Testimony of Yisrael Hadasi, born in Piotrkow, Poland, 1915, regarding his experiences in Piotrkow and as a forced laborer in Majdanek, Radom, Mauthausen and Gusen II

Testimony of Yisrael Hadasi, born in Piotrkow, Poland, 1915, regarding his experiences in Piotrkow and as a forced laborer in Majdanek, Radom, Mauthausen and Gusen II Escape from Warsaw to Piotrkow before the German occupation; German occupation of Piotrkow, the murder of Jews and deportation to forced labor assignments; establishment of the Piotrkow Ghetto, October 1939; "Aktions" in the ghetto with the help of Polish and Ukrainian policemen; deportation of thousands of Jews to camps; labor in a glass factory in Huta Kara; transfer to a labor camp in Radom with 50 young male inmates; labor in a weapons factory; transfer to Majdanek with 2,000 Jewish inmates and labor weaving reed baskets for glass containers for the German Army; murder of camp inmates who are sick with typhus; transfer to Wieliczka camp; labor in salt mines; transfer to Mauthausen and labor in stone quarries; evacuation to Gusen II camp and labor painting aircraft hardware in a Messerschmitt aircraft factory; preparations by the Germans to murder the Jewish inmates in the coal mines before the arrival of the US Army to the camp; liberation, May 1945. Meets Jewish Brigade soldiers in Linz; move of the camp survivors to Italy by the Jewish Brigade soldiers and their residence in Mussolini's palace in Modena; preparations in Bari for illegal aliya to Eretz Israel; sets sail to Eretz Israel on the "Arba Heruyoth" ship and aliya attempt; capture of the ship by British Navy destroyers on the open seas and detention in Cyprus; aliya to Eretz Israel, March 1947; IDF service in the War of Independence until his release, 1949.