Sheima L. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Sheima L., who was born in Grodno, Russia (now Hrodna, Belarus) in 1912. He recalls moving to Kirovohrad when World War I began; his father's death; a pogrom; returning to Grodno (then in Poland); the deaths of two sisters; living in an orphanage with another sister; attending a Jewish boarding school; military draft; German invasion; serving in Vilnius; capture by Soviets; returning to Skidelʹ seeking his wife and daughter; their return together to Grodno; Soviet occupation; recall into the military; German invasion; capture; escape to Grodno in August 1941; ghettoization; mass killings and public hangings; escape from a round-up; return to the ghetto; slave labor in a factory; deportation to the Białystok ghetto; return to Grodno; sensing his wife and daughter had been killed in a round-up when he had escaped; transfer to prison in Białystok; slave labor disinterring and burning bodies from German mass killings; saving a friend by telling a guard she was his sister; escaping; encountering Soviet troops; and serving in the Soviet military. Mr. L. notes a book was published with his story ("The Brenners from Bialystok," in The Black Book).

6 videocassettes