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.

Paul (Pinny) Switzer's Oral History

Paul (Pinny) Switzer, Professor Emeritus at Stanford, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on October 10th, 2016 at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California.

This interview was conducted in Yiddish.

Paul (Pinny) Switzer was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1939.

Jump to map

Video highlights from this oral history

"They Were Our Neighbors": My Father's Memories of the 1919 Pogrom in Sudylkiv

2 min 18 sec

Welcoming Jewish Refugees to Magnus Avenue in Winnipeg After World War II

2 min 37 sec

Always Thought They Would Return: Reckoning With the Holocaust

2 min

Showered in Candy: Paul (Pinny) Switzer Recalls His Bar Mitzvah

3 min 48 sec

Done, Yiddish: Leaving Behind a Language

2 min 55 sec

A brivele dem zayden (A Letter to Grandpa): A Thin Thread of Post-Childhood Yiddish Connection

2 min 48 sec

A Sunday Tradition of Prayer and Brandy with My Grandfather

3 min 1 sec

"Yiddish zol lebn mit mir (Yiddish Should Live With Me)”: Returning to Yiddish as an Adult in California

2 min 59 sec

More information about this oral history

Themes:

Listen later:

Download as an mp3 audio file for free

For other download options:

View the full Internet Archive record