Piotr R. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Piotr R., who was born in Drahichyn, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1923, one of six children. He recounts living in Mokraya Dubrova; attending school in Lahishyn and Pinsk; his family moving to Pinsk in 1938; German invasion; Soviet occupation; one brother's draft into the Soviet military; German invasion in 1941; brief evacuation with two brothers; a mass shooting in which two brothers were murdered; ghettoization; his German supervisor's offer to help him; liquidation of the ghetto in October 1942 (his remaining family was killed); his supervisor giving him false papers; traveling to Kiev in a train for Germans; briefly staying in Rivne; finding a job and living quarters; avoiding work assignments to Germany; liberation by Soviet troops in 1944; and reunion with one brother who had been in the Soviet military. Mr. R. discusses difficulties resulting from his false papers (he was officially designated Jewish again in 1956); opposition from Soviets in acknowledging his German rescuers; sharing his experience with his children and grandchildren; recurring dreams of his murdered family; and his yearly trip to his family home after twenty years of not being able to summon the courage to go there.

2 videocassettes