Mordechai Z. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Mordechai Z., who was born in Švenčionys, Poland (presently Lithuania) in 1921, the second of five children. He recounts participating in Halutz; Soviet occupation; German invasion; a round-up that included his older brother (they never saw him again); fleeing with his family to Milkuskos, then Svir; returning home; ghettoization; forced labor for Organisation Todt in Palemonas; escaping; entering the Vilna ghetto with assistance from non-Jews; living in an orphanage; arrival of his father, mother, and sisters; hiding with FPO partisans during the ghetto's liquidation (his family was taken), then in a friend's bunker; capture; slave labor in chains felling trees, disinterring corpses from mass graves and burning them in trenches in Ponary; working with Soviet/Jewish POWs; with a group, digging a tunnel at night for four months; escaping with several others; assistance from villagers; joining partisans in the Rudniki forest; participating in missions; capturing Armia Krajowa partisans; killing them in self-defense; participating in the liberation of Vilna; working for the NKVD as a policeman; visiting his hometown; traveling to Lublin, Alba Lulia, Bucharest, Budapest, Graz, then Italy; living on a kibbutz near Bari; illegal emigration to Palestine in 1945; serving in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war; marriage; and the births of three children. Mr. Z. discusses seeing things in the mass graves he does "not want to remember"; and not sharing his experiences, except with one daughter when she was older.
Extent and Medium
4 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. This testimony can only be used for scholarly or educational purposes. Any commercial use requires permission of the donor or his heirs.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- Z., Mordechai, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Soviet Union. -- Narodnyĭ komissariat vnutrennikh del.
- Poland. -- Polskie Siły Zbrojne. -- Armia Krajowa.
- Palemonas (Concentration camp)
- Organisation Todt (Germany)
- Fareyniḳṭe parṭizaner organizatsye (Vilnius, Lithuania)
- Histadrut "he-Ḥaluts" be-Liṭa.
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Orphanages.
- Escapes.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Vilnius.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Švenčionys.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Soviet occupation.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
- Prisoners of war.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Forced labor.
- Paneriai Massacres, Paneriai, Lithuania, 1941-1944.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Lithuania.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Postwar experiences.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Mutual aid.
- Forests.
- Partisans.
- Mass killings.
- Hiding.
Places
- Alba Iulia (Romania)
- Bucharest (Romania)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Lublin (Poland)
- Milkuškos (Lithuania)
- Svir (Belarus)
- Poland.
- Švenčionys (Lithuania)
- Vilna ghetto.
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Švenčionys ghetto.
- Graz (Austria)
- Budapest (Hungary)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat