The first part of the recording is a continuation of a formal interview, recorded in Kyiv, with Motl Isaakovich Derbaremdiker, originally from Berdychiv. (Part 3 of 3. See MDV 507 and MDV 508) After discussing the Yiddish language today, the team asks a series of dialectological questions from the Yiddish questionnaire, while they also discuss aspects of the Yiddish language.

The next formal interview takes place in Polonne in the apartment of Frida Leizerovna Zak, nee Goldenberg, born in 1920. (Part 1 of 3. See Accession # 09-010.40-F MDV 633 and MDV 634) After she briefly discusses her family, she talks about her life and education in prewar Polonne. Her father Leyzer, born 1891, was a factory worker until 1941. Her grandmother Pesye died in 1933 due to starvation. Her mother Ester-Khaye, nee Lityn, was born in 1888 and gave birth to six children.

Before the war, Zak went to a Jewish school for ten grades. Afterward, she took classes and worked in a Jewish orphanage in Letychiv. Then the discussion moves to the war years. When the war broke out, she was on vacation and escaped to Miropol' with her entire family. They walked fifteen kilometers to Miropol'. In Miropol', they found the last train toward Kuban'. Then they traveled to Central Asia for evacuation. During evacuation, her family worked in a kolkhoz (collective farm) and had little food to survive on. Hence, her father died of hunger in 1942. The discussion moves to life after the war. They arrived in Polonne in 1944, where she worked in an orphanage and spoke Yiddish with the children for two years. In 1945, the director of the orphanage told her to organize a library, where she worked until her retirement in 1988. The tape concludes with a further discussion of life during the war.