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.

My Bundist Father was Arrested and Tortured for Public Speaking in Soviet-Occupied Belarus

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Helena (Chayele) Jacobs [Storch], Yiddish actress, describes how her father’s public role in the Jewish Labor Bund led to his arrest, torture, and death in Brest-Litovsk (Brisk in Yiddish), Belarus when the Nazis invaded the city during World War Two.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Helena (Chayele) Jacobs [Storch].

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Helena (Chayele) Jacobs [Storch] was born in Kalisz, Poland in 1931.

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

Other video highlights from this oral history

My Mother Opened A Yiddish Kindergarten

2 min 42 sec

Melbourne Yiddish Theater and Jacob Waislitz

3 min 28 sec

My Love of Yiddish Theater Came From My Father

1 min 46 sec

My First Yiddish Theater Appearance At Age 3

1 min 43 sec

A Shtetl in Siberia During World War II

1 min 53 sec

My First Impression of Melbourne as a Jewish European Refugee After WWII

55 sec

More information about this oral history excerpt

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