Shlomo K. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3798)

Videotape testimony of Shlomo K., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1921, one of two children. He recounts attending a Bund school; joining Hashomer Hatzair, in spite of his family's and school's Bundist beliefs; completing school in 1939; joining a Hashomer hachsharah in Kalisz; German invasion; fleeing with his group to Łódź, Warsaw, then returning home; Soviet occupation; attending a Jewish technical school; clandestine Hashomer activities led by Abba Kovner; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions and killings; ghettoization; forced labor with his father unloading bags of cement, then on a farm; purchasing extra food; his mother's assignment to a glove factory, which initially exempted them from deportation; joining and living with the Jewish partisans (FPO); visiting his family daily; making Molotov cocktails and hiding smuggled weapons; Yiżḣak Wittenberg, head of the partisans, surrendering to prevent reprisals; and being chosen for a partisan group to escape to the forests.

Mr. K. recalls being ambushed; Yosef Glazman ordering their retreat to the forest; joining Fyodor Markov's Voroshilov partisan unit; reorganization of and moving to other units, including Nekamah; blowing up train tracks and communication networks in coordination with the Soviet military; an attack resulting in many deaths; assistance from a local woman; transferring German collaborators to the Soviets; liberation by Soviet troops; draft into the Soviet military; serving in Pastavy; meeting Haika Grossman; deserting rather than going to Germany; traveling to Warsaw, then Łódź; joining a Beriḥah group using Greek passports to travel to Graz, then Pontebba; being sent to Bari; smuggling weapons to Palestine; joining Abba Kovner's group planning revenge against Germany; traveling to Milan, then Munich dressed as British soldiers; disposing of poison when the plan could not be implemented; illegal emigration to Palestine via Marseille; interdiction by the British; and incarceration. Mr. K. notes regretting he never said goodbye to his family and names many of the partisans.