Overview
- Interview Summary
- Sofia Binyaminova Kustonovich (née Shapiro), born January 5, 1916 in Pogost (Pahost, Salihorski raion), Belarus, recalls her family and religious upbringing; pre-war life as a telephone operator; the arrival of German troops in Pogost; the murder of her father and two brothers; the establishment of a ghetto in Pogost; leaving with her mother and sister and going to Slutsk; life in the Slutsk ghetto; the Jewish administration of the ghetto; the murder of inhabitants of the Slutsk ghetto; her escape from Slutsk and returning to Pogost; joining a partisan unit and serving until 1944; getting married; when the area, near Mikashevichi, was liberated by Soviet troops; life in the partisan unit, which was based near Mikashevichy; and moving from Pogost to Pinsk after the war, in order to avoid memories too difficult to live with.
- Interviewee
- Sofia B. Kustonovich
- Date
-
interview:
1995 August 04
- Credit Line
- Interviews conducted in association with the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University and with the participation of Beit Lohamei Haghetaot in Israel.
Physical Details
- Language
- Russian
- Extent
-
4 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
- Restrictions on use. Restrictions may exist. Contact the Museum for further information: reference@ushmm.org
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Escapes. Guerrillas--Belarus. Holocaust survivors--Belarus. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Jewish ghettos--Belarus--Slutsk. Jewish ghettos--Belarus. Jewish partisans (Holocaust) Jews--Belarus--Salihorski raion. Jews--Social life and customs. Mass murder--Belarus. Women guerrillas--Belarus. World War, 1939-1945--Jewish resistance--Belarus. Women--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Belarus--History--1917-1991. Belarus--History--German occupation, 1941-1944. Mikashevichy (Belarus) Pahost (Salihorski raion, Belarus) Pinsk (Belarus) Salihorski raion (Belarus) Slutsk (Belarus) Slutski raion (Belarus)
- Personal Name
- Kustonovich, Sofia Binyaminova.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Nathan Beyrak, project director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Oral History Branch, coordinated the interview with Sofia Binyominova Kustonovich on August 4, 1995. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview in September 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. - Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:28:20
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510586
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Belarus Documentation Project
Oral history interviews of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Belarus Documentation Project.
Date: 1995
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Oral history interview with Arkady Sergeyevich Teif
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Ida Moiseyevna Brion
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Yakov Magelnitzkiy
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Grigoriy Anatolevich Dorskiy
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Lazar Samuilevich Tsirlin
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Oral history interview with Naum Mikhailovich Pyekarev
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Boris Iosevich Faleyevich
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Iosef Pshepyurko
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Kopel Kolpanitzki, Ben-Zion Dagan, and Ivan Ivanovich
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Oral history interview with Iosef Fayvelevich Dryzhun
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Yuri Izrailovich German
Oral History
Yuri Izrailovich German, born May 21, 1930 in Smolensk, Soviet Union, recalls his family's move to Kaluga; pre-war life; the arrest of his father as an enemy of the people by Soviet authorities in 1939; his father's escape from a labor camp and his return soon after the outbreak of the war; his father being drafted into the Soviet Army; the arrival of German troops and the establishment of a ghetto; life in the ghetto; hiding from German troops during the liquidation of the ghetto; escaping with his family from Kaluga; being hidden by a former neighbor until the arrival of Soviet troops in December 1941; life in Kaluga during the war; instances of antisemitism in school; being drafted into the Soviet Army in 1950 and serving as an officer; and post-war life.
Oral history interview with Samuil Mordokhovich Kaplan
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Genya Moyseyevna Kobrina
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Lyubov Abramovich
Oral History
Lyubov Abramovich begins by describing the second day after the war began when the town of Slonim was bombed; running with her child and being met by Wehrmacht troops who luckily paid them no attention; her pre-war life when the area was part of Poland, her religious upbringing, and attending Jewish schools where teaching occurred in Hebrew and Yiddish until the advent of Soviet rule in 1939; the seizure in July 1941 of her husband, who was taken to a nearby square, beaten, and taken away in a truck never to be heard from again; the death of her one year old baby from diphtheria; her parents being taken away during a pogrom while she hid; how losing everything resulted in her desire to join the partisans; taking weapons from a barracks and giving them to partisans; being in the Voroshilov unit; and her strong interest in memorializing Holocaust events such as the location where her husband was murdered.
Oral history interview with Khaya Alperina and Yelizabeta Yerushevitz
Oral History
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Oral history interview with Semyon Mikhaylovich Golub
Oral History
Semyon Mikhaylovich Golub, born in Minsk, Belarus in 1925, describes his early family life; attending a Belarusian school but growing up speaking Yiddish; the bombing at the beginning of the war in Minsk; unsuccessfully attempting to leave Minsk because trains were not running and being concentrated into the ghetto; a major pogrom on November 7, 1941; escaping from the ghetto and making attempts to join the partisans; joining a Jewish unit called Lapidus; the partisan operations he and his brother participated in and their methods of recruitment; the deaths of his brothers; and joining the army in 1945.
Oral history interview with Yakov Negnevitzki
Oral History
Yakov Isakovich Negnevitzki, born in 1925 in Minsk, Belarus, the son of a factory worker; his early life and the extent to which family observed Jewish traditions; not experiencing antisemitism prior to the outbreak of World War II; the outbreak of war on June 22, 1941 and the bombing in Minsk; the roundup of Jewish men who were taken by truck and shot; the establishment of the ghetto in Minsk, where a series of killing operations occurred; fleeing from the ghetto in 1943 along with many others who attempted to join the partisans and forming their own unit because many partisans would not accept Jews or thought they were working with the Germans; their unit gathering weapons near the Minsk area and saving Jews from the ghetto; falling sick with typhus and spending many months seriously ill; meeting with Soviet troops and returning to a liberated Minsk; joining the Soviet Army after the liberation of Minsk; being wounded and sent to a hospital near Moscow, Russia; returning to Minsk in 1948; entering a technical school; and getting married in 1950.
Oral history interview with Chanoch Davidovich Ginzburg
Oral History
Chanoch Davidovich Ginzburg, born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1915, to a very religious family and grew up in the largely Jewish town of Sentyany, Lithuania, which had a rich cultural life, including many schools, clubs, and political parties; studying medicine and returning to Sentyany after receiving his degree; working in a rayon (district) hospital; going to Kaunas, Lithuania in late June 1941 and the war began on his way there; how no real ghetto existed in Sentyany and Jews still lived in their own houses; a series of roundups in Sentyany; all the Jews being marched to the nearby town of Novo-Sentyany and herded into barracks; how it was fairly easy to enter and leave the ghetto; spending several months in the ghetto in Vizy, Lithuania, where he treated typhus patients; deciding in the fall 1942 that he had to leave the Novo-Sentyany ghetto and join the partisans; separating from one unit when attacked by the Germans and joining another unit; going through German lines near Velikye Luki, Russia; continuing east through Russia; being liberated in November 1943 by Soviet troops and subsequently falling ill with typhus; and his post-war career.
Oral history interview with Sheyma Itzkovich Lipitz
Oral History
Sheyma Itzkovich Lipitz, born in January 1912 in Grodno (Hrodna), Belarus, describes his family; working in a plywood factory; the outbreak of World War II in 1939; being called into the Polish Army and sent to Vilnius, Lithuania, where he was briefly taken prisoner by Soviet troops and released; going to Skidel (Skidzel'), Belarus and getting married; being drafted into Soviet Army; returning to Grodno to meet his sister and working in the ghetto; working on a sewing machine in the Grodno ghetto; working in an auto-repair shop; his family members being taken to Treblinka concentration camp and killed; the repair shop workers being sent to a prison in Bialystok, Poland; how some inmates were killed while others were sent to Germany; remaining with forty others in the prison and working as a metal worker; his group being ordered by the Germans to go to the woods and uncover bodies over a period of days; escaping with others and hiding in the woods; meeting Soviet troops; being sent to a reserve unit, where he served as a repair worker until the war ended; and returning to the Minsk area.
Oral history interview with Vera Vladimirovna Smirnova
Oral History
Vera Vladimirovna Smirnova (née Rozenberg), born in Minsk, Belarus in 1928, describes her family; changing her name after her arrest during the war by the Germans; life in the Minsk ghetto: pogroms, the deaths of German Jews brought there in the summer of 1942, and deaths from disease and hunger; her escape from the ghetto in1943 with her mother and brother; joining the partisans near Lipsk, Poland; a partisan operation, during which she was arrested; her interrogation and her two month imprisonment; being sent to Auschwitz, contracting typhus, and recovering; being sent to Ravensbrück; and being liberated in Neustadt, Germany in 1945.
Oral history interview with Nachim Gershkovich Sorkin
Oral History
Nachim Gershkovich Sorkin, born in Mogilev, Belarus in1923, describes growing up in Mogilev with no antisemitism during his youth; hearing rumors and reports of war after 1939; the persecution and imprisonment of Jews; the Germans selecting specialist, such as tailors, drivers, and shoemakers, and sending them to camps; being sent to a camp with his brother; never seeing his father, mother, or older sister again; working in a smith shop for two years from September 1941 to September 1943; the food and the routine in the work camp; the disbandment of the camp in September 1943; how only about 120 of the original 1,000 or so persons in the camp survived; being sent to Minsk for about 10 days; being taken to Lublin, Poland then to Budin with other metal workers; being separated from his brother; his work with the airplane company, Heinkel; being taken in August 1944 to Velichka (Wieliczka), where he worked in salt mines; being taken with other prisoners to a camp in Flossenbürg, where they remained a few weeks; being sent to Leitmeritz, where he worked in a metal shop; being sent to Dachau for about a week, sorting shoes, eyeglasses, umbrellas, etc.; going to Augsburg and Leonberg near Stuttgart, which was frequently bombed by Allied planes; making airplane wings in Leonberg; the bombing of camp by Allied planes and the prisoners' reactions; being transferred to Landau, where he worked on an airfield for a month; being marched to various places over a period of three to four days; being told they were free; going to the Soviet zone, where he was interrogated and treated as a possible spy; and going into the army after being cleared.
Oral history interview with Arkady Isakovich Pukhovitzki
Oral History
Arkady Isakovich Pukhovitzki, born on November 7, 1923 in Vitebsk oblast in the village of Chashniki, describes his parents (father worked in a fishing cooperative and his mother was a seamstress); the good relations between Jews and non-Jews until the Stalinist repressions and purges of the late 1930s; how many of his Russian childhood friends spoke Yiddish; the outbreak of war and life in the Chashniki ghetto, where food was at first sufficient; his work at turf-drying facility; the mass shooting of Jews that took place on February 13-14, 1942, during which his parents and sister were killed; escaping the roundup and going to Gribin; meeting with partisans and local commanders; more details about the shooting and the monument erected after the war on the site where the shootings were carried out; his experiences with the partisans and being assigned to an explosives detail and intelligence scouting unit because of his knowledge of Yiddish and a bit of German; joining the Soviet Army in November 1942; being assigned to an airfield and capturing 11 German soldiers; becoming a teacher after the war and going to Mogilev; and working in banking for 46 years.
Oral history interview with Grigoriy Isaakovich Kugel
Oral History
Grigoriy Isaakovich Kugel, born on August 21, 1912 in Pleshnitsy, Minsk oblast, describes his fairly religious family; attending a religious school (cheder) and going to a Yiddish language school for four years; pogroms in his village in 1923 and 1924; going to Minsk in 1930; serving for four years in the army and living in Russia for a time and returning to Minsk; getting married; two beatings he suffered at the time the Germans entered Minsk; being marched to a prison in Minsk and being told he would be taken to a ghetto where he was assigned work in a scrap metal warehouse; the frequent shootings of Jews; being taken to Lublin, Auschwitz, and Budin, where he worked for two years; the approach of Soviet troops as he was taken to yet another camp, Velichka (Wieliczka), for about two weeks; being sent to Dachau and then Leitmeritz (Litomerice) in Czechoslovakia; being sent to Muehldorf briefly; being liberated in Flossenbürg by the Americans in April 1945; and returning to the Soviet side where treatment was poor.
Oral history interview with Margarita Furman
Oral History
Margarita Furman, born on December 28, 1925 in Minsk, Belarus, discusses her family; her youth, hobbies, and schools; her father who worked in a flour mill; the outbreak of war on June 22, 1941; her family going towards Mogilev on June 26and being wounded by bullets on the way; the German Army occupying Mogilev and the Jews being moved to a ghetto; how she did not look Jewish and was separated from the rest of her family; being discovered on the street, beaten, and put in prison; denying that she was Jewish and was sent with other young women to Poland and Germany to do various jobs; more details on the ghetto in Mogilev; life in work camps and how weak and sick persons were separated out and taken away; relationships between prisoners and various punishments; her feelings upon liberation by the Americans; and how she and others were treated as traitors in the Soviet Union.
Oral history interview with Sara Yakovlena Kasperskaya
Oral History
Sara Yakovlevna Kasperskaya, born in the village of Lipin (possibly Lipinki), Belarus on June 5, 1915, describes her early life and family; Germans rounding up Jews in her village and killing 70 percent of them, including her mother; being confined to her home and made to wear a Star of David; how her husband was Russian, not Jewish, and this made her life a bit easier; leaving in 1942 with her children and husband and entering the forest seeking out partisans; being accepted into a partisan unit commanded by Abakumov and working as a baker; being treated well in her partisan unit; leaving her two children, ages 4 and 8, with a family in a nearby village and how they were taken to a German camp where it was known that they were part-Jewish; the partisans moving deeper into the woods to escape the Germans and the brigade joining with Soviet troops in 1944; and searching for and finding her children.
Oral history interview with Aleksandra Sara Grigoryevna Otyevskaya
Oral History
Aleksandra Sara Grigoryevna Otyevskaya, born in 1912, describes growing up in the village of Kalinkovichi (Kalinkavychy), Belarus; getting married in 1936 in Slutsk, Belarus to a non-Jewish man; hearing about atrocities in the late 1930s from Polish refugees; living in Osipovichi (Asipavichy), Belarus when the war entered Belarus on June 22, 1941; the heavy bombing of Asipavichy during the next weeks; going on to describe the ghetto which the Germans established and the role of the Judenrat, whom she convinced not to register her; her husbanding getting a job as a bookkeeper and in that position was able to change her passport, designating her as "Aleksandra" instead of Sara and changing her nationality from Jewish to Belorussian; being detained by police once and accused, even with false papers, of being Jewish; how she and her husband began traveling in the partisan zone and were helped by people along the way who allowed them to stay in their homes; going to Babruisk, Belarus, where her husband worked as a courier for partisans; and Babruisk being liberated by Soviet troops.
Oral history interview with Chaim Zelikovich Domnich
Oral History
Chaim Zelikovich Domnich, born on June 21, 1922, in Starobin, Minsk oblast, Belarus, discusses the beginning of the war in Slonim; how in July the Jews of Starobin moved to a ghetto in Slutsk, Belarus, where Russians helped by feeding and hiding many Jews; escaping from the Slutsk ghetto and joining the partisans, doing intelligence work; the efforts of partisans to help people in the ghetto and to help them to escape when they were outside the ghetto; his unit as one with many Jewish partisans; linking up with advancing Soviet troops on July 14, 1944; and being awarded medals for partisan operations.
