- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Jacob G., who was born in P'yanovichi, Poland (presently Ukraine) in approximately 1922, the youngest of thirteen children. He recalls German invasion; a non-Jewish friend warning him to leave and providing false papers for him and two friends; traveling to Białystok; meeting his future wife; moving to Minsk; studying engineering; obtaining a Soviet passport; living in Uzda; German invasion in 1941; working as a mechanic; a mass killing of Jews; a brother and sister being killed while escaping; transfer to the Minsk ghetto in March 1942; a mass shooting of Jews; joining a partisan group; hiding weapons; smuggling children out of the ghetto; escaping with his future wife to the Jewish partisans in a forest; blowing up trains, raiding collaborators' farms; skirmishing with German military; killing all Germans after they burned members of his unit alive; his wife remaining in the forest camp; working with Daniel R.; joining the Soviet military; being wounded; joining his wife after military discharge; joining other former partisans in a kibbutz; seeking survivors in P'yanovichi, then Łódź; assisting an older Jew who was being attacked by non-Jews; their daughter's birth in 1946; smuggling themselves to Germany, intending to emigrate to Palestine; living in Berchtesgaden and Bad Reichenhall displaced persons camps; helping to organize routes for illegal emigration to Palestine; his wife and daughter emigrating; joining them about a year later; recruitment for the Haganah; being injured in the 1948 war; and moving to Jaffa after the war. Mr. G. discusses native Israelis' reluctance to acknowledge survivor or partisan experiences; lack of understanding that persists to the present; never discussing the revenge taken after the war; one brother and one sister joining him in Israel; sharing his story with his two daughters and grandchildren; and his love of and commitment to Israel.
- Author/Creator
- G., Jacob, 1922?-
- Published
- Ramat Aviv, Israel : Beth Hatefutsoth, Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1986
- Interview Date
- February 26, March 18, April 12, and June 2, 1986.
- Locale
- Belarus
Minsk
Poland
P'yanovichi (Ukraine)
Białystok (Poland)
Minsk (Belarus)
Uzda (Belarus)
Łódź (Poland)
Palestine
Israel
- Cite As
- Jacob G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1814). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Beyrak, Nathan, interviewer.
Dobkin, Amit, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
Related material: Daniel R. Holocaust testimony [friend](HVT-1834), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
