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.

Samuel Ponczak's Oral History

Samuel Ponczak - Holocaust survivor, polyglot, and translator - was interviewed by Agnieszka Ilwicka on June 22, 2014 in Wroclaw, Poland.

This interview was conducted in English.

Samuel Ponczak was born in Warsaw, Poland.

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Video highlights from this oral history

"That Priest Saved My Life": Escape from the Warsaw Ghetto

1 min 42 sec

"Most of the People were Very Strange-Looking": Soviet Siberian Labor Camp in the Eyes of a Child

2 min 53 sec

"Shloyme, This is Your Sister'": One Girl's Escape from a Cattle Car to Treblinka Extermination Camp

4 min 33 sec

"Remember us! Tell what happened!" People's Screams Going to Gas Chambers During World War II

2 min 19 sec

"Saving the Children and Taking Them to Palestine": Hashomer Hatzair's Jewish Summer Camps in Poland

2 min 41 sec

"The Notion of Jews Being in a Position of Strength was Strange to Me": Living through the 1956 War

2 min 27 sec

"I Remember Asking, 'How Could I Become a Non-Jew?'": Post-WWII Poland in the Eyes of a Jewish Child

1 min 36 sec

"Being Jewish and Being Stateless is not a Good Combination": Jewish Immigration to Buenos Aires in the 1960s

3 min 29 sec

"When I Left Poland the Holocaust was a Taboo Subject": Addressing the Holocaust in the 21st Century

4 min 32 sec

"We Need to Take Care of That Land, Where Our Families Lie": Remembering the Holocaust in Poland

3 min 35 sec

Why I Don't Have Family Photos From Before WWII

1 min 52 sec

More information about this oral history

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