- Interview Summary
- Simon Kagan, born in 1930 in Mir, Poland (present day Belarus), discusses his seven older sisters (Ida, Chira, Mira, Sara, Chaia, Kunya, and Bella); spending the school year at Talmud Torah; the arrival of the Germans in June 1941; the roundup of Jews and the subsequent mass murder on November 9, 1941; being hidden in a cellar by his sister Sara; hiding all day and all night, and hearing screams and crying; being afraid he would be discovered; his sister recovering him the next morning; the murder of his father Moshe, mother Nechama, and sisters Chira and Mira; his sister Chaia, who survived because she was in a hospital giving birth at the time of the massacre; his sisters Kunya and Bella also surviving the first massacre; his sister Ida who immigrated to Palestine before the German invasion; the formation of a small ghetto; being transferred in May 1942 to live in a castle built in the Middle Ages; Oswald Rufeisen, a young Jewish man, disguised as a German interpreter, who acted as an informant to those in the castle; Oswald reporting to them on August 9, 1942 that there was to be a killing of all the Jews in the castle; this report allowing those able to run to escape; escaping with 200 others; jumping through a small window 12-feet off the ground and running into the forest; his sisters Sara, Kunya ,and Bella hiding in the castle cellars and being spared in this second mass killing; the murder of his sister Chaia and her infant; joining a partisan group along with Kunya, Sara, and Bella; remaining with the partisans for the rest of the war; his work to help blow up trains; the death of his sister Bella during her time as a partisan; family being very important and precious to his; remaining close to his three living sisters, and caring for them and their children as well as anyone in need; and getting married in Winnipeg, Canada in 1956 and fathering three children.
- Interviewee
- Simon Kagan
- Interviewer
- Martin Simms
- Date
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undated:
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Simon Garfinkel
