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.

Born Under the Bed During a Pogrom: Stories From My Family Before Coming to America

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Troim Katz Handler, daughter of Yiddish poet Menke Katz, recounts her grandmother's story of having to identify the perpetrators of pogroms to the newly victorious Communist soldiers in Russia. She tells, also, of her mother's birth under a bed during a pogrom.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Troim Katz Handler.

This excerpt is in English.

Troim Katz Handler was born in Los Angeles, California in 1927.

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This interview is part of the Beyond the Books: Yiddish writers and their descendants series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

The Experience of Menke Katz, Yiddish-Speaking Poet, in Israel at at Time of Strong Anti-Yiddish Sentiment

1 min 50 sec

What's In a Name: Menke Katz on Changing Names and Changing Destinies

58 sec

A Strange Arrangement: Growing Up With My Yiddish-Speaking Grandparents So My Father Could Write

2 min 5 sec

"Two Lives With One Man:" Memories of Menke Katz

1 min 16 sec

Dual Consciousness: Growing Up In A Blended Religious and Secular Home

2 min 26 sec

Satmar and the Future of Yiddish

1 min 1 sec

The Jewish Community of Passaic, New Jersey

1 min 45 sec

The JPFO-IWO: The World of the Yiddish Intelligentsia

4 min 15 sec

My Mother, Khashke Katz, Was Also A Writer

1 min 24 sec

“How Strange That I Didn’t Recognize You!”: Meeting My Father, Poet Menke Katz, After Years Apart

1 min 20 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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