Berl G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Berl G., who was born in Vilkija, Lithuania in 1919. He recounts moving to Kaunas; his younger brother's death; belonging to Betar; Soviet occupation; German invasion in 1941; fleeing with his family to Ukmerge?; returning to Kaunas; mass killings by Lithuanians; ghettoization; forced labor at the airport; a mass killing on October 28, 1941 which included his parents; remaining with his brother and sister-in-law; their assignment to a work brigade outside the ghetto; organizing resistance with assistance from the Judenrat and Jewish police; escaping with a small group; capture; imprisonment; assignment to the Ninth Fort to unearth and burn bodies from mass killings; escaping to the ghetto on Christmas Eve; hiding with a friend; escaping to partisans in the forest; learning his brother had just been killed; he and his sister-in-law executing his brother's betrayers; liberation in July; liberating Vilnius; marriage in 1945; learning his family of eighty-five had all been killed; and emigration to Canada in 1949. Mr. G. discusses thinking about escape as a coping mechanism in the Ninth Fort and seldom sharing his experiences since they are so hard to believe, but speaking with those who are interested, including his children.

3 videocassettes