Testimony of Rachel (Pinchusowicz) Litwak, born in Baranowicze, 1920, regarding her experiences in Baranowicze Ghetto, Koldyczewo camp and her escape to the partisans

Testimony of Rachel (Pinchusowicz) Litwak, born in Baranowicze, 1920, regarding her experiences in Baranowicze Ghetto, Koldyczewo camp and her escape to the partisans Traditional, well-to-do family, six children; her father was an industrialist, her mother was very charitable; Jewish community was highly educated with many yeshivas; learns in a school in Baranowicze; studies in Yiddish in a teachers college in Krakow. Termination of studies with the Soviet occupation; wants to make aliya to Eretz Israel; antisemitism, numerus clausus; gives food to the deportees to Siberia; German occupation of the Soviet Union, 22 June 1941; escape to a village, return to a burnt house and finds shelter with relatives; entry of the Germans and subsequent restrictions, murder, terror; establishment of the ghetto in autumn 1941;Judenrat; work ironing for the German soldiers; murder of men in the ghetto; a violent selection in the ghetto, 3 March 1942; shooting the elderly, sick and children to the sounds of music; rescue of the family by the disguise of her father and brother as carpenters and the mother and daughters as seamstresses; work as cleaners; deportation to Koldyczewo camp where many escaped; "Aktion", 22 September 1942; murder of whoever they thought were non-essential; "Aktion" in the ghetto; Jewish informers; rescue of Jews in the "Aktion" by Moly Iankelvitz; escape from the ghetto and hiding with Poles, 10 December 1942; liquidation of the ghetto by the Germans and their collaborators in the summer 1943; extermination of Jews frolm Czechoslovakia in gas vans; escape to the partisans under Russian command in the Nikolski forest and work in the kitchen; liberation of Baranowicze by the Red Army, 8 July 1944. Return of the survivors; erecting memorials on graves in the area; moved to Lodz; Aliya Bet, via Austria to a kibbutz in Nikolino, Italy; aliya with her husband, 26 June 1946; detention in Atlit camp; participation in Israel's War of Independence.