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Recording Content:
The first part of the tape is a continuation of a formal interview with Khariton Berman, born 1923. (Part 2 of 2. See MDV 334) [00:00 – 17:43]
The team travels to the next interview with Chara Yakovlevna Bublitskaia. The research team collects town footage. [16:32]
This is followed by a formal interview with Chara (Chare) Yakovlevna Bublitskaia, born 1925 in Chisinau. (Part 1 of 2. See MDV 336) [17:44 - 01:02:01]
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00:00:00
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Khariton Berman discusses the local Yiddish theater he established in 1989. The theater group traveled to different places, such as Kyiv and Crimea. |
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00:04:21
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The formal interview is briefly interrupted because Berman looks for recordings of various shows performed by the Yiddish theater. |
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00:05:31
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The team begins to interview Berman’s wife Sonya (Shlime) Berman, nee Britske, born in 1923 in Bila Tserkva. She talks about life and family before the war. Her father, Meyer, was also born in Bila Tserkva and was a white collar worker. She grew up with a brother. Sonya attended a Ukrainian school. |
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00:07:12
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She briefly mentions her evacuation to the Urals during the war, where she studied at a medical institute. She then talks about life after the war, before returning to discussing her family and life before the war. She finished her studies in Kyiv after the war. She grew up in a religious household. |
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00:08:11
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Berman returns and shows photographs from the opening of the Yiddish theater, as well as pictures from before the war and of himself in his army uniform as a lieutenant. |
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00:09:34
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Both discuss religious life after the war. They closed the synagogue in Bila Tsirkov in the 1950s. Sonya remembers how the police closed down the synagogue and boarded it up. |
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00:12:49
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The conversation turns to life today and the interview gets interrupted by a visit from their son, Abram. Berman shows one photograph of a memorial. Then everyone gets together for a group photograph, showing Berman’s diploma. The camera records more footage of their apartment after the conclusion of the interview. |
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00:16:32
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The team travels to the next interview with Chara Yakovlevna Bublitskaia. The camera collects town footage. |
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00:17:44
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This is the beginning of the formal interview with Bublitskaia, born in Chişinău. She provides personal information, before talking about her family. She remembers religious activities among her family, especially with her grandparents. Her father Yankl worked as an accountant. She grew up with her brother Moyshe. |
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00:21:12
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She discusses childhood memories, in particular her recollections of prewar religious life. She describes how visiting rabbis would come from neighboring countries and pray. She lived in Chişinău for fifty years. |
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00:22:35
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Bublitskaia talks about postwar life. She moved to Kyiv and studied an institute, before moving to Bila Tserkva, where she worked in a shoe factory for forty years. |
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00:23:34
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Bublitskaia discusses her education at a Yiddish school and lists different subjects. |
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00:26:57
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Bublitskaia discusses prewar religious life, in particular holiday celebrations and food customs for Shabbat, and prayers. |
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00:29:54
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Bubilitskaia briefly talks about the local Zionist organization, which her brother frequently attended, before she continues to discuss religious holidays, such as Passover. She played with her childhood friends in Romanian, although they attended a Yiddish school. Her mother was born in Calara?i and Bublitskaia remembers holiday celebrations with many relatives. Her mother would prepare plenty of pastry for Hanukkah for her brother’s birthday celebration as well. She remembers learning about Jewish holidays at the Yiddish school. She then talks about Yom Kippur when the adults fasted. The children left the house of her uncle and ate outside during that time. |
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00:38:54
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She talks about elderly Romanians who spoke Yiddish before the war before she returns to her education at the Yiddish school and childhood memories in general. |
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00:41:50
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Bublitskaia discusses itinerant Yiddish theater groups from Chernivtsi before and after the war. During her childhood, she was friends with the son of the Hasidic rebbe Averbukh. Her grandfather lived in Zhytomyr. She then mentions her husband Ilya, who had Hasidic relatives. |
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00:45:43
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Bublitskaia answers questions about religious terminology. |
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00:47:31
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She talks about weddings before the war, as well as food customs and recipes. According to Bubilitskaia, the local custom used to be to drink wine, but when the Soviets occupied Romania in 1940, they introduced vodka as the drink of choice. |
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00:51:44
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She answers questions about cultural and food terminology. |
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00:54:21
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The team asks Bublitskaia a number of dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish questionnaire. |
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00:58:02
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She talks about life during the war. In 1940 she evacuated to Siberia with her parents and brother. They worked hard for years and she remembers how ten people had to share one bucket of potatoes. Her brother married the daughter of the chief engineer of the factory her family worked at. They left Siberia for Kyiv in 1943. In 1945 her brother wrote Bublitskaia a letter to invite her to study at an institute in Kyiv. It was there that Bublitskaia met her husband in 1948. |
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