Haim B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Haim B., who was born in approximately 1923, one of five children. Mr. B. recounts his family's affluence; living in Vilnius; visiting his grandfather in Valozhyn; participating in Hashomer Hadati; Soviet invasion; brief Lithuanian independence, followed by Soviet reoccupation; attending university; his father's arrest for "illegal trading"; helping secure his release; managing his father's factory in Kaunas; German invasion; one sister's death in a bombing; anti-Jewish restrictions; thousands of Jews disappearing; learning they were killed at Paneriai; reporting for daily forced labor; organization of the Judenrat; ghettoization; escaping with his brother and aunt from a round-up by Lithuanian collaborators; their former non-Jewish maid bringing them food; forced labor collecting valuables from apartments of Jews killed or deported; hiding during round-ups; observing a German sadistically killing an infant, resulting in his fear of holding an infant to this day; his father bribing a Jewish policeman to release his grandmother from a round-up; public hangings; working in a warehouse; trading goods for food for his family; observing Soviet prisoners of war who were in worse condition than the Jews; continuing to study Torah with a rabbi; working for the Judenrat; his grandmother's deportation; joining a cell of the Fareynik?t?e part?izaner organizatsye (FPO), a Jewish resistance group; attending theater performances and cafes to forget what was happening around him; obtaining a pistol so he could escape and join partisans outside the ghetto; his father joining a group building a bunker; and joining partisans outside the ghetto in September 1943. Mr. B. discusses Jacob Gens' role in the ghetto; Joseph Glazman's leadership of the FPO while on the Judenrat; and only he and one sister surviving.
Extent and Medium
24 videocassettes
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Haim, -- 1923?-
- Gens, Jacob, -- 1903-1943.
- Glazman, Josef, -- approximately 1908-1943.
Corporate Bodies
- Fareyniḳṭe parṭizaner organizatsye (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Jewish councils.
- Forced labor.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Vilnius.
- Prisoners of war -- Soviet Union.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Lithuania.
- Prisoners of war -- Lithuania.
- Faith.
- Soviet occupation.
- Hiding.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar effects.
- Partisans.
Places
- Valozhyn (Belarus)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Kaunas (Lithuania)
- Vilna ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat