Oral history interview with Richard Sytsma and Barbara Sytsma

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1992.A.0130.11 | RG Number: RG-50.307.0011

Overview

Interviewee: Barbara Sytsma
Richard Sytsma
Interviewer: Mindy Blaski
Date: interview: 1990 August 12

Physical Details

Language: English
Extent: 2 videocasettes (Betacam SP) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use

Keywords & Subjects

Topical Term: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
Personal Name: Sytsma, Richard. Sytsma, Barbara.

Administrative Notes

Holder of Originals: Survivors and Surviving Generations of the Holocaust
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: The interview with Richard Sytsma and Barbara Sytsma was conducted on August 12, 1990 by the Surviving Generations of the Holocaust (Washington State) as part of a project documenting the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and their children in the state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview in December 1992.
Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive

Record last modified:: 2023-11-16 08:26:44
This page:: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512664

Download & Licensing

Request Copy
See Rights and Restrictions
Terms of Use
This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.

In-Person Research

Available for Research
Plan a Research Visit

Contact Us

Give Feedback

Also in Surviving Generation of the Holocaust, Washington State oral history collection

Oral history interview with Henry Friedman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fred Roer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gary Wells

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ann Kaye

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ed Kaye

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sam Eilenberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ann Birulin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Joseph Hasson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Zahava Sweet

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sam Farkas

Oral History

Oral history interview with Gisa Spektor

Oral History

Oral history interview with Harry Bush

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fred Kahn

Oral History

Signed testimony of Doris Fedrid

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herman Spiegel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eva Lassman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Magda Schaloum

Oral History

Oral history interview with Herbert Lobl

Oral History

Oral history interview with Vera Federman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Nuchum Uszrowicz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Fanny Wald

Oral History

Oral history interview with Bernard Slomnicki

Oral History

Oral history interview with Ilse Wolf

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leon Matalon

Oral History

Oral history interview with Mel Wolf

Oral History

Oral history interview with Wolf Hall

Oral History

Oral history interview with Frieda Hall

Oral History

Oral history interview with Cantor Joseph Frankel

Oral History

Oral history interview with Cecilla Etkin

Oral History

Oral history interview with Marian Zelman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stella Tarica

Oral History

Oral history interview with Klaus Stern

Oral History

Oral history interview with Benjamin Meed and Vladka Meed

Oral History

Oral history interview with Arnold Zweig

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stella DeLeon

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alexey Sokolov

Oral History

Oral history interview with Leo Hymas

Oral History

Oral history interview with Nora Eilenberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Boris Shpreyregin

Oral History

Boris Shpreyregin, born in 1923, in Pleshintsi (Pleshchenitsy or Plieščanicy), Belarus, describes his childhood; his mother’s death when he was eight years old; his two brothers (Eliyah and Lippa); their home; attending school; the structure of naming in his family; being from a Jewish family, but not being given a Jewish name; being renamed Aaron; the Jewish community in Pleshintsi before and after the war; being educated in a Hebrew school and transferring to a Belarusian school in Minsk after seventh grade; getting further education in Kiev, Ukraine; how his grandfather wanted he and his brothers to be religious and hiding his religion from his school; the arrests of Jews beginning in 1937 and no longer attending synagogue; the Jewish community in Minsk; being in Minsk during the beginning of the war; returning home to find his family hiding in the woods; being caught by Germans; his brother, Lippa, being forced into the military and dying in 1945; his father’s assignment to a Jewish council; having to wear yellow lapels sewed onto their clothes; several massacres, during which 10 people at a time were taken naked to ditches and killed; being forced into a ghetto; fleeing the ghetto with several others; the kindness of the peasants towards Jews who escaped from the ghetto; being separated from most of his family and unsuccessfully trying to meet with partisans; going towards southern Belarus with his family; the murder of his grandfather in a farmhouse with other Jews; the execution of his aunt Gnessa, her husband, and his brother Eliyah; hiding in a swamp near Hattin (Khatyn), Belarus; becoming a partisan in 1943; how it was difficult for Jews to enter into the ranks of the partisans; his life fighting the Germans along with the partisans; being in the army and not experiencing antisemitism; the Germans finding the Jews hiding in the swamp and forcing them into the Minsk ghetto; dealing with a heavy blockade in 1944, during which numerous partisans were killed; Jews returning to the shtetl after the war ended; losing most of his extended family; his life after the war with his wife and kids; his life in the United States; and receiving reparations from the Germans when he moved to the US. [Note that the interviewee shows pictures of his family to the camera during the interview.]