Dov Blumenkranz

Testimony of Dov Blumenkranz, born in 1938 in Ostrów Mazowiecka, Poland, about his deportation to Siberia in summer 1940 Life in a well-off family of Amshinov Hasidim that owned a flour mill; uncle immigrates to Eretz Israel and returns to Poland; war breaks out in September 1939; Germans live in the family's courtyard for two weeks; Jews rounded up in the square and sent home; family hides during the roundup and escapes with the help of non-Jews; esaping to uncle in Zambrów; escaping to Białystok; rejection of Soviet citizenship and deportation to Siberia in summer 1940; life in a small town for approx. two and a half yaers; father works to support the family; father no longer able to do so; mother goes to work in his stead; mother is hospitalized and dies; three sisters are placed in an orphanage; witness remains with a brother, an older sister, and his father; brother dies; father dies and the witness and his sister are placed in an orphanage; transfer to an orphanage n Zagorsk along with his siblings; staying there until 1946; back to Poland along with the other children in the orphanage; removal from the orphanage, evidently by members of the Koordynacja (The Zionist Coordinatsia for the Redemption of Children in Poland); immigration to Israel in 1948; adjustment to life in Israel and starting anew.