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.

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

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Jacob Apelberg, Holocaust survivor and translator of Yiddish poetry, describes information circulation in Kazakhstan, 1943. He discusses Radio Moscow playing in the apartment, and a teacher in his Russian school making sure students knew what was going on.

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.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

Memories of the German Invasion

3 min 24 sec

Memories of Fleeing: from Białystok to a Russian Work Camp

3 min 26 sec

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

"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

More information about this oral history excerpt

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