Ze'ev R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3763)

Videotape testimony of Ze'ev R., who was born in Manevichi, Poland (presently Prilesnoye, Ukraine) in 1923, one of two children. He recounts attending Polish public school, then gymnasium in Lʹviv; Soviet occupation in September 1939; he and his sister attending a Soviet school; German invasion in June 1941; hiding with Ukrainian neighbors; other Ukrainians stealing their possessions; hiding in a Ukrainian friend's barn; leaving his family to escape to the forest with a group; joining a partisan group; learning that his family had been shot in a mass killing; receiving food from a family friend; blowing up railway lines; lack of sanitation and lice infestation in the partisan camps; executing those who had murdered Jews; attacking German convoys; taking no German prisoners (they killed them all); destroying a railroad water tower in Kamenʹ-Kashirskiy; obtaining ammunition from Soviet airdrops near Luninets; traveling to Zdulbunov; battles with Bandera units; liberation by Soviet troops; visiting the mass grave where his parents and sister had been killed; finishing high school; registering for university in Kiev; traveling to Poland, then to Milan, via Czechoslovakia and Austria with assistance from Beriḥah; illegal emigration to Palestine; and his career in the Israeli Air Force. Mr. R. discusses many partisan battles; placing Jewish women, children, and elderly in a forest camp near their partisan unit; and partisan camaraderie as well as conflicts between partisan groups. He shows his war medals.