Reuven C. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3747)

Videotape testimony of Reuven C., who was born in 1924 in Lakhva, Poland (presently Belarus), one of six children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; his father's poor health; his mother's strength; attending cheder; Soviet occupation in 1939; attending a Soviet school; cessation of most Jewish life; evacuation of one brother and one sister; German invasion; establishment of a Judenrat; his father's death; ghettoization; forced labor outside the ghetto; an unsuccessful escape attempt resulting in a severe beating; contacts with partisans; learning trenches were dug for a mass killing in September 1942; Jews setting the ghetto on fire; his mother pushing him away (all of his family were killed); escaping with others to a swamp; a lumberjack assisting them; joining a partisan group; actions against Germans; suffering from cold and hunger; moving often; helping obtain supplies from locals; joining the Soviet military; being wounded near Germany; hospitalization in Vilnius for four months; rejoining his unit; actions in several German locations; suffering from his wound; hospitalization; demobilization; returning to Lakhva; reunion with one brother; joining their sister in Oral; all of them moving to Pinsk; marriage; the births of two daughters; and emigration to Israel with his family in 1991. Mr. C. discusses marking the mass grave in Lakhva after the war, and insomnia resulting from his experiences. He shows photographs.