The Yiddish Book Center's

Wexler Oral History Project

A growing collection of in-depth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture offer a rich and complex chronicle of Jewish identity.

Learning About Prejudice from My Black Childhood Playmate

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Fred Irving - WWII veteran and retired ambassador - talks about growing up as a member of the only Jewish family in a predominantly African American neighborhood.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Fred Irving.

This excerpt is in English.

Fred Irving was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1921. Fred died in 2016.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

Plane Goes Down in Hungary: Near-Death Experiences of a WWII POW

8 min 18 sec

This Fellow Can't Seem to Die: American Soldier Tortured in a POW Camp During WWII

4 min 52 sec

You Look at What's Inside A Person: Learning Liberal Jewishness From My Mother

2 min 41 sec

April 29, 1945: Liberated By General Patton

1 min 23 sec

I Almost Came Close to Eating Something: A Forced March as an American Jewish POW at the End of WWII

2 min 54 sec

His Plane Goes Down in Hungary

8 min 18 sec

Planning to Escape a German POW Camp

5 min 53 sec

The Rabbi Said She Had To Vote Republican; Questioning Religion

3 min 34 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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