Hanoch V. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3868)

Videotape testimony of Hanoch V., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1920, the oldest of five children. He recounts attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment; working in a leather store; active participation in Hashomer Hatzair (Abba Kovner was his group's leader); Lithuanian independence; fleeing briefly to relatives in Lida and Maladzechna; returning home; German invasion; killing of Jews; fleeing to Ashmi︠a︡ny; returning when he was caught; ghettoization; forced labor in a dairy factory; smuggling food; obtaining a pistol; participating in the organized resistance; contacts with Yiżḣak Wittenberg; hiding in a bunker with his family for two months; discovery; escape to the forest; joining the partisans; battles with Germans and the Armia Krajowa; executing captured German soldiers; cooperating with Soviet partisans; liberation by Soviet troops; assignment to locate war criminals in Kaliningrad; returning home; marriage; the births of two daughters; and emigration to Israel in 1957. Mr. V. notes revenge was one of his motivations in the partisans and postwar period.