This recording is a formal interview with Raisa Iosifovna Chukh, who was born in 1919 in Berdychiv. (Part 1 of 2. See MDV 346) She briefly discusses her life during World War II. She was trained as a nurse, but since she was taking care of her toddler, she was not sent to the front. The conversation then moves to Jewish life and her education in Berdychiv before the war. She discusses how her family celebrated Jewish holidays at home. She talks about how lively Jewish cultural life in Berdychiv was before the war. People attended theater shows and concerts every weekend. She remembers a seltzer seller named Itzik, and she remembers people waiting their turn in a long line for seltzer water. She says the Soviets closed every synagogue in the 1930s. She remembers the Great Famine in 1933, during which time she received food from her school. The tape concludes with a discussion about Jewish food customs and weddings before the war, as well as questions from the dialectological questionnaire about the Yiddish language.