Eleazar Z. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Eleazar Z., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1925, one of four brothers. He recalls attending gymnasium; one brother's death; participating in clandestine communist organizations; Soviet occupation in 1940; Lithuanian violence and killing of Jews prior to German invasion on June 24, 1941; mass killings in surrounding former forts; ghettoization in August; his father's death in January 1942 resulting from a German beating; forced labor; joining a Jewish underground movement led by Haim Yelin; connecting with partisans outside the ghetto; public hangings; organizing escapes of arrested partisans; forming schools; connections with YIVO; burying documents; escaping to join partisans in the forests in 1943; fighting with Soviet forces against retreating Germans; learning his immediate family had all been killed; working as an archivist for thirty-three years from summer 1944 (he completed his studies in Vilnius and Moscow); marriage to a survivor; his daughter's emigration to Israel in 1973; and joining her in 1988. Mr. Z. recounts many names of Kovno Jews and specific episodes. He shows photographs and documents.
Extent and Medium
4 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
- Z., Eleazar, -- 1925-
- Yelin, Haim, -- 1912-1944.
Corporate Bodies
- Yivo Institute for Jewish Research.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Lithuania.
- Child survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Partisans
- Soviet occupation.
- Forests.
- Postwar experiences.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Kaunas.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance -- Lithuania.
- Forced labor.
Places
- Kovno ghetto.
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Moscow (Russia)
- Lithuania.
- Kaunas (Lithuania)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat