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Oral history interview with Yehuda Beilis

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.349 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0349

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    Oral history interview with Yehuda Beilis

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Yehuda Beilis, born in Kovno, Poland (Kaunas, Lithuania) in 1927, describes his father, Eliezer, who was a medical doctor and owned a printing shop and real estate; his mother, Hana, who was a dentist; his two older brothers, Chaim and Yosef; speaking Yiddish at home; playing Ping-Pong for the Zionist movement Betar; the Russian occupation; being in a Russian boy scouts group and attending a summer camp in Palanga, Lithuania; the German invasion; his family moving into the ghetto in Slobudka (Vilijampole, Kaunas); being rounded up with his family and taken to the Ninth Fort, where Yehuda’s parents were killed; surviving the massacre and returning to the ghetto, where no one believed his story of the massacre; fleeing the ghetto and hiding on the farm of his uncle’s friend; returning to the ghetto, where the Betar Zionist movement trained him in sabotage and leading resistance actions; saving 22 children from the ghetto with the help of a priest; going back and forth between the farm and the ghetto; the Nazis finding him; the liquidation of the ghetto and being transported to Landsberg; finding a brother in the camp and working hard to save his gravely ill brother; being depressed and occasionally wanting to die; Czech Jewish inmates; being sent to Kaufering IV; cannibalism in the camp; French president Léon Blum sleeping in the bunk next to him; Russian prisoners of war and Yugoslavian partisans led by Tito arriving; being evacuated on a train that was bombarded and escaping with others; going to Landsberg where there was chaos before the evacuation of the camp; the battle the next day and the camp’s liberation; reuniting with his Russian friends, and arming themselves to search for Germans and seek revenge; the foiling of his first attempt to immigrate to Palestine by a Jewish spy who informed the British; his eventual voyage to Palestine at the end of 1945; joining relatives in Tel Aviv, Israel; working in Haifa, Israel; serving in the Israeli Army; and visiting Lithuania.
    Interviewee
    Yehuda Beilis
    Date
    interview:  1999 February 16
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Extent
    15 videocasettes (Betacam SP) : sound, color ; 1/2 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 Yehuda Beilis in Israel on February 16, 1999. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview on June 10, 1999, as an accretion to the original collection of Israel Documentation Project interviews received by transfer in February 1995. A continuation of the interview, conducted on March 18, 1999 was received on August 31, 2001 and added to the existing interview.
    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 08:16:20
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn503311

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