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.

"It Was Not Allowed": A Narrow Jewish Identity in the Soviet Union

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Inessa Slootskin, a retired environmental protection engineer, recalls her early childhood in Minsk: how religion was forbidden, but antisemitism was still pervasive.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Inessa Slootskin.

This excerpt is in English.

Inessa Slootskin was born in Minsk, Belarus in 1938.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

"It's Not A Storm, It's A War!": Remembering The Beginning Of WWII In Brest-Litovsk

3 min 39 sec

Children's Stories In The Woods: Visiting My Father Among The Partisans During WWII

3 min 39 sec

"The Lie": My Father's Disappearance From The Belorussian Partisan Unit During WWII

2 min 21 sec

"I Was The Main Breadwinner": My Experience As A Child Hiding With My Mother And Grandmother In Belorussian Forest Villages During WWII

2 min 17 sec

The Partisan's Son

1 min 53 sec

"City of Ruins": A Communal Apartment in Minsk After WWII

2 min 32 sec

Leaving Minsk for Missouri

3 min 44 sec

Sneaking Around Germans to Safety During WWII

2 min 4 sec

Narrowly Escaping Mass Murder

1 min 52 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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