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.
Martin Schiller's Oral History
Martin Schiller, a retired electrical engineer and Holocaust survivor, was interviewed on June 13, 2013 by Mark Gerstein at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.
This interview was conducted in English.
Martin Schiller was born in Poland in 1933.
Video highlights from this oral history
That's When I Fell In Love With The Nation of Israel: Singing While Baking Matzah
2 minutes
"Shabbes for Me Was A Song From Friday Night Until The End": Celebrating Shabbes in Tarnobrzeg, Poland in the 1930s
1 minute 34 seconds
Praying in Synagogue on the Eve of the Holocaust
1 minute 50 seconds
Experiencing Polish Anti-Semitism As A Child Before WWII
4 minutes 13 seconds
The People of Chelm and the Cat
2 minutes 59 seconds
"A Tremendously Liberating Feeling": Sabotaging the German War Machine
4 minutes 2 seconds
Debating the Existence of God During and After the Holocaust
5 minutes 15 seconds
The Dilemmas Posed by Collective Punishment in Forced Labor Camps During WWII
1 minute 41 seconds
Saving My Mother and Brother from Execution
5 minutes 4 seconds
Learning Yiddish Songs From M. Shtrigler in Buchenwald
4 minutes
A Fellow Yeshiva Student Questions the Holocaust
3 minutes 8 secondsArtifacts related to this oral history
More information about this oral history
Themes:
- Advice
- Family histories
- Childhood
- Jewish Identity
- Yiddish language
- Immigration and migration
- Music
- Literature
- Career and Professional Life
- Holocaust
- Religion
- Family traditions
- Jewish holidays
- Israel
- Zionism
- Eastern Europe
- Food
- Cultural transmission
- Heritage
- Antisemitism
- Purim
- Hanukkah
- Martin Schiller
- Poland
- Germany
Keywords:
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About the Wexler Oral History Project
Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded more than 500 in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture.
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