Testimony of Irina Irena (Elbaum Vishnievska) Burstin, born in Zamosc, Poland, regarding her experiences in the Zamosc Ghetto, in hiding and using a false identity

Testimony of Irina Irena (Elbaum Vishnievska) Burstin, born in Zamosc, Poland, regarding her experiences in the Zamosc Ghetto, in hiding and using a false identity Family life in Zamosc; preparations in advance of the war including escape plans. German occupation, decrees and abuse; executions; thr Judenrat; deportation to a ghetto in the old part of Zamosc; disappearance of her sister; building hiding places inside the ghetto; German searches for Jews and help from the Jewish police; a large "Aktion" on Yom Kippur and her family hides, 1942; liquidation of the ghetto and deportation on foot with Jews from the surrounding area to Izbica near Belzec; rumors concerning extermination of Jews in the camps; alone among corpses in a Jewish cemetery during an "Aktion"; locates her family in their hiding place, without food or water; her grandfather's corpse is with her family; return to Zamosc; capture and murder of her sister; execution of her uncle and aunt in their home; equipped with jewels and dollars, hidden by Polish friends with a male cousin; her father's labor in the ghetto; murder of her mother by a Ukrainian; children are kicked out from the hiding place by a Polish woman; escape of her cousin; rescue by Chevra Kadisha (burial society) members; her father moves her to the partisans; move of the witness to the Novoshinski family (Volksdeutsche) to Zwierzyniec near Bilgoray; life in hiding using a false identity as Kristina Wisniewska, 1942; threats of being informed on by the landlady; Soviet occupation; witness' fear of the fate awaiting Jews and her expression of much friendliness towards the Poles despite the displays of antisemitism; Ukrainian and Latvian cruelties; move to the Jewish Committee in Lublin by her well-meaning landlady. Life in a Jewish orphanage; move to Breslau; attends a high school, 1951; studies international law at a university in Warsaw; work in foreign trade; aliya to Israel, 1962.