Jacob G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Jacob G., who was born in P'yanovichi, Poland (presently Ukraine) in approximately 1922, the youngest of thirteen children. He recalls German invasion; a non-Jewish friend warning him to leave and providing false papers for him and two friends; traveling to Bia?ystok; meeting his future wife; moving to Minsk; studying engineering; obtaining a Soviet passport; living in Uzda; German invasion in 1941; working as a mechanic; a mass killing of Jews; a brother and sister being killed while escaping; transfer to the Minsk ghetto in March 1942; a mass shooting of Jews; joining a partisan group; hiding weapons; smuggling children out of the ghetto; escaping with his future wife to the Jewish partisans in a forest; blowing up trains, raiding collaborators' farms; skirmishing with German military; killing all Germans after they burned members of his unit alive; his wife remaining in the forest camp; working with Daniel R.; joining the Soviet military; being wounded; joining his wife after military discharge; joining other former partisans in a kibbutz; seeking survivors in P'yanovichi, then ?o?dz?; assisting an older Jew who was being attacked by non-Jews; their daughter's birth in 1946; smuggling themselves to Germany, intending to emigrate to Palestine; living in Berchtesgaden and Bad Reichenhall displaced persons camps; helping to organize routes for illegal emigration to Palestine; his wife and daughter emigrating; joining them about a year later; recruitment for the Haganah; being injured in the 1948 war; and moving to Jaffa after the war. Mr. G. discusses native Israelis' reluctance to acknowledge survivor or partisan experiences; lack of understanding that persists to the present; never discussing the revenge taken after the war; one brother and one sister joining him in Israel; sharing his story with his two daughters and grandchildren; and his love of and commitment to Israel.
Extent and Medium
9 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
- G., Jacob, -- 1922?-
Corporate Bodies
- Bad Reichenhall (Displaced persons camp)
- Haganah (Organization)
Subjects
- Mass killings.
- Forests.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- False papers.
- Public opinion -- Israel.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Public opinion.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Soviet.
- Refugee camps.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belarus.
- Revenge.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Jews -- Belarus -- Minsk.
- Husband and wife.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
Places
- Poland.
- Minsk (Belarus)
- Uzda (Belarus)
- P'yanovichi (Ukraine)
- Białystok (Poland)
- Minsk ghetto.
- Berchtesgaden (Berchtesgaden : Refugee camp)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat