Testimony of Zalman Fein, born in Suprasl, Poland, 1913, regarding his experiences in the Polish Army, Soviet captivity in Pavlovsk, the Bialystok Ghetto, the Jewish underground, the Jewish partisans in the Bialystok forests, the Red Army in Berlin and in other places

Testimony of Zalman Fein, born in Suprasl, Poland, 1913, regarding his experiences in the Polish Army, Soviet captivity in Pavlovsk, the Bialystok Ghetto, the Jewish underground, the Jewish partisans in the Bialystok forests, the Red Army in Berlin and in other places Outbreak of the war, September 1939; participation in battles in the framework of the Polish Army; defeat of the Polish Army; desertion; taken captive by the Soviets; transfer to a POW camp in Pavlovsk; camp life including separation of the Polish officers from the POWs who are army privates; murder of the officers in the Katyn forest by the NKVD; release from captivity after four months; return to Suprasl; Soviet occupation; exiles; persecution of merchants and activists in Zionist parties; German occupation; murder of Jews by the Germans; murder of the city's rabbi in the synagogue; worshippers are forced to burn Torah scrolls and ritual articles; concentration of the Jews in the municipal market in order to count the Jews; "Aktions"; escape to forests with his father and sister; move to the Bialystok Ghetto; Bialystok Ghetto life including joining the underground organization lead by Mordechai Tenenbaum; escape to the Bialystok forests with a group of friends; coordination into a partisans unit under the command of Rivka Shindler Weiskovska; activities by the women signal operators Bronia Vinitska (Klibanska), Chaika Grossman and Merilka to obtain weapons for the organization and for the Jewish partisans; explosion of railroad tracks, bridges and telephone poles; death of the brigade commander, Sasha Suchchevski, in battle; Jewish partisans unit joins the Polish Klinowski partisans brigade; division of the Jewish partisans into two brigades, "Aleksander Metrosov" and "October 24"; command of the brigades by commanders Witzchovski and Warshchagin; displays of antisemitism including the murder of Jewish partisans by Soviet partisans; liberation by the Red Army, summer 1944; return to Suprasl; drafted into the Red Army; participation in battles in the Poznan area; transfer to Berlin with his unit; occupation of the Reichstag. Continuation of life in Berlin; Potsdam Conference; release from the Red Army, October 1945; repatriation to Poland; aliya to Eretz Israel via Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany and France, late 1947.