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.

One of the Biggest Markets in Europe: Working, Buying, and Selling in Pre-War Riga, Latvia

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Yakob Basner, Yiddish teacher and Holocaust survivor, recalls the professions of his Jewish community in RIga, and describes the Riga Market which took place on the banks of the Dvina River.

This is an excerpt from an oral history with Yakob Basner.

This excerpt is in Yiddish.

Yakob Basner was born in 1927. Yakob died in 2021.