Testimony of Itzkhak Dogin, born in Vilna, Poland in 1916, regarding his experiences in the Vilna Ghetto and as a forced laborer in Ponary; story of his escape from Ponary

Testimony of Itzkhak Dogin, born in Vilna, Poland in 1916, regarding his experiences in the Vilna Ghetto and as a forced laborer in Ponary; story of his escape from Ponary Life in Vilna before the war; work at a printing press; pogroms following the German occupation in 1941; anti-Jewish legislation; confiscation of property; transfer of young people to forced labor; labor on the railroad tracks; deportation of the Jews in the ghettos (the small Vilna Ghetto and large Vilna Ghetto); "Aktion" in the Vilna Ghetto (detention and murder of Jews who did not have a work permit); he finds a hiding place during the "Aktion"; labor at a Wehrmacht fuel station outside the ghetto; smuggling of food into the ghetto; production of cigarettes at home, and he sells them outside the ghetto; liquidation of the small Vilna Ghetto; news regarding mass murders at Ponary; deportations to camps; escape from the deportation, and he hides at the fuel station; escape back to the Vilna Ghetto; liquidation of the ghetto; he hides in the cellar of a building in the area of the former ghetto; help from a local woman resident (who entered the apartment in the building); capture by the Gestapo; deportation of his family members to Ponary; transfer to Ponary; transfer to forced labor in Ponary; labor and housing conditions; opening of the killing pits, and transfer of the corpses to the crematoria; activities of the crematoria; looting and plundering of the corpses, including pulling out gold teeth; cover up of the traces of the murder; arrival of a group of POWs (most of them Jews); selection, and the killing of members of the intelligentsia from among the POWs; security measures at the Ponary site (a fence, minefield and guards); digging a tunnel for the purpose of escape; daily life in Ponary (the labor, food, daily routine, etc.); murders and the looting and plundering of the corpses by the guards; completion of the tunnel; discovery of the corpses of his family members near the crematoria; preparations for an escape; escape with a group of inmates; sounding of an alarm, and the escapees are shot at; he hides in the forest; wanderings in the forests; he meets Russian partisans; his stay in the forests; he meets Abba Kovner; he joins a brigade of Russian partisans.