Testimony of David Farfel, born in Nieswiez, Poland, 1920, regarding his experiences in the Nieswiez Ghetto, Mir Forest, Naliboki Forest and Puszcza

Testimony of David Farfel, born in Nieswiez, Poland, 1920, regarding his experiences in the Nieswiez Ghetto, Mir Forest, Naliboki Forest and Puszcza Life before the war. Soviet occupation; German occupation; murder of Red Army POWs; murder of Jews by the German Army; murder of Jews, 30 October 1941; rescue from murder with his wife and father as a skilled professional; establishment of the Nieswiez Ghetto; ghetto life including the establishment of the Judenrat; appointment of a refugee from Warsaw as head of the Judenrat; activities in a secret school; organizing the underground; life with the underground including attempts to obtain weapons; decision to resist if the ghetto is liquidated; uprising on the day the ghetto is liquidated, 22 July 1942; hides in the synagogue during the deportations; liquidation of the ghetto; escape to a forest with a group of Jews including his wife and father; meets a group of Jews from the ghetto; joins a partisan unit led by a Pole; life with the partisans including sabotage acts; meets survivors from the Mir Ghetto; murder of Jewish partisans by Soviet partisans in the Mir and Naliboki forests; fight with the unit commander; leaves with a group of Jewish partisans; joins a Soviet partisan unit led by a Jew; life in Puszcza under German siege, summer 1943; absorption of Jews from the Minsk Ghetto and the Nowogrodek Ghetto in the unit; combat against Polish horsemen; deaths of partisans; combat against the German Army the day before liberation; injury to the commander; liberation, 07 July 1944. Return with his wife and father to Nieswiez; life in Nieswiez including work as a prison guard with help from a Jewish officer in the Red Army; detention by the NKVD; release with the help of his father and wife; move to Poland, April 1946; move to Germany; aliya to Israel, 1949.