Yosef P. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Yosef P., who was born in Kletsk, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1923. He recalls attending a Tarbut school, then a Jewish gymnasium in Baranavichy; his family's Zionist leanings; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; Soviet occupation in 1939; transfer to a Soviet school; German invasion; forced labor; a round-up in October 1941; his aunt including his family with her working group; thousands of others being shot in a mass killing; ghettoization; policeman surrounding the ghetto in July 1942; setting fire to houses, then escaping with others to a forest; learning his mother had been killed from a woman who was left for dead and escaped from the mass grave; joining the Zhukov partisan unit; blowing up trains and military actions; conflicts with the Armia Krajowa and cooperation with Armia Ludowa; joining a Soviet unit nine months later; operating in the Białystok and Kapylʹski areas and the Bialowieza Forest; enlisting in the Soviet army in July 1944; receiving medals in Minsk; returning home; losing his job during an antisemitic purge; marriage, the births of two children; employment as the director of a state farm until 1977; being forbidden to be in touch with friends and relatives in Israel; and visiting Israel in 1990 after conditions eased.

5 videocassettes