Dagan B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Dagan B., who was born in Lakhva, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1927, the youngest of seven children. He recounts attending a Yavneh school; his brother's and sister's marriages and births of their children; participating in a Zionist youth group; Soviet occupation; his brother's military draft; German invasion; Dov Lopatin (head of the Judenrat) negotiating with the Germans; anti-Jewish restrictions; daily forced labor; ghettoization; slave labor in a steel mill; an underground group led by their neighbor, Itshak Rokhchin; the ghetto revolt after hearing they would all be killed; a failed attempt to save his mother from a burning building; his sister-in-law's murder; escaping; traveling east with other escapees; hiding briefly with partisans; assistance from non-Jewish villagers; joining a partisan group; blowing up trains and bridges; considering suicide when surrounded by Germans; orders to go to Z︠H︡lobin; assignment to kill Germans hiding in the forests; demobilization in 1944 due to his young age; being sent to Białystok; traveling to Baranavichy, then with a friend to Lakhva; finding a letter from his brother; draft into the Soviet military; visiting relatives in Kursk in 1949; learning his brother was in Israel; arrest; transfer to a labor camp; release one year later; returning to Kursk; marriage; the births of three children; and emigration to Israel in 1959. Mr. B. discusses the kindness, and assistance from Belorussians, and continuing nightmares due to his experiences.

3 videocassettes