Interview

Liudmila Shor is the wife of Grigorii Shor and was born in Kopayhorod. She attended a Ukrainian language school. Her father owned a flower shop, but was driven out of the house and shop in the 1930s. Her family then moved to Verkhovka and her father became a barber. She has two daughters, one lives in Israel and the other in Germany. She is active in the Vinnytsya Jewish Women’s Choir.


Other Interviews:

Vanity of Vanities
I'm leaving you my dear in-laws

A Coachman’s Song

Vinnytsya

In many of the small towns of Ukraine, the majority of coachmen were Jewish. Coachmen had long been known to sing songs as they carried their passengers along the roads. Singing helped make the time pass on long journeys, kept the coachman awake, and entertained the passengers. Coachmen were both admired and feared, as fiercely independent people who commonly traversed the liminal spaces between towns and traveled along empty roads at night. They needed to know the travel routes, the horses' language, and the language of the spirits that haunted the nighttime woods.