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Oral history interview with Yafa Ulpan

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.266 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0266

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    Oral history interview with Yafa Ulpan

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Yafa Ulpan, born in Švencionys, Lithuania in 1927, discusses her family and being one of five children; antisemitism in her town affected Jewish schools and businesses; the Russians taking over when the war broke out in 1939 and the confiscation of their houses and store; the Lithuanian partisans took over schools and businesses when Russia and Germany went to war; Jews being arrested and forced to do hard labor; her father being asked to handle the organization of food supplies; how the Lithuanians surrounded their home and stole all of their valuables; her father being taken away, made to dig his own grave, and killed; Jews being assembled and marched at night to Poligon; returning to Švencionys and then to the ghetto; all her friends being sent to camps and her boss saving her by assigning her to agricultural work; being to the Dūkštas (Dukszty) work camp; working in the new Švencionys work camp; going to the Vilnius ghetto through connections and bribes while the others were sent to Kaunas and killed; working outside the ghetto and hiding during police searches; being smuggled out and brought to a Christian woman who hid her; pretending to be Polish; being taken to the Gestapo prison, where she worked cleaning the jail; befriending a guard who helped her escape when all others were shot; being taken to Kielce, Riga, Mežaparks (Kaiserwald), and then Dundaga; being sent with a group to a larger camp en route to Germany, where they marched to the border and were sent to Stutthof; working in a German village for six weeks digging potatoes; being sent to another camp where a Polish guard let her leave on a death march; going after liberation to a village close to Hamburg, Germany; leaving with friends and receiving help from a German; joining a caravan heading for Vilnius; being taken to work in Bydgoszcz, Poland; her future husband Misha, a Jewish Russian officer, taking her to stay with a friend; going to Vilnius to find relatives; going to Łódź, Poland and finding out that her brother and sister had survived; Misha deserting the army and finding her in Łódź; going to Austria; the Jewish Brigade helping them go to Italy, where they lived for two years; getting married in 1946; taking a ship to Israel and being caught by the British and sent to Haifa, Israel in 1947; being placed in a detention camp in Cyprus for 16 months; going to Ra'ananah, Israel in November 1947 then Magdiel, Israel, where her husband worked in an orchard and she opened a fish store; and living in Jaffa, Israel.
    Interviewee
    Yafa Ulpan
    Date
    interview:  1995 December 08
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Extent
    17 videocassettes (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Ulpan, Yafa, 1927-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Yafa Ulpan in Israel on December 8, 1995. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview in May 31, 1996, as anaccretion to the original collection of Israel Documentation Project interviews received by transfer in February 1995.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:15:52
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn503097

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