- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Ben L., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1928, the youngest of three children. He recounts attending a Hebrew-speaking school and a Tarbut school; the arrival of many Polish refugees after the onset of war; delivering food to some of the refugees, including Menachem Begin; Soviet occupation; his brother's participation in the Irgun; his father's non-Jewish associate encouraging them to flee; hiding in the associate's cellar outside Vilna for a few weeks; returning home; fleeing with his family to his paternal grandparents' home in Belarus; his sister's return to Vilna; smuggling himself into the ghetto for visits; his mother's return to the ghetto, while his father remained hiding in the forest; leaving with his sister and her boyfriend to join his brother in the partisans (his parents remained in the ghetto); learning his brother had been killed prior to their arrival; the arrival of Abba Kovner and his group; serving as a courier between partisan units; the arrival of Soviet troops; fighting Germans in the streets; learning his parents had been beaten to death by Poles after the war when returning to Vilna from hiding in a forest; leaving to emigrate to Israel per Kovner's decision; traveling to Lida, Chernivt︠s︡i, then Odesa; imprisonment by Soviet authorities for several months; traveling to Milan; joining an Irgun group; transfer to Naples; and emigration to Israel in May 1948, then to the United States in 1967. Mr. L. shows photographs.
- Author/Creator
- L., Ben, 1928-
- Published
- New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 2010
- Interview Date
- April 26, 2010.
- Locale
- Lithuania
Vilnius
Soviet Union
Poland
Vilnius (Lithuania)
Lida (Belarus)
Odesa (Ukraine)
Chernivt︠s︡i (Ukraine)
Milan (Italy)
Naples (Italy)
Israel
- Cite As
- Ben L. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4431). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Millen, Susan, interviewer.
Wizner, Rachel, interviewer.
- Notes
-
Photographs are available in the respository.
Related publication: Until our last breath : a Holocaust story of love and partisan resistance / Michael Bart and Laurel Corona. -- New York : St. Martin's Press, c 2008.
