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Recording Content:
This recording begins with a continuation of a formal interview with Semyon Semyonovich Krotsh (b. 1922 in Stefanesti) and David Abramovich Vider (b. 1922 in Sighetu Marmatiei). (Part 3 of 3. See MDV 527 and MDV 528) [00:00:00 - 00:14:31]
The camera cuts to the team driving to the home of the next interviewee in the village of Popel’niki. Formal interview begins with Aron (Urn) Kalmanovich Biter (b. 1918 in Popel’niki). (Part 1 of 2. See MDV 530) [00:15:48 - 00:59:49]
Cities and towns mentioned on this tape: Hîrlau, Popel’niki, Kolomyya, Zabolotiv, Ivano-Frankivs’k, L’viv, Podgaytse, Noril'sk, Snyatyn.
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00:00:00
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This tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Semyon Semyonovich Krotsh (b. 1922 in Stefanesti) and David Abramovich Vider (b. 1922 in Sighetu Marmatiei). The group talks about the researchers’ potential future visits and what gifts they should bring for the interviewees. Krotsh and Vider pose for photos. |
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00:03:10
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The group leaves the synagogue for lunch, while the camera follows Krotsh, Vider and the AHEYM team chatting and walking through the streets of Kolomyya. |
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00:06:58
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Once in a restaurant, Vider tells anecdotes and talks about recent changes in the city. Krotsh tells an anecdote about Christian-Jewish relations. |
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00:14:31
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The camera cuts to the team driving to the home of the next interviewee in the village of Popel’niki. |
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00:15:48
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Formal interview begins with Aron (Urn) Kalmanovich Biter (b. 1918 in Popel’niki). He discusses the prewar history of the village and its eighteen Jewish families. He also talks about his education in a “kheyder” (traditional Jewish religious boys’ school) and a Polish-language gymnasium. Biter shares his memories of prewar family life, noting that his father served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War and how his family changed their surname from “Shafir” to the less Jewish-sounding “Biter”. |
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00:25:57
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Biter speaks in greater detail about his family’s name change and the work his parents, Kolmen and Yeti had before the war. He then shares his wartime experiences, beginning with a pogrom in the village in 1941 led by local Ukrainian nationalists before the Germans invaded the town. When the town’s Jews were deported, Biter jumped from a train window and wandered from village to village, surviving with the help of non-Jewish friends. Biter was eventually able to arrange false papers that stated he was an ethnic Ukrainian and worked for the Germans in a village for the rest of the war. |
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00:45:21
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When the town was liberated by the Soviets, Biter was accused of collaboration and exiled to Siberia where he labored in the city of Noril'sk from 1944 to 1952. When he returned to his native village, Biter learned that the other Jews of the town had all been killed. In the postwar period, Biter worked as an accountant on a kolkhoz (collective farm) in the surrounding five villages. |
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00:51:48
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Biter speaks in greater detail about prewar family life mentioning that his father immigrated to Canada, where he lived for three years and worked on the land. His grandfather held an arrenda (leasing right) and operated a tavern. Discussing prewar religious life in his village, Biter states that there were two “minyonim” (prayer groups of ten or more adult men) in his village; as such, communal functionaries, such as a shoykhet (kosher butcher) and kheyder teacher visited regularly from nearby villages. Biter briefly describes how he was given his “lapsterdekl” (lit. “small coat,” i.e. “talis kotn,” or Jewish male ritual garment) at the age of thirteen. Biter explains that his father wanted him to be a religious Jew, but his maternal grandfather, who was a Reformist and worked as a lawyer insisted he attend the nearest gymnasium in Snyatyn. Graduating in 1938, Biter then attended an agricultural lyceum. |
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