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.

Everything Had “A Flavor of War”: My Later Childhood in Post-WWII Poland

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Raphael Roginski, a musician and activist, describes growing up in Podkowa Lesna, a bucolic small town in central Poland, where he and his friends played games influenced by World War II and the Holocaust.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Raphael Roginski.

This excerpt is in English.

This interview is part of the Yiddish and the Arts: musicians, actors, and artists series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

Raphael Roginski: Improv #2 in Sejny, Poland

4 min

Gambling in Yiddish: Growing up in Frankfurt in the 1970s and 80s

4 min 46 sec

“An Amazing Place”: Red Lights, Trauma, and Yiddish in 1970s and 80s Frankfurt

7 min 46 sec

“A Symbol of What Was Jewish Culture for Me”: My Uncle, an Auschwitz Survivor, was Funny

2 min 18 sec

"You Can't Understand the Music Without Yiddish"

2 min 4 sec

“Finding Space for Another Language in Polish Monoculture”: Using Yiddish in How I Present My Music

1 min 59 sec

“Who Am I, A Ghost?”: Making Sense of Multicultural Polish Past

3 min 25 sec

Raphael Roginski on Countering the “Fetishization” of Jewish Culture and Music in Poland

5 min 44 sec

Raphael Roginski: Improv in Sejny, Poland

2 min 55 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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