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Tomashpol'
 (09-010.52-F) -  Shelf Number: MDV 704
 IUCAT




No streaming derivative is available.

Date: May 28, 2007

Participants: Shusterman, Evgeniia Toyvovna. Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Moisei Lemster.

Location recorded: Tomashpol', Vinnyts'ka Oblast', Ukraine

Language: Yiddish

Culture Group: Jews, Yiddish-speakers, Ukrainians

 Recording Content:   

This recording consists of an interview with Evgeniia Toyvovna Shusterman. Her father Toyva (b. 1901 in Tomashpol’ – d. 1995 in Tomashpol’) was a pious man and good singer, who could read and write in Russian and Yiddish. Espcially after the war, he was “like a Rebbe” to the Jews of the town, celebrating all Jewish holidays and praying every day. Shusterman shares her memories of celebrating Passover with her father after the war, but does not remember Jewish life before the war. She had a good job as a head accountant, but retired early at the age of 35 to take care of her father, who had then gone blind.

According to Shusterman, the eight remaining Jews in the town form their own small community, one which comes together on holidays and yortsaytn (anniversary of the death of close relatives). The interviewee also shares her views on why she does not want to emigrate or leave her town: “I see it this way: where you’re born, that’s where you’ve got to die”. In her view, anti-Semitism has disappeared in post-Soviet Ukraine. During the war, Shusterman was evacuated to Mordovia, Russia while her father was on the front. The camera then switches to shots of houses in an unidentified town.