- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Ben-Tzion D., Ivan I., and Kolpan K. Mr. K. was born in Sinkevichy, Belarus in approximately 1926, one of five children. He recounts moving to Lakhva in 1930 to the house in front of which they are standing, and which his father built; one incident of antisemitic violence; German invasion; ghettoization in spring 1942; forced labor in Mikashevichi; noticing large numbers of Germans upon returning to the Lakhva ghetto on September 2; Germans surrounding the ghetto on September 3; Dov Lopatin, head of the Judenrat, initiating a revolt; Itshak Rokhchin killing a German soldier with an ax, then being shot; Mr. K.'s older brother attacking a German; and escaping with assistance from non-Jews.
Mr. D. was born in Lakhva in 1927, one of seven children. On the site of his childhood home (it was destroyed), he recalls beatings by German guards during forced labor on September 2, 1942; the next morning hearing screams outside; witnessing a Jew killing a German with an ax; Jews setting the houses on fire; his mother being trapped inside their burning house; many Jews being shot by Germans; running through the broken gate; and escaping with assistance from local Belarussians.
Mr. I., a non-Jew, grew up in nearby Lyubanʹ. He relates his brother's and cousin's accounts of being forced to dig two-meter deep pits outside Lakhva in August 1942; on September 3 watching as successive groups of ten Jews were forced to undress and then were shot in the pit; and hearing groaning and wailing from the pit while covering the layers of bodies. Mr. I. recalls seeing German soldiers with about 500 Jews, mostly the young and elderly, and wagons loaded with corpses on September 3, 1942. He notes that local Belarussians gave Jews food and helped them escape to the forest. Videotape images of the monument at the mass killing site and of homes in Lakhva are included.
- Author/Creator
- D., Ben-Tzion, 1927-
- Published
- Lakhva, Belarus : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1995
- Interview Date
- August 4, 1995.
- Locale
- Belarus
Lakhva
Sinkevichy (Belarus)
Lakhva (Belarus)
Mikashevichy (Belarus)
Lyubanʹ (Belarus)
- Cite As
- Ben-Tzion D., Ivan I., and Kolpan K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3605). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Beyrak, Nathan, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew and Russian.
Kolpan K. and Ben-Tzion D. speak in Hebrew. Ivan I. speaks in Russian and Kolpan K. translates the Russian into Hebrew.
