Danielle Charak's Oral History

Wexler Oral History Project/ Yiddish Book Center

Danielle Charak, Melbourne-based Yiddish activist, teacher, and former radio host, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on February 9, 2017, in Melbourne, Australia. Danielle Charak was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1939. Danielle Charak, Melbourne-based Yiddish activist, teacher, and former radio host, talks about Yiddish cultural life in Poland before World War II. Both of her parents grew up very poor and the local Bund gave them opportunities for a better life. Danielle Charak, Melbourne-based Yiddish activist, teacher, and former radio host, remembers some of her teachers from the Yiddish school she attended in Brussels, Belgium, in the years after the Holocaust. One of her teachers was the young Chava Rosenfarb, who became a celebrated Yiddish novelist and short story writer. Danielle Charak, Melbourne-based Yiddish activist, teacher, and former radio host, tells the story of performing Sholem Aleichem's play "Dos Meserl" in London with her school when she was about seven years old. She talks about her role in the play and what London after WW2 was like. Danielle Charak, Melbourne-based Yiddish activist, teacher, and former radio host, explains what prompted her parents to immigrate to Australia after WW2. She was a child during this time and explains how only with time did she realize her parents' sorrow at the sense that Europe being a graveyard. Danielle Charak, Melbourne-based Yiddish activist, teacher, and former radio host, remembers her journey to Australia, as well as her early memories there. She immigrated when she was a young child and remembers Port Saed, the Suez Canal and her family's first apartment in Melbourne. Danielle Charak, Melbourne-based Yiddish activist, teacher, and former radio host, describes some of the Yiddish radio programs that used to be, and some that still are, aired in Melbourne, Australia. She also talks about who was, and is, involved in Yiddish radio.