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's Almost A Universal Language For Me": Yiddish Language Then and Now

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Gunther Rice, child survivor of the Holocaust, remembers picking up Yiddish in his childhood in Hamburg, his siblings' opinions on the language, and singing a Yiddish song with his granddaughter and her friends.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Gunther Rice.

This excerpt is in English.

Gunther Rice was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1924. Gunther died in 2020.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

Songs from the Synagogue Choir in Hamburg in the 1930s

2 min 18 sec

The Only Non-Jewish Teacher at the Talmud-Torah in Hamburg

1 min 31 sec

Running Across the Border into Poland

2 min 48 sec

Origins of Kindertransport, A UK-Based Organization That Took In Children Refugees in the 1930s

1 min 42 sec

We Don't Steal From Refugees: A Pickpocket Returned Stolen Money for Kindertransport

2 min 48 sec

Cherished Yiddish Letters from My Family in Wartime

3 min 21 sec

Who Is A Survivor?: Reflections on Living through the Holocaust

2 min 39 sec

"Like Home": Speaking Yiddish

2 min 16 sec

To Israel or America After WWII?: Choosing Because A Refugee from the Continent Could Go In My Place

2 min 7 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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