- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Efraim F., who was born in Dubrovitsa, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1922, the oldest of five children. He recounts attending a Tarbut school, then gymnasium in Rivne; participating in Hashomer Hatzair, Betar, and Mizrachi; Soviet occupation; interrogation by the NKVD due to his Zionist activities; German invasion; fleeing to Koret︠s︡ʹ; forced labor for the German army; returning to Rivne; forced labor clearing bombing rubble; a non-Jewish friend hiring him to tutor her children and giving him her husband's birth certificate; hiding in her attic during a mass killing in November 1941; living briefly with her relatives in a nearby village, then returning; her brother-in-law obtaining Polish identification papers for him; a brief encounter with his father; visiting his family in Dubrovitsa; visiting the ghetto in Rivne; Moshe Bergman, head of the Judenrat, suggesting he move to Kovelʹ; working as a translator at a train station; and traveling back and forth to Kiev to avoid capture.
Mr. F. describes picking the pocket of a soldier to obtain military papers; being injured in a partisan attack on a train to Dnipropetrovsʹk; hospitalization; transfer to Crimea; escaping to Mykolaïv, then Odesa; contact with the Soviet partisans; sabotaging a train; liberation by Soviet troops; joining a Polish military unit in Sumy; attending officer school in Lut︠s︡ʹk; serving in Warsaw, Poznań, Chełm, and Lublin; reunion with his brother; traveling to Vienna; living in Rothschild Hospital displaced persons camp; assistance from the Joint; visiting his sister in Moscow (she remained); teaching Hebrew at the displaced persons camp; emigration with his brother to Israel in 1948; serving in the Arab-Israel war; marriage in 1949; the births of two daughters; and his sister's eventual emigration to Israel. Mr. F. notes maintaining contact with the daughter of the woman who hid him in Rivne. He shows photographs, documents, and a yizkor book from his town.
- Author/Creator
- F., Efraim, 1922-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1996
- Interview Date
- August 8, 1996 and August 30, 1996.
- Locale
- Ukraine
Rivne (Rivnensʹka oblastʹ)
Poland
Dubrovyt︠s︡i︠a︡ (Ukraine)
Rivne (Rivnensʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine)
Koret︠s︡ʹ (Ukraine)
Kovelʹ (Ukraine)
Kiev (Ukraine)
Dnipropetrovsʹk (Ukraine)
Crimea (Ukraine)
Mykolaïv (Mykolaïvsʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine)
Odesa (Ukraine)
Sumy (Ukraine)
Lut︠s︡ʹk (Ukraine)
Poznań (Poland)
Warsaw (Poland)
Chełm (Lublin, Poland)
Lublin (Poland)
Vienna (Austria)
Moscow (Russia)
- Cite As
- Efraim F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3840). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
