Online Store Contact us About us
Yad Vashem logo

Testimony of Max Volpert, born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1931, regarding his experiences in ghetto Kaunas and in Dachau and Kaufering Lager III camps.

Testimony
Testimony of Max Volpert, born in Kaunas, Lithuania,in 1931,regarding his experiences in ghetto Kaunas and in Dachau and Kaufering Lager III camps. Family life and childhood in Kaunas before war; Soviet occupation; housing Russian pilots in part of family house; closing down of school and transfer to Soviet school; cessation of father's work as self employed and transfer to working in cooperative; outbreak of war; German occupation; occupancy of family house by German soldiers; cessation of father's work; they hear rumors about murders by Lithuanians; anti Jewish legislation; wearing Jewish star; walking is forbidden; deportation to ghetto Kaunas; attending professional school of ORT organisation in carpentry major; father works as court secretary; father is deported in the '"Aktion of intellectuals"; fathers escapes back to ghetto; burning of hospital in the "little ghetto"; murders in the Fort 9; the "Great Aktion",October 1941; closing of criminal court; father works in criminal police; he works as messenger of police department; establishment of soccer team in the ghetto; "Aktion of the children" and finding hideout in bunker; father's decision to quit the police and work in a workshop; shrinking of ghetto; family moves to small house; working in workshop as locksmith's assistant; evacuation of ghetto; march to train station of Kaunas; deportation by train cars for 2 days; women and children are taken out of the train car and among them Max's mother and sister; getting with his father to Dachau; entrance procedure to camp; working in building of bunkers in the " Longerman commando"; transfer to Kaufering Lager III; liquidation of the camp and transfer back to Dachau camp; end of war; search for his mother and sister; life in DPcamp in Munchen; refusal to go back to Lithuania; traveling to relatives in Switzerland; life in youth home; attending professional school; aliya to Israel,1949;absorption