- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Eliezer L., who was born in Dyatlovo, Russia (presently Dzi︠a︡tlava, Belarus) in 1908, one of three brothers. He recounts living in Baranavichy; German occupation during World War I; working with the Bolsheviks in the 1917 revolution; his father's death in 1920; participating in Hechalutz; marriage in 1930; the births of two children; Soviet occupation in 1939; banishment by the Soviets to Valozhyn; frequent secret visits to his family; German invasion in June 1941; fleeing to Minsk; arrest; posing as a non-Jew when Jews were separated; forced labor; escaping to Baranavichy; reunion with his wife and children in the ghetto; forced labor as a mechanic; contacts with the Judenrat; a mass killing of 3,000 Jews in March 1942; helping to organize resistance; hospitalization for a broken leg; hiding with his family in a bunker; escaping to the forest partisans; an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve his wife and children from the ghetto (he never saw them again); forming a Jewish partisan unit; destroying rail lines; assistance from farmers; killing collaborators; and his demotion in rank for reciting his Zionist poem.
Mr. L. recalls joining the Soviet army; participating in the liberation of Rivne; searching in vain for his family; organizing the construction of a fence around a mass grave; retrieving hidden and orphaned Jewish children; coordinating with Zionist groups in Vilnius; an invitation to Moscow by the Evreĭskiĭ antifashistskiĭ komitet; meeting with committee members Ilʹi︠a︡ Ėrenburg, Itzik Fefer, Solomon Mikhoėls, Der Nister, and others; returning to Rivne; working with Abba Kovner and Yitzhak Zuckerman in Lublin and Bucharest, organizing illegal emigration to Palestine; traveling to many locations for this work; moving with a group to Milan; marriage in 1946; meetings with David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meier at the Zionist Congress in Basel; briefly staying in Munich to participate in a failed revenge mission; emigration with his wife to Palestine in 1947; interdiction by the British; incarceration in a detention camp; his daughter's birth; release; and serving as a Mapai representative in the Knesset. Mr. L. discusses many details of partisans, their postwar activities, and writing about his experiences.
- Author/Creator
- L., Eliezer, 1908-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1992
- Interview Date
- March 11, 1992, and other dates.
- Locale
- Belarus
Baranavichy
Russia
Dzi︠a︡tlava (Belarus)
Baranavichy (Belarus)
Valozhyn (Belarus)
Rivne (Rivnensʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine)
Vilnius (Lithuania)
Moscow (Russia)
Soviet Union
Lublin (Poland)
Bucharest (Romania)
Milan (Italy)
Basel (Switzerland)
Munich (Germany)
Palestine
- Cite As
- Eliezer L. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3308). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Beyrak, Nathan, interviewer.
Tarsi, Anita, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
Related publication: Lo ka-tson la-ṭevaḥ : (mi-pinḳaso shel parṭizan) / Eliʻezer (Leyzer) Lidovsḳi. -- Tel-Aviv : Alef, c1982.
Related publications: U-sheviv ha-esh lo daʻakh / Eliʻezer (Leyzer) Lidovsḳi. -- Tel-Aviv : Be-hotsaʼat Irgun ha-parṭizanim, loḥame ha-maḥtarot u-morde ha-geṭaʼot be-Yiśraʼel, c1986.
