Testimony of Jakow Geller, born in Szumsk, Poland, 1922, regarding his experiences in the Szumsk Ghetto, being hidden by an Evangelist friend and in hiding in a pit

Testimony of Jakow Geller, born in Szumsk, Poland, 1922, regarding his experiences in the Szumsk Ghetto, being hidden by an Evangelist friend and in hiding in a pit Completes his studies at the Tarbut School, 1939. Soviet occupation; German occupation, 1941; kidnappings from the street for forced labor; establishment of the Szumsk Ghetto, February 1942; liquidation of the ghetto about six months later; murder of Jews by shooting them on the edge of burial pits near the city; hiding in his home with his family; discovery of the family by the Germans; concentration of the Jews in the police station; murder of his younger brother Yossele with other children at the execution pits; work arranging the property left behind within the ghetto; escape to Walenik, a local Evangelist friend; life in hiding until Stepan Bandera's men, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), become active in the surrounding area; move to a hiding place in an underground pit; life in the pit; meets Red Army soldiers, March 1944. Move to Zdolbunow; move to Kiev; return to Poland, 1945; joins a kibbutz aliya training group in Warsaw Praga; illegally crosses the border into Czechoslovakia; move to Austria; move to Italy; aliya to Eretz Israel, 1947.