Glossary
The words of his world — Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, and the language of the archives. Dotted terms in the transcript lead here.
- bar mitzvá
- Religious coming of age, at 13 — his, in the synagogue, around 1927. his voice [12:36]
- Beitar
- The Revisionist Zionist youth movement of Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He was a member; Betar friends went, after the war, to the Haganah. his voice [14:57]
- cheder
- The religious primary school — first letters, at age seven. his voice [07:08]
- Chevra Kadisha
- The Jewish burial society. São Paulo's Chevra registry holds his grave — his Kalisz parents' names on the record (D18).
- DP (deslocado de guerra)
- Displaced person: the postwar status of the stateless. His DP card (Heidenheim, 1946) reads "desired destination: Palestine" (D07).
- gemeinde
- The organized Jewish community (from German); it ran the mixed school where he studied in Yiddish, Hebrew and Polish. his voice [13:41]
- Governo Geral
- The occupied-Poland zone not annexed to the Reich, where the ten trains took Kalisz's Jews — the Lublin district lay within it.
- hala targowa
- Kalisz's covered market (the Szrajer brothers') where over 10,000 Jews were locked up in November–December 1939, before the trains (H02).
- kapote
- The long coat worn by religious Jews.
- kartoteka
- The residents' card file in Polish archives. Card 219 of the Kalisz kartoteka is our Archive's centerpiece (D02): it returned Majer and revealed Frania.
- ketubá
- The Jewish marriage contract, read and signed at the wedding.
- kosher
- Jewish dietary law. The home was "liberal" but kosher; ritual slaughter was restricted in Kalisz as early as 1938. his voice [07:26]
- livro Yizkor
- A "memory book" written after the war by destroyed communities. The Kalisz one preserves the list of the ten trains of December 1939 (H01).
- Maccabi
- The Jewish sports club — uniforms, flag, marches in Kalisz; and it was through São Paulo's Maccabi that he met Clara. his voice [17:38]
- matzeivá
- The headstone — and its unveiling ceremony, traditionally near the first yahrzeit.
- o Joint (AJDC)
- The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee — it sustained refugees across Europe, guaranteed his first sewing machine in Paris and organized the Groix departure (D15). his voice [99:20]
- sheloshim
- The thirty days of mourning. His obituary notices in the Estadão mark the sheloshim in November 2000 (D18).
- shil
- Synagogue, in Yiddish (schul). Kalisz had several — the great one, seating 5,000, he saw again as bare ground in 1945. his voice [09:30]
- stakhanovista
- In Soviet parlance, a worker who beats quotas — the title his improvised sewing shop earned in the camp, with better food and beds to match.
- Sukkot
- The feast of booths. Twice in his story: the Siedlce synagogue sheltering soldiers in 1939, and the Lublin dinner of 1944. his voice [25:56]
- tefilín
- The phylacteries of morning prayer. What his father ran to hand him in the 1939 retreat was most likely tefillin or a tehillim (the little book of Psalms given to those leaving for war) — the audio doesn't settle it; see "how to read". his voice [05:46]
- tenaim
- A traditional betrothal contract. The Hebrew document kept with the 1950 wedding photo — long assumed to be the ketubah — is a prewar European tenaim (D05); still untranslated.
- Warthegau
- The western Polish region (incl. Kalisz) annexed to the Reich in 1939 for "Germanization" — the engine of the November–December expulsions.
- yahrzeit
- The anniversary of a death in the Hebrew calendar. His: 20 Tishrei — dates through 2075 are in the site's subscribable calendar.
- Yontef
- A holy day, a festival (Yiddish, from yom tov). The 1944 Sukkot dinner with Lublin's survivors was a Yontef. his voice [56:29]