Sara Kruzansky's Oral History

Sara Kruzansky (z"l), teacher of Jewish history, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on June 12, 2011 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.  Sara's parents met in Warsaw and emigrated to the United States, ending up in St Louis and then Chicago, where Sara grew up. It was a very poor, religious household where every holiday was celebrated. They owned a small grocery store in a primarily Black neighborhood and lived either behind or next door to the store in small flats. Her mother prepared Shabbos every week but her father had to work. They always listened to the Yiddish radio program which was broadcast on Friday nights. Sara grew up speaking Yiddish and English. Her parents were Roosevelt Democrats but not left leaning. What was important to them was making a living, practicing their religion, and worrying about family left behind in Europe. Sara had no relatives in the United States and remembers the sadness that permeated her mother's life due to missing her family. She acknowledges the Jewish values such as compassion and love of learning that her parents passed on to her. Sara enjoyed public school and religious school and was a good student. She loved to read and spent a lot of time in the library. Sara met her husband when she was working as a secretary in New York City and married him soon after. She becomes very emotional talking about losing her husband seven years before, but she repeats more than once that she had a very good life; a good marriage, three devoted children, and seven grandchildren. They kept a kosher home, belonged to a synagogue, and raised their children Jewishly. Although she had taken a few courses in night school, she did not attend college regularly until her children were grown, when she pursued a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in Jewish history. She studied at several schools and at YIVO. Luckily, she was able to fulfill the master's language requirements based on her relative command of Yiddish. After graduating she taught Jewish history courses at nearby colleges and elder hostels. Sara loves the Yiddish language and starts to cry when she talks about how speaking the language connects her with her parents and feels like "home." She talks about the strange experience of visiting her mother's town in Poland, and about the virulent antisemitism that still exists although there are no Jews left. She believes that Yiddish was basically murdered when the people who spoke it were murdered, and that it exists now mostly as an academic language. She ends by talking about how Yiddish connected Jews from all over the world and helped them to maintain their identity as a people.