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Perl Nayman 's father was a Cohen and worked as a blacksmith. She grew up with five brothers and one sister. She and her mother helped non-Jews work the fields with their horse during her childhood years. Her family owned a plot of land and animals. She listened in classes at a cheder in Turya-Bystra. She was deported to Auschwitz in April 1944. Afterward, she was forced to work at a metal factory and then to build trenches in Germany, before her liberation by the Red Army troops in May 1945. After the war, she lived in Studenyy for thirty years, before moving to Vynohradiv in 1978.
Other Interviews:
"Let her pray"Selection at Auschwitz
A Child Lost To The Evil Eye
Vynohradiv, Ukraine
In this clip, Pearl Nayman discusses the death of her first child, which she blames on a sorceress who visited her house and gave the newborn the evil eye.
Superstitions about the evil eye were widespread among Jews and Christians alike in early twentieth-century Eastern Europe, and remain common today. Nayman believes that some people possess the power to bewitch and do harm by spiteful looks. She explains that she only learned later that the evil eye can be warded off by extinguishing coals, and regrets not having extinguished coals after the sorceress visited her newborn.
In the next clip, Nayman explains the process of extinguishing coals to ward off the evil eye. She explains that first, you put hot coals into a cup of water. Then you count to nine, but adding "not" before each number, first forwards and then backwards. Next you wash the child with the water, and then wipe it off a certain way while reciting "May all evil fall off of you."