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.

How My Mother Escaped the Ponary Massacre

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Elliott (Elye) Palevsky tells how his mother was sick the day Jews were driven out of her hometown to Ponar, where they were all killed. She later learned what happened from a woman who had survived the massacre, but it took her longer to feel it emotionally.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Elliott (Elye) Palevsky.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Elliott (Elye) Palevsky was born in Bronx, New York in 1947.

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Other video highlights from this oral history

"She Has to Come to Grips with It": A Jewish Partisan Comes Face-to-Face with A Nazi Collaborator

2 min 49 sec

What Hitler Couldn’t Take Away From Us With Hatred, We Wouldn't Let America Take With Goodness

4 min 46 sec

My Uncle Approached Communism with the Same Fervor of His Hasidic Upbringing

2 min 14 sec

Growing up with Bundist Parents Got Me Involved in Civil Rights Activism

1 min 49 sec

My Teacher, Moyshe Goldshteyn, Cultivated Pride in Jewish Culture

1 min 29 sec

Re-visiting Vilna and the Jewish Past and Present Place in a New Way

3 min 35 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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