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Recording Content:
This recording is a continuation of a formal interview with David Abramovich Vider (b. 1922 in Sighetu Marmatiei). (Part 4 of 4. See MDV 514, MDV 515, and MDV 516) [00:00:00 - 00:39:34]
The recording then cuts to a formal interview with Iosef (Yosl) Grigoryevich Grayf (b. 1922 in Kolomyya). (Part 1 of 2. See MDV 518) [00:39:34 - 01:02:24]
Cities and towns mentioned on this tape: Kolomyya, Iași, Odesa, Hîrlau, L’viv, Ivano-Frankivs’k, Voronezh, Khabarovsk, Birobidzhan.
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00:00:00
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This tape is a continuation of a formal interview with David Abramovich Vider (b. 1922 in Sighetu Marmatiei). It begins with the interviewee answering questions from Professor Kerler’s sociolinguistic and dialectological questionnaire. He also recites a fragment from the Yiddish rhyming folk cure “dray vayber zitsn af a shteyn” (“three women sit on a stone”) and shares an anecdote about a Jew in Odesa to explain the idiom “fargoylemen zikh”. |
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00:32:20
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Vider speaks about the passing of another David, the current Kolomyya synagogue’s former “bal-tfile” (prayer leader) and shares a few idioms of what is said when a deceased person is mentioned. Vider sings a Romanian song he remembers from his youth. He also talks about other potential interviewees in the town, and shares his views towards Jewish politics in America, Israel and post-Soviet Ukraine. |
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00:39:34
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The camera then cuts to a formal interview with Iosef (Yosl) Grigoryevich Grayf (b. 1922 in Kolomyya). He discusses his prewar family, describing his parents, Gershon and Etl, as well as his many siblings. He details the geography of the region, noting how the political borders in Bukovina shifted many times in the last century. |
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00:53:44
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Grayf speaks about his education in a “kheyder” (traditional religious school for young boys) where he learned to pray, and read and write in Yiddish, although he states it is difficult for him to remember much now. Just before the war, Grayf worked on the trains before being drafted into Red Army. He describes his military service in the Far East and on the front during the war. |
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00:58:25
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Grayf generally describes postwar life in Kolomyya, where he worked in a dental laboratory. He then returns to the prewar period, briefly describing his education in a Polish-language school, and in a Yiddish kheyder. Grayf comments that shabes (the Sabbath) was celebrated at home before the war, in contrast to today, when it is marked in the synagogue. He notes the same dynamic with daily morning “minyonim” (prayer groups), which his father attended regularly before the war, but that do not take place in contemporary Kolomyya. |
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