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.

He Wrote A Letter to Hitler: The Family Myth Behind How My Grandparents Died in Their Home in 1942

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Jack Apfelbaum, engineer, recalls how his grandparents died of old age during Nazi-era Germany. Jack shares the family belief that a letter written by his grandfather to Adolf Hitler granted them a peaceful end to their lives.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Jack Apfelbaum.

This excerpt is in English.

Jack Apfelbaum was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1928. Jack died in 2018.