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.

Surviving Kristallnacht in Vienna

Watch now:

Moshe Kraus, Holocaust survivor and first chief cantor for the Israel Defense Forces, describes surviving Kristallnacht while studying music in Vienna and escaping on the last train to Prague.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Moshe Kraus.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Jump to map

Other video highlights from this oral history

'Keyn Kotsk Furt Men Nit' - Lyrics Explained

1 min 29 sec

Studying Music in Vienna with Joseph Schmidt's Teacher

1 min 47 sec

Life as a "Wunderkind"

2 min 17 sec

A Hasidic Folktale About A Graveside Miracle

2 min 3 sec

Sharing Meals with the Needy in Interwar Užgorod

3 min 41 sec

I Proposed After Half An Hour: Meeting and Marrying My Wife

4 min 16 sec

How Synagogues have Changed

1 min 56 sec

How a Nign is Born

1 min 56 sec

The Role of Yiddish Today

1 min 26 sec

'A Sweet Mouth": They Came to Me For Blessings Because of My Grandfather, Kerestirer Rebbe

1 min 53 sec

How Singing for Josef Kramer in Bergen-Belsen Saved My Life

3 min 40 sec

"Last Night I Walked in Heaven" A Hasidic Folk Tale

8 min 24 sec

I Sang Professionally Into My Nineties

1 min 34 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

Themes: