WPL01202 – Voices from the Past: Cultural History Gathered from Yizkor (Memorial) Books

This lecture will cite and present many fascinating, often humorous, sometimes sad, stories from Yizkor Books written by Holocaust survivors as well as Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe settling throughout the world. The goal of the writers was to memorialize their home towns, and the unique Jewish way of life found there, cut short by the Nazis and gone forever. Not every Shtetl has a Yizkor Book, and many have yet to be translated into English. From those books that do exist, we are offered a glimpse into the Jewish history, geography, culture, folklore, customs, old wife’s tales, rabbinical dynasties, and ultimately the horrors of the Shoah as existed in Eastern Europe.