Baruch Vind

Testimony of Baruch Vind, born in Chodorow, Poland, 1923, regarding his experiences in the Chodorow Ghetto, using a false identity on a farm in Ivanovka and in the Kharkow area, as a Red Army soldier in Berlin, and more From an observant Orthodox family in Chodorow; Hashomer Hazair membership from 1936; his father's death. Soviet occupation, 1939; attendance at a Yiddish school; artistic abilities; painting the school's walls; publication of Soviet propaganda by the authorities; prohibition on Zionist activities; German occupation, June 1941; the first "Aktion" and the murder of his mother; deportation to the ghetto; rescue during the second "Aktion" by a Jewish policeman; escape from the ghetto; work as a Ukrainian shepherd in Ivanovka; escape to a farm in the Kharkov area; life on the farm; liberation of Skalat by the Red Army. Enlisting in the Red Army, 1944; wounded in the Breslau area; entry of the Soviet Army into Berlin, April 1945; receiving recognition for his artistic abilities and transfer by the army to study art in Vienna; meeting a representative from Eretz Israel; persuasion to defect by the representative; escape to the United States Occupation Zone, and receipt of a German passport; move to the Salzburg Displaced Persons camp; move to Rivoli as part of Youth Aliyah; studying art at the Fine Arts Academy in Torino with help from the Joint Distribution Committee; aliya to Israel as part of Machal, 1948; absorption.