Testimony of Selig Burko Barkai, born in Sarny, 1929, regarding his experiences in the Sarny Ghetto, hiding with non-Jews, in the forests, Ostiehowo and Janowska

Testimony of Selig Burko Barkai, born in Sarny, 1929, regarding his experiences in the Sarny Ghetto, hiding with non-Jews, in the forests, Ostiehowo and Janowska Religious Zionist family in Sarny; attends Jewish Tarbut school; imprisonment of his father in 1936, for performing kosher slaughter of meat which was forbidden by law. Outbreak of war, 1939; Russian rule; attends Russian school, joins pioneer movement; entry of the Germans, 1941; forced labor on a farm and working at odd jobs; deportation with his family to a ghetto, November 1941; overcrowding and hunger; hiding in a bunker during the liquidation of the ghetto, 28 August 1942; in hiding with a Polish family in a pigsty over the course of a year; living conditions, fears and loneliness; leaving the hiding place due to the battles between Poles and Ukrainians, 1943; escape to forests; survival; stay in Ostiehowo and Janowska; liberation by the Red Army, 1944. Return to Sarny; meeting his sisters; return to studies; joining training group in Lodz, 1945; stay in DP camp in Leipheim; aliya to Eretz Israel via France on the "Biriah" ship, 1946; joining Youth Aliyah at Kibbutz Sde Nahum; starting a family.