Donia Presler was born in 1929 born in Tulchyn. Her father was a musician. Her mother worked as a glazier. She had two sisters, one of whom died in the Pechera camp. She finished four years of Yiddish school. During the war, she was imprisoned in the Pechera camp for four years.
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"Christ has risen"
The Torgsin Store
Homentashn
A Family Played the Fiddle
Tulchyn, Ukraine
Occupational prestige was part of a complex and ambiguous social hierarchy in the Soviet shtetl. Whereas many aspired toward higher education and professional lives, the practical value of possessing a set of artisanal skills was obvious. This occupational opacity was most evident in occupations that possessed both professional and trade characteristics. Donia Presler’s father was a professional musician. Like many other trades, musicians learned their skills in the family, as she clarifies in this clip.
Donia explains that her father lived in Odessa in the 1920s, where he even played with famed Jewish Jazz musician Leonid Utesov. When her father moved to Tulchyn, he also played in a band. In this clip, Donia reminisces about shtetl klezmorim (musicians):
Source: Jeffrey Veidlinger, In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Small-Town Jewish Life in Soviet Ukraine (Indiana University Press, 2013)