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.

Memories of the German Invasion

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Jacob Apelberg, Holocaust survivor and translator of Yiddish poetry, describes witnessing the German army entering his village on Poland. He tells a story of watching them arrive, and thinking they're the "Yiddish army" after hearing them speak to each other.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Jacob Apelberg.

This excerpt is in English.

Jacob Apelberg was born in Wasewo, Poland in 1932.

This interview is part of the Yiddish in the Academy: scholars, language instructors, and students series.

Other video highlights from this oral history

When to Leave, Where to Go: Memories of Poland Under Occupation

5 min 30 sec

Life in the Soviet Labor Camp

4 min 2 sec

The News in Soviet Kazakhstan: The Warsaw Ghetto on Radio Moscow

2 min 18 sec

"Language of the Diaspora": Speaking Hebrew or Yiddish in Israel

3 min 21 sec

Translating from the Soul: Coming back to Yiddish through Translating a Poem

3 min 41 sec

Memories of Fleeing: from Białystok to a Russian Work Camp

3 min 26 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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