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.

Yakob Basner's Oral History

Yakob Basner, Yiddish teacher and Holocaust survivor, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on October 16, 2016 in Seal Beach, California.

This interview was conducted in Yiddish.

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

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Video highlights from this oral history

"The Fate of All Jews will be Our Fate Too": Memories of the Beginning of WW2

2 min 35 sec

They Took My Mother: The First Days of the Holocaust

4 min 38 sec

Roaches and One Hundred Grams of Bread: Life in the Riga Ghetto

3 min 16 sec

The Day They Burned the Synagogues of Riga

3 min 20 sec

He Was a Matzah Specialist: Making Matzah with my Father-in-Law

2 min 8 sec

Riga's Beloved Yiddish Theater

3 min 25 sec

Memorializing the Rumbula Massacre of Latvia's Jewish Community

4 min 46 sec

Arrested for Nothing: Jewish Life Under Khrushchev

2 min 42 sec

Announcement for a "Yiddish Event": Finding a Jewish Community in California

2 min 4 sec

"My Language, My Life": My Connection to Yiddish

2 min 4 sec

Jewish Community Politics in Riga

4 min 50 sec

Remembering the Rumbula Massacre in Latvia

7 min 25 sec

"I See Riga with Different Eyes": Memories of My City

1 min 46 sec

What Little Yiddishkayt We Could Observe in Post-War Soviet Riga

1 min 22 sec

Growing Up in Riga's Yiddish-Speaking Jewish Neighborhood

2 min 21 sec

Jewish Education in Latvia Before the War

3 min 29 sec

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

2 min 34 sec

"Look How They're Kissing": Connecting and Reconnecting with My Wife

2 min 28 sec

Artifacts related to this oral history

Magen David Tombstone in Jewish Cemetery

Yom HaShoah in Israel with Camp Uniform

Memorial to Janis Lipke and His Wife and Others who Saved Jews

Yiddish Photo Description

Portrait of Yakob 1940s

Resolution Honoring Yakob Basner 2002

Riga Memorial Inscription

Rumbula Memorial Inscription

Stone in Rumbula with names of Mother Two Siblings Aunt and Two Cousins

The Twins Abet and Celia born in 1935 Died of Rumbula at 7

Torah Tombstone in Old Jewish Cemetery

Bikernieki Memorial Stones for Murdered Jews - They say Names of Victims' Hometowns

Yakob Basner at Memorial to the Victims of Riga-Kaiserwald Concentration Camp

Doba Taytz at 5 Years Old

Yakob Basner at 3 with Mother and Father in Riga

Family Photo Early 20th Century Yakobs Grandpa Aunt and Uncle in Riga

Yakob Basner Portrait After the Liberation Coming to Riga in 1944

Family Photo with Parental Grandfather and Yakob at 10 1937

Yakob in Skrunda Where They Pumped Water

Graves in Rumbula 5000-7000 People Killed Over 2 Days

Yakobs Mother and Father

Last Surviving Shul in Riga the Petershul

Yiddishkayt Award to Yakob Basner from Arbeter Ring

More information about this oral history

Themes:

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