Meir T. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Meir T., who was born in Jonava, Lithuania in 1920, one of nine children. He recounts attending a Yavneh school; moving to Kaunas in 1937; joining Komsomol; attending school, taking voice lessons, and working; Soviet occupation; marriage in 1940; draft into the Soviet military; posting at Telšiai; German invasion in June 1941; fleeing to Jonava; meeting his wife there; futile efforts to flee east; detention with his wife by Lithuanians; escaping; assistance from a Lithuanian in the forest; returning to their residence in Kaunas; a German bringing them food; ghettoization in August; reunion with his parents and siblings; slave labor building an airfield; hiding in bunkers and attics during round-ups; the round-up and murder of his father and brother, then of his mother and six other siblings at the Ninth Fort; assistance from Yitsḥaḳ Rabinovits, a Jewish official; his son's birth in January 1942; and participating in the ghetto resistance led by Haim Yelin with assistance from Elkhanan Elkes, head of the Judenrat.
Extent and Medium
14 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
- Rabinovits, Yitsḥaḳ, 1887-1968.
- T., Meir, -- 1920-
- Elkes, Elkhanan, -- 1879-1944.
- Yelin, Haim, -- 1912-1944.
Corporate Bodies
- Vsesoi︠u︡znyĭ leninskiĭ kommunisticheskiĭ soi︠u︡z molodezhi.
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Landsberg (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Draft -- Soviet Union.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Kaunas.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Soviet.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Hiding.
- Soviet occupation.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Childbirth in Jewish ghettos.
- Partisans.
- Bunkers.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Lithuania.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Jewish councils.
- Brothers.
- Death marches.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Postwar effects.
Places
- Telšiai (Lithuania)
- Kaunas (Lithuania)
- Kovno ghetto.
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Kaišiadorys (Lithuania : Concentration camp)
- Jonava (Lithuania)
- Lithuania.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat