Yiddish Book Center

I find this chapter from Rachel Auerbach’s 1974 memoir Varshever tsavoes (Warsaw Testaments) very moving, particularly during these days of pandemic. Auerbach wrote, “It may seem absurd to say that people needed books when they had nothing to eat and their lives were so uncertain . . . There has rarely been such a mass hunger for books as there was in Poland during the German occupation . . ." These librarians were true heroes, and literature continues to be a source of strength and meaning.

This excerpt from our Wexler Oral History Project speaks to me as a New Yorker and because I knew the narrator, Arthur Klein. It captures a particular practice and historical moment in a New York that no longer exists— young men going to the “shvitz” for a sauna (who knew you could spend the night?!). It also illustrates how these oral histories preserve stories of everyday life of a kind that you don’t always find in the written record.

One of my very favorite pieces in our “From the Vault” series is this, wherein our then-fellow, Mikhl Yashinsky, finds a brown paper bag with family recipes in our book vault and proceeds to cook one of the recipes, identify the “Beulah” who wrote the recipe, track down Beulah’s daughter, and connect to the family. The story Mikhl tells is both charming and touching.