Yakov S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Yakov S., who was born in Slonim, Poland in 1920. He recalls attending Jewish schools; pervasive antisemitism; Soviet occupation in 1939; studying in Lʹviv; returning home to help support his family; working in Białystok; German invasion in 1941; returning home; anti-Jewish restrictions; Polish friends turning on them; ghettoization; forced labor; being caught in a round-up for a mass shooting; being left for dead in the grave; tunneling out at night; returning to the ghetto; his brother advising him not to tell anyone what happened; joining the underground with his brother and a friend; smuggling weapons, clothing, and medicine; hiding when the ghetto was liquidated in June 1942; leaving the ghetto with his family, seeking Soviet partisans; acceptance into the partisans with one brother and sister (the rest of his family was killed later); armed forays against the Germans; Jews being killed by partisans; his brother's death; improvements after the arrival of soldiers from Moscow; destroying railroad tracks; liberating Kossovo; separation from his sister when they entered Pinsk with Soviet troops; enlistment in the Soviet military; fighting in many battles until arrival in Berlin; deciding not to kill German children despite wanting revenge; being wounded; hospitalization; and crying for the first time, having realized his losses.

8 videocassettes