cemetery. Kerler mentions an aunt who worked at a cinema.

Kelmenson answers questions about Yiddish entertainment and weddings. She mentions a klezmer musician in Tulchyn and says weddings had Yiddish songs and dancing, though hers was modest. Kerler and Lemster ask about wedding customs and cake.

Bielaia says there were no Hasidim in her town and has trouble explaining what a rebbe is. She mentions Sovetish Heymland, and says there was no professional Yiddish theater but amateur drama, in which her husband acted in Chernihiv before the war. She worked in Chernihiv and left in 1943.

Bielaia talks about her prewar life: she married in 1937, her husband acted in a Yiddish drama circle and she went to rehearsals and acted too. She worked at a Jewish institution until the war, when she was evacuated, borrowed Yiddish books from the library, and had a small daughter.

Bielaia says her father Motl, a shoemaker with eight children, prayed in the synagogue. She finished the seven-year Yiddish school in Nezhe, where all subjects but Russian and German were taught in Yiddish, and there was a drama circle. Religion was not taught, and she worked in a Yiddish kindergarten in Chernihiv until the war. She says her parents did not survive the war. She also mentions carrying a bench for her mother to the synagogue.

Kleiman describes his father as an honest, pious man who prayed daily, and recalls the Sabbath, Yom Kippur, Passover preparations and food such as gefilte fish, and Purim customs. He remembers going with his father to the rebbe on holidays and the rebbes and dayan of Vadrashkov. He also covers the Jewish centre of the town, trades, reading, visiting theatre troupes, political groups, Hebrew learning and weddings with the chuppah by the house and the badkhn.

Shternberg talks about prewar Yiddish culture and Eliezer Steinberg, a Yiddish writer, though the passage is hard to follow. She describes the Sabbath gatherings at the Hesed today, and the Yiddish theater in Khotyn, where touring artists from Moldova and Romania performed; she mentions a Sidi Tal performance (?). Kerler thanks her at the end.

Shternberg sings a parody of "Vu bistu geven" about a kibbutz hakhshara. In it a mother questions her daughter about food and sleeping arrangements. The interviewers explain who they are. She says she read little because of school and preferred dancing and singing. She is asked about a poet named Shternberg, about visiting troupes in Khotyn, about Purim plays, and about the Jewish library, which her mother and siblings used. She also speaks of an old man in Chernivtsi who was shown on television.

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

Gammer answers questions about a Jewish library before the war, which held books in Yiddish, Russian and Ukrainian. Kerler and she then touch on the amateur theater, which continued after the war in another form. The passage ends in an unclear exchange about cooking.

Answers questions about Yiddish theater and literature. She does not remember a Jewish theater before the war, and recalls only grammar lessons with a teacher who taught Sholem Aleichem's Tevye, before the school was closed. She read Russian and Ukrainian authors such as Pushkin and Tolstoy.

Shames says she will never forget the famine, but has little to tell. Asked whether Jews also died, she replies unclearly. Kerler asks how people survived and then asks about Yiddish theatre in Khmil'nyk after the war.

Shekhovich says that she and other children spoke Polish as they grew up and that all teaching was in Polish. She discusses Yiddish theatre visiting from elsewhere and recalls a relative from America. She tells how Jews were poor and rich and how life was difficult, and the postwar life in Drohobych. When asked about her siblings, she says she can say little, only that there were troubles under Hitler.

Khasidovich talks about Jewish holidays before the war, about the former Jewish street in Fastiv (Kyivska Street) and about how she is now the only Jew in her building. She answers questions about whether non-Jews spoke Yiddish and about her mother's cooking, including gefilte fish, how it was made and what fish were used, and also a dish of meat with vinegar. Kerler asks about Purim: she names the Purim pastries and says she has forgotten the Purim songs and does not know the word purim-shpil. She and the interviewers then talk about how life was before and how young people behaved, and Kerler asks about visiting Yiddish theater.

Informal conversation in Russian and Yiddish with congregants. A Dagestani (Mountain Jewish, Tat) congregant talks about the Tat language and Jewish life in Makhachkala and Israel. There is also talk about a Yiddish theater coming to town, an Israeli relative, and comparative forms in Yiddish and Russian. Kerler mentions a book by the poet Avrom Gontar (?) and says the team is going on to Chernivtsi to record living people. Parts are in poorly recognised Russian.

Lys sings a humorous Yiddish song, about a woman asking a rabbi what to do when a neighbor makes her pot and then her husband unkosher. He says his father told him it was performed in the village club after the revolution. Kerler confirms he understands.

Geller answers Kerler's questions about prewar Jewish cultural life in Kuz'myn. There were only Russian clubs and no Yiddish activities. He remembers no visiting actors, and mentions a Russian-language circle or sewing workshop. He does not remember a bar mitzvah of his own. He says that a nephew in Israel was recently given one, according to a letter, and that his sister's children and others in Israel are relatives.

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.

Kaviner says Purim was celebrated at home rather than communally, with costumed visitors, purim-shpil, dancing, singing, and sending shalekh-munes. The visiting masqueraders sang Hasidic and Hebrew songs, which he was too young to remember. Kerler tries to prompt him with known Purim rhymes, and then turns back to the rebbes.

Asked about golems, Kaviner recommends the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, whom he read in Yiddish before the war, and mentions the Nobel Prize. After the war he borrowed Yiddish books from older Jews. They also discuss dybbuks and Ansky's play, and Lemster asks whether Yiddish theater came to Derazhnya.

Kerler asks about the Yiddish dialect in Derazhnya, such as forms of address and 'thanks', and Kaviner contrasts it with Belarusian and Polish dialects and gives examples of pronunciation. They then discuss Dovid Bergelson's story "Der toyber" and its stage adaptation.

Kaviner talks about Mikhoels's death, saying he was murdered in a staged accident after being sent to Belarus, and about his lying in state at the Yiddish theatre. He recalls his rehabilitation and that of Yiddish writers, and names writers from the region, including some from near Medzhibozh and Starokostyantyniv. He also says Sholem Aleichem stayed in Derazhnya and wrote there, and mentions Mendele.

Asked about a dybbuk story in Derazhnya, Kaviner talks instead about the nearby town of Satanov. A synagogue fortress there stands to this day as four walls, and he explains the town's name through Satan and the dybbuk. Kerler asks whether he knows An-sky's play about the dybbuk.

Zinger is asked what he remembers of prayer; he gives a few opening words of the Sabbath service and recites part of kaddish, which he said for a year for his wife. He then answers Kerler's questions about Purim, saying everyone including the rabbi is drunk nowadays. He recalls children going from house to house with a Purim play and gives a fragment of its rhyme. The passage ends with a short exchange on how "a bissl" was said and a question about Hasidim.

Braverman recalls poor wandering artists who came to Solkhov in winter, hungry and frozen. Her family took them in for Sabbath meals. She places this in the early 1930s, when her older siblings studied away at technical schools.

Kipnis describes her Yiddish schooling in Kyiv: school no. 33 on Kuznechna Street, where Yiddish writers and her father visited, and later school no. 60, which she attended from the sixth to the tenth class. She recalls teachers including the literature teacher and director, the closing of Yiddish institutions and the school's conversion to a Russian one, and visits to the Yiddish theater.

Torchinsky answers Kerler's questions about his mother lighting Sabbath candles, Sabbath dishes, and what was brought at Purim. He says no one else in the family blessed the candles. Asked about anti-religious campaigns at school, he recalls a printed play against Passover that the school performed. He also recalls a girl who sang and later went to Israel, and says there was no theater in Skvire, only visiting performers and a drama circle.

Derbaremdiker describes the Club of the Heretics in Kyiv, a former synagogue building, and its Yiddish library and drama circles, and recalls the Berdychiv theatre built before the revolution. He mentions klezmer musicians at weddings and prewar prayer in secret. He says that in 1933 a rabbi secretly prepared him and his brother for bar mitzvah.

Derbaremdiker answers Kerler's questions about cinemas in prewar Berdychiv, naming a summer and a winter cinema and one in the fortress monastery. He recalls a silent film with Yiddish inter-titles in which Mikhoels acted.

Asked by Kerler which Yiddish writers were studied, Rusakovskaia remembers Sholem Aleichem and Peretz and agrees about Markish but recalls no others. She says Yiddish actors came from Kyiv to perform at the club. Her friends were taught in the Russian school, so after the transfer the children spoke Russian, which was hard at first.

Kerler asks about converts to Judaism. Rusakovskaia says she did not hear of any before the war, since mixed marriages did not occur in the town. On Purim she recalls the baking of hamantaschen. Asked about a Purim play, she says only that the Yiddish school staged performances while it existed.

Returning to his father, Vider says he taught the children the alphabet and prayers from an early age. He also talks about the Hebrew teacher at school, and answers Kerler's question about the rebbe and Hasidim of Hîrlau. He then at length demonstrates his father's finger-counting method for multiplication and other number-guessing tricks with written digits, which Kerler tries on paper. Later he describes using such tricks and a counting game in the mine. Kerler finally asks about Yiddish theater in Iași, and Vider says none existed there.

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 says he was a hasid of the Botoșani rebbe, whose name he no longer remembers. Kerler asks about the Ribnitser rebbe, and Vider says many rebbes visited for Sabbath and holidays and took pidyonot. Lemster asks about Yiddish theater in Iași, which was crowded, but Vider says he did not go. He preferred listening to cantors and still plays the cantorial cassettes Kerler gave him.

Skop describes his eight classes at the Yiddish school and the writers taught there, among them Sholem Aleichem, Itsik Fefer, Abraham Goldenberg and David Bergelson. He recalls Sholem Aleichem plays staged in the local Yiddish theater. The school was closed in 1937 and he moved to a Russian school, finishing ten classes with no Yiddish or Hebrew taught. He says antisemitism began to show then, and that the war began when he was fifteen or sixteen.

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.

The informants recall prewar cultural life in the town: a mixed Jewish and Polish football team, political movements (Bund, communists, Betar and Hechalutz), and visits by a Yiddish actor and singer named Shuster-Meyr (?) who performed songs. They discuss Jewish periodicals, books read (Sholem Aleichem, Peretz), and a Yiddish film given to a museum in Kyiv. The informant tries to retell the film's plot, and Kerler asks about a library and the cinema, which the informant says showed no Yiddish films.

Dorfman sings fragments of Passover songs, including Echad Mi Yodea and Adir Hu, and Kerler asks about the tune and pronunciation of Chad Gadya. He then speaks about Yiddish songs and about visiting Yiddish theater troupes that his parents, prominent in the community, hosted.

Dorfman discusses the theater at a place called Ridel (?) in Chişinău and the town's Jewish working-class population: porters, craftsmen and butchers. He lists Zionist and sports organizations such as Betar, Maccabi and Hashomer Hatzair. He recalls the Gordonia study circle reading Marx, with a Siguranța informer present, and debates and literary evenings.

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 returns to the Zionist youth movements, and she describes Betar and the sports ground in the forest where football was played and Jews gathered on the Sabbath. She talks about debates, libraries in the clubs, and a local amateur theatre where she took part in a Hasidim dance created by a young man, later in Israel. She also talks about klezmer musicians at weddings and briefly begins a song.

Talks with Kerler about prewar cultural life in her shtetl. She comments on differences of speech between streets and on a proverb, and on the term for an older grandmother. She names Warsaw Yiddish periodicals (Moment, Der Shtern) that were read, and recalls klezmer and singers coming from Luts'k to perform. She also remembers the first car in the street, a Jewish teacher who taught singing, a strongman, and touring actors, though she was a small child then.

Kerler asks about her Hebrew teacher and joining Betar at ten or twelve; she recalls a shopkeeper teacher named Fishl (?). She mentions that girls learned sewing, and that young people put on their own theatre. Kerler then asks for Yiddish terms for ice cream and for breathing, and she answers.

Kaplan answers Katz's questions about the meaning of words (dibbuk, golem). He speaks briefly about postwar hardship and the poor food of the 1940s, including cornmeal dishes. He explains the difference between a rav and a rebbe, and the Jewish burial place and mass grave. He mentions a man who died the same day, and recalls the prewar amateur Yiddish theater and Chabad Hasidim. He gives the town's Jewish population today as 360 (formerly fourteen thousand), with sixty-six children, and says emigration has stopped and a few people returned from America and Israel. From about 12:00 he is asked, with Russian prompts from a second speaker and questions from Katz and Lemster, for Yiddish equivalents. These cover greetings, thanks, luck, household and food words, body parts, adjectives, converts and Christians, peasants, directions and everyday sentences, with discussion of what is said in Mohyliv.

Endelshtein answers questions about Purim in prewar Bolgrad: foods such as hamantashn-like pastries, reading the megillah, goose, and children's masks and play. He mentions a Jewish klezmer, Blender (clarinet), and the Purim-shpil. He then describes Jewish weddings, with the rabbi at the huppah, two rabbis in town, musicians, and a badkhn-like entertainer, and says that many of his classmates went to synagogue.

Endelshtein is asked about Yiddish theater visiting Bolgrad before the war: troupes came from Galați and Chernivtsi, and non-Jews also attended. He was a child and recalls little. Kerler asks about stories of Hershele Ostropolyer and dream interpreters, which he does not recall. The conversation closes with asking about Jews near Mykolayiv and the lack of Yiddish speakers.

Tzentziper recalls Yiddish school: everything was taught in Yiddish, with songs and dances and exams in every class. Kerler and Lemster ask which Yiddish writers he read, and he does not remember, though he recalls Sholem Aleichem and mentions Itsik Fefer. Kerler asks about Gorky, and says he read that in Russian. His teachers, a woman and a director, are mentioned only vaguely, and he does not remember much. Lemster asks whether a Yiddish theater visited the village.

Kenin sings the beginning of a children's song about going to the forest to pick flowers, which he says he learned in the school choir. He recalls the Yiddish literature taught at school, including Sholem Aleichem, Bergelson, Itsik Fefer and David Hofshteyn, and says poems were learned by heart. He mentions a Yiddish actor who visited before the war and the newspapers read (Shtern, Der emes, and the pioneers' paper Zay greyt). He also describes the Yiddish craftsmen's club (Kusteri) in town, including the staged mockery of Passover.

Kenin estimates that about six thousand Jews lived in Nizhyn before the war, working as tailors, shoemakers, furriers and other craftsmen. He recalls amateur Yiddish theater at the club, including a Sholem Aleichem play, and puts the closing of synagogues around 1937–38, though not all were shut. He says Jews went to a Jewish bathhouse with a mikveh, which he knows of through his mother.

Tokar talks about his Yiddish school: subjects taught in Yiddish with some Hebrew and Humash. His father sat on the parents' committee, which organised theatre performances and revue concerts to raise money, with dramas including Sholem Aleichem and other Yiddish writers.

Vainbrand says there was no visiting Yiddish theater in Valedniki, and that children staged their own singing and dancing in Yiddish. He studied in Yiddish for seven years before the Yiddish school was closed in about 1933, and then went to a Russian school. Subjects included Hebrew, grammar and literature, but he cannot recall the songs. He remembers Simchat Torah as a joyful holiday with dancing and children carrying flags and candles. For Passover his mother prepared a kosher oven and baked matzo at home.

Kipervaser answers questions about cultural life in Berezdiv. She says there was no Yiddish theater after the war and that people sang Russian songs. The library had a few Yiddish books, and few people could read them, including her husband and the rabbi's daughter. She finished seven classes at a Yiddish school, as did her husband, and the Yiddish schools were later closed and the pupils moved to a Ukrainian school.

Dorfman recalls Yiddish periodicals: Sovetish Heymland and Der emes, possibly Der shtern, in the prewar and postwar periods, and talks about actresses (Klara Young) in prewar Slovechno and Ovruch.

Stotland says that before the war they did not know the word antisemitism and religion was not taught against in school. Yiddish writers visited the Yiddish school, and Yiddish plays were staged in the local theatre by a Yiddish company in Ovruch. He remembers a visit by Itzik Pfeffer.

Zak says that writers visited the library after the return from evacuation. Before the war there was Yiddish theatre, including Sholem Aleichem plays such as Tevye the Milkman (?). There was a craftsmen's club where actors performed and where she and other young people organised a choir. She says she was too poor to dress for the stage. She agrees to sing.

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 continues the questionnaire with the word dibbuk. Fish explains it as a spirit entering a person, describes the exorcism by rabbis, and recalls the Yiddish film The Dybbuk and its song, shown in Rivne.

Fish sings a fragment of a song about Yidl mitn fidl and recalls the Yiddish film of that name. He describes the cinemas in Rivne, where Yiddish films were shown, a theater behind the bridge, and silent films with Polish intertitles. He says Yiddish titles were not available because Jewish youth studied in Polish schools.

Kurliandchik says he lived in a Jewish kolkhoz in Crimea from 1931 to 1933 and gives its location. The family returned because the climate was bad for his mother. He credits Agro-Joint with great help, including tractors, which the local Tatars came to look at. He answers Kerler's question about Mikhoels (he did not see him) and mentions the Yiddish theater in Chernivtsi.

Kerler tries to get Litvak to recall Dzhankoye and other Soviet-era songs. She says she doesn't remember them, and he then moves on to Yiddish theater before the war.

Fish speaks of prewar Jewish film and sport: he saw the Yiddish film Der dibek, and describes the Jewish sports club Hasmoneans, stadiums, spectators and football matches. He recalls the 1938 Maccabiah, and answers Kerler's questions on football words such as goalkeeper and ball (Yiddish or Polish).

Vainshelboim talks about Purim and Hanukkah in prewar Ostroh. He describes a Purim play, masks made from watermelons, singing, and a masked ball at the house of a rich man; he compares the poverty of those days with the prosperity of today. A woman in the room, possibly his wife, briefly interrupts in Russian or Ukrainian. At the end he says that Yiddish was spoken at home and his father prayed.

Klein recalls her school: a Yiddish school that became Russian, with the same teachers. She mentions the Yiddish literature taught — Sholem Aleichem, Mendele and Peretz — and Yiddish theater visiting the town. She mentions that non-Jews spoke Yiddish, and that only Jewish children attended the Yiddish school. She notes that about 20,000 Jews were killed in the town.

Bivson answers questions about Yiddish reading, a library in her school and in town, and the writer Peretz, who she says was from Polonne. She recalls Yiddish theater visits and applauding until her hands hurt, but remembers no actors' names.

Largely garbled with Russian: general remarks of good wishes, then Kerler asks about a Yiddish library, newspapers and theater in Polonne, and about visiting a rebbe or a 'good Jew' for a blessing, which Bivson explains.

Klein recalls Yiddish theater in the town, with touring Yiddish actors coming before and for a time after the war. As children from the Yiddish school they went to see the performances. Kerler asks about specific actresses, and another voice then asks how Passover was celebrated.

Answering Katz, Gliazer describes the Soviet entry in September 1939. Poor Jewish workers welcomed it, wealthy Jews and non-Jews were later deported to Siberia, and Jewish theater, schools and cultural groups were closed, with only one rabbi left open. He also discusses the Yiddish newspaper Eynikayt, which was read, and the earlier German propaganda. Much of the stretch is garbled.

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

Asked about Ilya Ehrenburg and Shloyme Mikhoels, Gliazer identifies Ehrenburg as a Soviet writer and Mikhoels as the Yiddish theatre director who led Jewish wartime contacts and was later killed by Stalinists. Kerler asks about Yiddish newspapers and Soviet Yiddish writers; Gliazer remembers the newspaper Der emes and the name Fefer.

Futiran gives his Yiddish name and age, and says he was born in Tomashpol' and comes from a long line of local people. He names his father, a coachman (balegole), and his mother, an orphan from Tomashpol', and says there were six children. Two brothers were killed at the front in 1944, and other brothers are named. Futiran says he later learned the hatmaker's trade from Jewish masters, and he worked for decades as a hatmaker. He mentions two marriages, the second to a non-Jewish woman, and two sons in Moscow and Israel. He recalls a poor childhood, four years in a Yiddish school before a Ukrainian one opened, and a Jewish library. He also recalls Yiddish songs, klezmer music, Jewish weddings with a huppah, and visiting Yiddish artists. He speaks of hunger in 1933, evacuation and work during the war, and eight synagogues in the town. Kerler and Lemster ask about coachmen's stories and songs, and the father's song is mentioned. The passage ends in his workshop with a Singer sewing machine and hats the visitors try on.

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.

Shveibush, with a second man adding comments, talks about the village of Horyshkivka and its Jewish kolkhoz named after Stalin, where his mother was a team leader with six children. Kerler asks about Jewish holidays kept quietly in secret, about food such as gefilte fish, and about his father's amateur theatre. Much of the talk concerns the village as Sholem Aleichem's Kasrilevke, the Yiddish stage production of 'Tsigele', pigs on the kolkhoz, Simchat Torah customs and kerosene lighting; the passage ends with thanks and goodbyes.

Kogan talks about the end of Yiddish schools and theater in the Stalin years and about the arrests of doctors. He recalls meeting Solomon Mikhoels in Bershad before the war, who asked about his songs. He describes Bershad as a Jewish town with a park where people strolled on the Sabbath. The conversation turns to Yiddish writers and books, with Kerler and Lemster naming Hershl Ostropoler, Polyanker and Glik and Kogan getting a book from the library.

Lev and Pesia speak about prewar Tul'chyn: Yiddish was heard on the streets, there were Yiddish theatre and schools. Pesia says she completed five classes at a Yiddish school, though her parents wanted it. Kerler asks until when Yiddish was heard on the streets.

Rubin talks about the many klezmer families in Buki and nearby towns, who played at weddings. He recalls a wedding entertainer who spoke in rhymes and the klezmer slang for words such as water, bread, money and meat. Kerler then asks about Purim plays, and the speakers recall visiting Yiddish theater troupes from Kharkiv, Kyiv and Moscow, and a play seen in childhood.

Asked about Yiddish theater in Uman' after the war, Teplitskaia says she arrived in the 1940s and does not know what had happened there before. She goes on to speak of holiday customs and Jewish observance, and mentions an anecdote about a woman losing her pension. The passage is fragmentary and the topic is unclear in places.

Waldman names her mother Khayke and her mother's siblings, including Yankl, her mother's youngest brother, who studied at a Yiddish university in Odessa. She recalls Yiddish songs, freylekhs dancing, and readings and theater of Sholem Aleichem. She talks about the writer Polyanker, who has a street named after him in Uman', and says she wants a museum in his house in Rakovka. She also mentions a museum in the city.

Waldman recalls that before the war Uman' had three Yiddish schools, and her mother's youngest brother was a school director. After the war Jews gathered in private homes because there was no synagogue, and Yiddish theater and drama circles existed. She tells of a woman who recalled a Yiddish play, apparently Goldfaden's Kolduniye, and of Sabbath eve as it was in her own home. She also mentions a Jewish cultural center that brought together Yiddish and Hebrew literature.

Poberevskii recalls visits to the Yiddish theatre in Moscow, naming Mikhoels and Zuskin, and discusses Mikhoels as an actor, including the role of Tevye. Asked about Yiddish writers visiting Zhmerynka, she does not remember any. She says she was a good pupil in the Jewish school, which was closed in 1937 when people were arrested. Kerler then asks how her parents kept the Sabbath.

Asked by Kerler about earliest memories, Furer recalls being sent to cheder at six or seven. When classmates mocked him at the Yiddish school, he ran from the melamed. He also describes the Yiddish school and the town's synagogues, one of which later became a theater.

Lemster asks whether Yiddish theater came to Berdychiv before or after the war. Vaisman says there was no thought of theater before the war because the family had no bread. Asked about Yiddish reading, he says he studied in the Yiddish school until it closed in 1938 and could read Yiddish after four classes. He read no Yiddish books because hunger was the only concern.

Barshteyn leads the team through the former Jewish quarter of Sharhorod and points out former Jewish houses now lived in by non-Jews. She says there were ten synagogues, of which only the big one remains. She describes a church and a monastery, visiting theater troupes, wealthy men and cantors from other towns, and Jews working as tailors and shoemakers. She says she left Sharhorod for Vinnytsya in 1983, recalls her mother's holiday cooking and Hanukkah latkes (?), and says she studied in a Yiddish school and can read Yiddish (Sholem Aleichem, Peretz, Mendele). Her family house was pulled down and is now a garden; the former synagogue is now a library, and she points out traces of a mezuzah, the house of a woman called Klara, and a place linked to hiding. Several Russian exchanges with locals occur.

Sobol says that Yiddish theatre troupes used to visit before the war. Her husband told stories about the good Jew of Shishkivtsi (?), whom people travelled to, and about Jewish soldiers asking for Passover leave. She explains the word for a shepherd, and speaks about postal telegrams from relatives in America. Kerler asks about the Kozenits camp; she describes work under the Romanians, the rich buying their way out, and Ukrainians helping Jews with food.

Lemster asks about expressions and terms: the evil eye, a dybbuk, a golem, an apostate, and the word for a cemetery. Tsodikovich often does not know them. He then says a few things about Vinnytsya after the war: Yiddish theater troupes visiting, and a small synagogue on one street where many Jews stood outside on holidays. He also answers a question about the phrase 'a good Jew'.

Khazin shows a Russian-Yiddish dictionary and says he bought it but never worked on it. He describes himself as a Russian-Ukrainian Jew. Kerler and Lemster ask some questionnaire items on words such as 'dybbuk', 'goylem' and 'beter'. He then gives opinions about drinking, smoking and modern medicine, and recalls a joke from a stage play and a Yiddish theater and institute in Vinnytsya in the 1930s.

Yatskova says that in her cultural work she organized dancing and singing, but only Russian and Ukrainian songs, and that she knows no Yiddish songs. She says her father played the violin, mandolin and guitar and led the school orchestra. She recalls visiting the Jewish theater in Odessa, where she saw Mikhoels, understanding the plays but finding it hard to speak.

Yatskova talks about her grandfather the pharmacist in Murafa, later a dock porter in Odessa, whom local non-Jews remembered, and about a non-Jewish woman who spoke Yiddish better than she did. She explains that she read Sholem Aleichem in Russian and that her family spoke Russian with the children. Asked about Kopayhorod, she says she knows nothing of its history or of Malkele at the cemetery, and she complains that visitors from Israel throw away her flowers. She says neighbours treat her well, that her father was respected and taught many locals, and that she regrets not leaving after the war. She recalls friends the Grinmans, Misha playing the accordion while she directed stage shows, and her visits to the Odessa Jewish theater and its actors. She finishes by thanking the visitors, and Lemster offers her Yiddish books. The transcript ends before the catalogued passage ends.

Kerler asks more dialect questions about words for ill-behaved or released people, and for a snack or an extra course after a meal, and Nayman gives a few answers. She recalls fragments of Yiddish riddle songs and a Purim rhyme, and says her mother did not sing. They discuss a planned visit to the Munkacs rebbe and Nayman's memories of him. Nayman says she does not care for theater but recalls school plays. The tape ends with talk, with S2 and Katz, about sending a cassette or DVD of the interview to her daughter, mentioning Spielberg and the earlier interview.

Asked about Yiddish writers and theater, Antsis says the family read Sholem Aleichem, and that on Sabbath neighbors gathered while her mother read aloud and people laughed. She recalls a Sholem Aleichem story about a poor wedding and a rich one. Young people put on plays at her grandfather's house, and the grandfather traded goods from Berdychiv. A gramophone in the house frightened her.

Partnaya answers questions about Jewish cultural life, such as visits to Zhytomyr by singers and actors from America and Moscow and a theater performance she recalls. She also recalls her grandmother's Soviet Yiddish school, three classes.

Burshtein sings a series of Yiddish songs he knew from Poland: a matchmaking and wedding song, a song on love as a passion, a Zionist song about all Jews going to the Land of Israel that was sung in the months before the war, and songs on homesickness, a prisoner's oath and a street song about a lonely orphan. Kerler asks about Purim songs, which he does not remember. Katz then asks for a prayer from the siddur, and he answers about how a Jew was addressed.

Shpitz says his brothers were killed in the war. He speaks Yiddish with his parents at home. Asked about Yiddish theater, he answers only vaguely. He describes his father as an honest man, a poor cobbler and a synagogue gabbai. He mentions a brother Yasha who was an artist and painted. Lemster asks about his two sons, and a Russian aside interrupts the exchange.

Shpitz says he went to Yiddish theater and liked Yiddish plays, but he cannot recall which ones or the songs sung there. Lemster asks about differences between kinds of Yiddish. Shpitz says American Yiddish differs from his own and that Litvak Yiddish is different, but he speaks as he always has.

Nibulskiy answers Kerler's questions about Purim before the war. He describes masks, gifts of food parcels (shalakhmones) and the Purim bearers who went around. A beggar and his family are mentioned, and children were given small coins. His older brother played the fiddle, and his daughter is an artist. Purim plays are discussed, and Nibulskiy says the Soviet authorities stopped them. He adds that his stories came from his grandfather and father.

Nibulskaia describes the kolkhoz near Novozlatopil': two rows of eighteen houses, with her father working as a kabl (?) and her mother as a cook. Her younger sister attended a two-class school in the nearby settlement and studied at home, while she herself struggled with school. A Yiddish theater company used to visit them.

Nibulskaia says she remembers little of the plays staged by the visiting Yiddish theater. She took part in a choir and a circle where people danced and sang. She cannot recall the repertoire.

Kerler and Nibulskaia arrange a return visit on 9 January and talk about finding other elderly Yiddish speakers. S2 and S3 sing a song of a beggar from a Yiddish theater play, and Kerler plans to record it again on the next visit.

Kerler asks what the word Dybbuk means. Shraibman says it is the play and cannot be translated into Russian or Yiddish. He recalls the Yiddish theater before the war, including The Dybbuk and Sholem Aleichem plays, and notes that the theater after the war was Russian. He adds that young Jews took part.