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Oral history interview with Ya'akov Visgorditzki

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.301 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0301

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    Oral history interview with Ya'akov Visgorditzki

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Ya’akov Visgorditzki, born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania on October 19, 1931, describes being one of five children; attending a Jewish school; the Soviet occupation; the German invasion; Jewish relationships with the Poles; fleeing with his family; arrest of his father and older brother; returning home; finding their home occupied by Lithuanians; ghettoization; visiting his brother and father at a work camp (he never saw his father again); his brother's escape; moving to his aunt's home with his sister; his sister caring for him; working in a factory; going to Stutthof after the ghetto's liquidation; separation from the women; his transfer to Landsberg then Dachau in a children's group; being transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau; receiving extra food from the Sonderkommandos; praying not to be selected for death; being chosen by Dr. Mengele for extermination but at the last minute joining a survivors group; in January 1945 escaping from a march with two Poles and ending up in Katowice and then Gliwice where he became a servant for a Russian officer; going to a refugee camp in Sosnowiec, Poland; a Jewish Soviet officer taking him to Kraków, Poland; a non-Jewish Ukrainian adopting him in 1947; attending school in Kiev, Ukraine; traveling to Kovno in 1950; reuniting with an uncle; learning his sister was alive in Vilnius; joining her; military draft; visiting his Ukrainian adoptive father in 1958; his marriage in 1960; the births of two sons; his sister's immigration to Israel, then his six months later; not sharing his experiences, even with his children, since reliving them causes him pain; and attributing his survival to luck.
    Interviewee
    Ya'akov Visgorditzki
    Date
    interview:  1996 October 25
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Extent
    3 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

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Ya'akov Visgorditzki in Israel on October 25, 1996. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview on December 3, 1997, as an accretion to the original collection of Israel Documentation Project interviews received by transfer in February 1995.
    Funding Note
    The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
    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 08:16:04
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn503171

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