Chaia B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Chaia B., who was born in Lakhva, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1924, one of eight children. She recounts her family's relative affluence and orthodoxy; participating in a Zionist youth group with her sisters; one brother's emigration to Palestine in 1933; Soviet occupation; attending a Soviet school; confiscation of her father's store; German invasion; her brother's capture while fighting in the Polish army; his escape and return; her father's assignment to the Judenrat, led by Dov Lopatin, which met at their home; her father's resignation; her father secretly trading for food with non-Jews and supplying it to others; ghettoization in 1942; forced labor; her brothers organizing resistance with Itshak Rokhchin; escaping during the ghetto uprising; joining a partisan unit with her brother and other escapees; building a forest bunker; conflicts with antisemitic partisans; her brother avenging their family's murders through actions against Germans and collaborators; his death on a mission; liberation by Soviet troops in Luninets; returning home; visiting her brothers' graves in Lakhva; returning to Luninets; marriage; working in a Soviet field hospital; following the front to Świebodzin; traveling to Łódź; traveling illegally to Berlin, then Föhrenwald displaced persons camp; illegal emigration to Palestine on the Exodus; capture by the British; being returned to France; transfer to Pöppendorf, Sengwarden, then Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camps; legal emigration to Palestine; reunion with her brother; and the births of two daughters. Ms. B. notes learning of the killing of her parents and several siblings. She shows photographs.
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
- B., Chaia, -- 1924-
- Rokhchin, Itshak.
- Lopatin, Dov.
Corporate Bodies
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
- Föhrenwald (Displaced persons camp)
- Exodus 1947 (Ship)
Subjects
- Escapes.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish councils.
- Jews -- Belarus -- Lakhva.
- Refugee camps.
- Brothers and sisters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belarus.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Zionists.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Bunkers.
- Forests.
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Soviet occupation.
- Hiding.
- Partisans.
Places
- Sengwarden (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Lakhva ghetto.
- Lakhva (Belarus) -- History -- Lakhva Ghetto Uprising, 1942.
- Pöppendorf (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Świebodzin (Województwo Lubuskie, Poland)
- Luninets (Belarus)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Lakhva (Belarus)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat