- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Menachem K., who was born in Berez︠h︡any, Poland (presently Ukraine) in 1925. He recounts his father's death when he was an infant; his mother's remarriage; the births of two half-sisters; attending cheder, then public school; anti-Jewish boycotts; Soviet occupation; German invasion; Ukrainians killing Jews; working and living in his stepfather's factory; ghettoization; obtaining false papers to leave the ghetto; arrest and incarceration in a Ukrainian prison; his stepfather securing his release; hiding during round-ups; building a bunker at a Polish friend's home in Mechishchev; the ghetto's liquidation; his father's suicide; receiving a flesh wound while escaping from a mass shooting; hearing the shooting from his hiding place; walking to Mechishchev; hiding in his friend's attic; learning his mother, sister, aunt, and grandmother had survived in a bunker; retrieving them; hiding in the bunker in Mechishchev, then moving to a forest bunker; returning to his Polish friend's house for the winter; their host's murder by Ukrainian nationalists; his wife continuing to care for them; returning to the forest bunker in the spring; obtaining food from nearby villages; encountering another group of Jews in hiding; liberation by Soviet troops; returning home; moving to Bytom; traveling to a kibbutz near Rome; illegal emigration by ship to Palestine; interdiction by the British; incarceration on Cyprus; and release in 1947. Mr. K. discusses bringing the daughters of his rescuers to the Yad Vashem ceremony honoring them as “Righteous among the Nations,” and writing a book about his experiences.
- Author/Creator
- K., Menachem, 1925-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1995 and 1996
- Interview Date
- December 22, 1995 and January 12, 1996.
- Locale
- Poland
Berzez︠h︡any
Berez︠h︡any (Ukraine)
Mechishchev (Ukraine)
Bytom (Poland)
Italy
Cyprus
Palestine
- Cite As
- Menachem K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3819). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
