Testimony of Moshe Kop, born in Lodz, Poland, 1909, regarding the Wierzbnik ghetto

Testimony of Moshe Kop, born in Lodz, Poland, 1909, regarding the Wierzbnik ghetto Family background; move to the town of Wierzbnik where the extended family lives; studies at a Polish school and Talmud Torah. The outbreak of war; enlistment into the Polish army; the bombings; entry of German soldiers; captivity by German soldiers; anti-Semitism on the part of Polish soldiers; escape to the village; changing to civilian wear; escape to the forest; a meeting with another Polish soldier who fled; back home; abuse of Jews by German soldiers; establishment of a Judenrat; registration of Jewish property; taking Jewish men to forced labor; deportation of men to Lublin for forced labor; ghettoization in the city; stigma; reporting by the local population about Jews who walked around without a patch with a Star of David; work in a sawmill factory together with his wife; building a hideout for the two witness’ children in the factory; the gathering of the Jews in the main square, November 1942; abuse and murder of Jews by SS men; Aktions in the ghetto and hiding in a bunker in the factory. Liberation by the Red Army; murder of Jews by the local population after the war; aliya to Israel in 1951; absorption.