Paper short abstract:

The paper is based on fieldwork materials about Jews collected among non-Jewish population in Burshtin, Ukraine. Jewish community of the town was exterminated in WWII, so the main aim of the paper is to describe an actual image of the ethnic group that disappeared.

Paper long abstract:

The paper is based on fieldwork materials about Jews collected among the non-Jewish population in Burshtin, Ukraine. The interviews were collected in 2009-2010. The interviewees are Ukrainians born before WWII. In childhood, they were eyewitnesses of rich Jewish life in the town. The questions were designed to explore three major themes: (1) life stories of Jewish families, (2) religious life, (3) Jewish calendar rites and rites of passage.

The main results of the investigation can be formulated as follows: (1) the actual memory about Jewish life contains a mix of child reminiscences and stereotypical folklore beliefs; (2) information about formal Jewish organizations (e.g. political parties) has completely disappeared; (3) information about particular persons (e.g. neighbors) still exists. Notably, the transmission "vehicle" of information about Jewish life is town toponymics: the informants describe some places as "Jewish".