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Oral history interview with Ransa Sergeevna Chernova

Oral History | Accession Number: 2009.103.8 | RG Number: RG-50.632.0008

Raisa Sergeevna Chernova, born in 1934 in Tulchin, Ukraine, describes living her entire life in Tulchin, except during the war when she was at Pechora concentration camp; her father Sergei Antipovich Chernov, who was Russian military serviceman and served in Tulchin in the 49th cavalry regiment; her mother Marian Pisakhovna Tsfasman, who worked as a supervisor at a sewing factory; her parents getting married in 1933 during the famine; her mother marrying her father to save her family from hunger; her mother’s siblings, who were also in Pechora camp; her cousin who was shot by police for taking people from the camp to the ghetto where life was easier; the police who were seen as worse than the Germans; some of the burial practices at that time; the death of her grandmother in the concentration camp in 1943; her mother celebrating Jewish holidays; her mother’s second marriage after the war to a Jewish man who had lost his wife and nine children at Pechora; the levels of Yiddish speaking in her family; the Jewish holidays they celebrate; her brother who was born after the war and was circumcised on the seventh day; how babies were named after deceased relatives after the war and the importance that at least the first letter of the name was the same; a rabbi in Tulchin who slaughtered kosher chickens; her family keeping kosher; how the whole center of town was Jewish until the rabbi died and Jews left the city; the bazaar that was in the center of the town, where all tradesmen were Jewish; her stepfather, who was a shoe repairman; the Jewish homes, which had verandahs and half-basements with an exit to the street where they practiced their trade; the immigration of many of the Jews to Israel; living before the war in Kaptsonivka, where the poor Jews lived; their house and furniture; weddings, which were celebrated under a chuppa and had a klezmer band with four musicians; how for the holidays her mother prepared a chicken, gefilte fish,“boyme beyklis” (butter buns), and homentashen; the songs her mother sang to her in Russian (“Papirosy”) and Yiddish, including “Sheyne meydele” (a pretty girl), “Varnochkis”, and “Papirone kinder”; the ways they celebrate the holidays now; various practices that were done during pregnancy and after childbirth; and going every year to Pechora and the cemetery on days of remembrance.


Some video files begin with 10-60 seconds of color bars.
Interviewee
Ransa S. Chernova
Interviewer
S. Nikolaeva
N. Amosova
Date
interview:  2005 July 19
Extent
2 digital files : MP3.
 
Record last modified: 2022-07-28 19:53:47
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85576