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.

Victor Gilinsky's Oral History

Victor Gilinsky, son of Medem Sanitorium co-founder Shloyme Gilinski, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on October 14, 2013 in Santa Monica, California.

This interview was conducted in English.

Victor Gilinsky was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1934.

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Video highlights from this oral history

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

3 min 39 sec

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

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