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Recording Content:
This recording is a continuation of a formal interview with Iosif Kunovich Burg. (Part 2 of 5. See MDV 405, MDV 407, MDV 408, and MDV 409)
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00:00:00
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Burg talks the destruction of Yiddish cultural and intellectual life by Hitler and Stalin. He also addresses how Israel did not encourage the continuation of Yiddish cultural life. Burg recites a Hebrew poet about Yiddish culture. Burg then broadly discusses the history of Jews and contemporary Yiddish life, including an event in Berlin, commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz. He also talks about the encounter with the German author and correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Michael Martens, who published a book about Burg called “Irrfahrten: Ein Ostjudisches Leben” (odysseys: an east-Jewish life). |
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00:17:26
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Burg talks about prewar Jewish life in Chernivtsi, which was divided between the assimilated German-speaking Jews and Yiddish-speaking Jews. Burg states that the Yiddish-speaking population was divided between Litvish and Bessarabian Yiddish. |
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00:22:01
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Burg provides information about his family, as well as personal information. He then shows the distinctions (Cross of the Order of Merit – Verdienstkreuz) he received from the Austrian and German government. He then shows the distinction he received from the Ukrainian Jewish Congress. |
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00:31:51
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Burg talks about different kinds of Yiddish from his childhood and prewar Yiddish culture. He remembers the theater group Vilna Troupe, who brought in a different Yiddish dialect to Chernivtsi. |
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00:35:43
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Burg talks about his travels to Vienna in 1935, where he met with the Yiddish writer circle. He talks about Yiddish writers, such as Mendl Naygreshl, Itzhak Turkov, Melech Ravitch, and Melech Khmilnitski*. Burg saw Hitler shortly before Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938. Burg was taken along with fellow Jews from Vienna for forced labor at military barracks in the suburbs of Vienna. Burg was released after he talked to the person in charge of the camp, showing his Romanian passport. He drove back to Vienna in a car with SS officers. Burg tells stories about the persecution of Viennese Jews during the German occupation. |
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00:52:29
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Burg talks about his family and childhood memories. His father worked on a float transporting people across the Cheremosh River 52:38. Burg’s mother gave birth to five children. He grew up with Chaye, who was murdered along with their mother during the war and Binyomen, who volunteered for the Spanish Civil War and died in battle. After his bar mitzvah, encouraged by his father, Burg moved out of his parent’s house to earn his own money in Chernivtsi. He rented a room at a poor tailor’s house and studied at a school. He was supported by his well-off uncle Max. Burg then studied at the Jewish teacher’s seminary with Eliezer Steinberg to become a teacher. After graduation, Burg worked as a private tutor. He then talks about the publication of his first story in the “Czernovitzer bleter” in 1934. |
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