- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Ben-Zion B., who was born in Domachëvo, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1924, the younger of two children. He recounts his father's death when he less than three; a close extended family; relatives emigrating to the United States; his mother's remarriage; the births of a brother and sister; attending cheder and Polish public school; antisemitic teachers; visits from his American uncle; his sister's marriage; brief German invasion; Soviet occupation; visiting his sister in Kosiv; German invasion in June 1941; witnessing a mass killing; forced labor; smuggling food to his family; non-Jewish neighbors bringing them food; visiting an aunt in the Brest ghetto; hiding with his family in a bunker; their decision to commit suicide (his stepfather succeeded, the rest became ill); leaving the bunker after a week (his mother insisted); learning his mother and siblings were killed; escaping to a forest; his sense of isolation; finding other Jews and joining them; stealing weapons; acceptance into the Voroshilov partisans after burning a dairy in his hometown; many military operations; executions of German prisoners; assisting a Jewish boy; liberation in July 1944 by Soviet troops; liberating Brest; enlisting in the Soviet military in Kobryn; learning of concentration camps; liberating Lublin and Warsaw; and advancing to Berlin.
Mr. B. recalls traveling to Brest; military discharge; returning home; traveling to Łódź; fleeing an attack by the Armia Krajowa; traveling to Germany with a group organized to emigrate to Palestine; marriage; living in a refugee camp; his son's birth; emigration to Israel via Bandol in 1948; military service in Israel-Arab War; establishing a business; and reunion with the boy he assisted in the forest. Mr. B. names many partisans and discusses details of partisan life; revenge as motivation; reluctance to share his experiences due to negative Israeli perceptions of survivors; and his sense each grandchild healed a wound. He names murdered Jews from Domachëvo as a memorial to them.
- Author/Creator
- B., Ben-Zion, 1924-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1991
- Interview Date
- April 3, 1991.
- Locale
- Belarus
Brest
Israel
Poland
Damachava (Belarus)
Kosiv (Ukraine)
Brest (Belarus)
Kobryn (Belarus)
Berlin (Germany)
Warsaw (Poland)
Lublin (Poland)
Łódź (Poland)
Bandol (France)
- Cite As
- Ben-Zion B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3197). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Beyrak, Nathan, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
