Three Holocaust Artifacts (1965)

This episode of YIVO’s radio program on WEVD was originally broadcast on April 18th, 1965. To commemorate the uprising in Warsaw Ghetto that took place on the first night of Passover in 1943, host Sheftl Zak talks about artifacts donated to the YIVO archives. Using I.L. Peretz’s short story “Dray Matones” (Three Gifts) as an allegory, he describes three artifacts as symbols of the larger YIVO collections: a silver ring, a page from a handwritten prayerbook, and the “scorched pages of a book found in the ruins of the YIVO building in Vilna.”

From 1963-1976, YIVO had its own program on WEVD, the radio station established by the Socialist Party of America in 1927 (its call letters stand for the initials of American socialist leader Eugene V. Debs), which was purchased by the Jewish Daily Forward in 1932 and became a major venue from Yiddish programming.

YIVO used its spot on WEVD for Yiddish-language interviews and discussions with leading New York Yiddish cultural figures, as well as for reporting on its own scholarly and cultural work.

A new podcast of this program in the order in which it was originally broadcast will be posted here every two weeks.

Presentation of series curated by Matt Temkin, YIVO Sound Archives.

Listen to the program [in Yiddish].