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.

"The End of Poland": Boyhood Memories of the German Invasion

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Victor Gilinsky, son of Medem Sanatorium co-founder Shloyme Gilinski, tells of leaving Poland at the beginning of the Second World War, emphasizing the uncertainty Polish Jews had about the future under occupation. He discusses how many Polish Jews reacted to his family fleeing, still unsuspecting of the Nazis because of previous impressions of the Germans.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Victor Gilinsky.

This excerpt is in English.

Victor Gilinsky was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1934.

This interview is part of the Beyond the Books: Yiddish writers and their descendants series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

The Yeshiva Was My Father's Gateway to the Secular World

2 min 44 sec

The Evolution of the Medem Sanatorium

3 min 43 sec

It Wasn’t Clear Which Side Was Better: A Family of Bundists Escapes Poland at the Beginning of WWII

3 min 57 sec

Afraid to Speak Yiddish in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast

2 min 14 sec

A Japanese Diplomat Saved My Family During WWII

5 min 12 sec

A Shared Cigarette: Siblings Secret Goodbye During World War Two

1 min 25 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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