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.

"They Thought It was Heaven on Earth": Why Leibu Levin Stayed in the Soviet Union and His Subsequent Arrest

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Ruth Levin—singer and daughter of Yiddish orator, singer, and performer Leibu Levin—talks about her father being drafted into the Red Army and then being sent to a labor camp in the Soviet Union.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Ruth Levin.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Ruth Levin was born in Moscow, Russia in 1958.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

Ruth Levin Speaks about Father Leibu Levin's Rescue in Gulag and Marriage after Release

3 min 31 sec

Coming to Terms with Father Leibu Levin's Death through Performance

1 min 17 sec

A Forceful Impulse: Learning Yiddish After My Father Died

1 min 59 sec

Two Yiddish Leibu Levin Songs Sung by His Daughter, Ruth Levin

4 min 57 sec

Ruth Levin Talks about Performing Yiddish Theater and Songs in Honor of Her Father, Leibu Levin

2 min 19 sec

Ruth Levin Discusses Her Father Leibu Levin's Pre-WW2 Career in Czernowitz

1 min 48 sec

How Leibu Levin Came to Perform Recitations in Red Army Military Hospitals with Anton Shvarts

2 min 53 sec

"It Wasn't What He'd Built Up": Leibu Levin's Move to Israel

1 min 41 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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