Evgeniia Kozak was born in 1926 in Bershad. She attended a Ukrainian school for eight years. Her parents, who were cousins, were both born in Bershad. Her father was a furrier. She had a younger brother and sister. She survived the war in evacuation in Bezopasnik, Orlovsky Region in the Caucasus and then in Andizhanskaia in the Stalinska region in Central Asia. When she returned to Bershad after the war, in April 1944, her mother worked as a baker. She married in 1958 and has two sons. Her husband died before her second son was born, when her first son was just one and a half years old.
Other Interviews:
A Pair of ShoesFood on Sabbath
Postwar Charity
Evgeniia's Gefilte Fish
Stuffed Neck with Chicken Fat
Bershad, Ukraine
Evgeniia Kozak is excited to share her family recipes with the AHEYM team. In this clip, she explains how a broth only comes out right when you add stuffed chicken neck.
Evgeniia cherishes these foodways all her life, and the memories they instilled were an integral component of her heritage, valued both for gastronomical satisfaction and as a family birthright.
Jeffrey Veidlinger, In the Shadow of the Shtetl: Small-Town Jewish Life in Soviet Ukraine (Indiana University Press, 2013)