Testimony of Yaakov Bielostotzki, born in Bialystok, Poland, 1925, regarding his experiences in Bialystok, Tashkent, a Soviet punishment camp and the Polish Army

Testimony of Yaakov Bielostotzki, born in Bialystok, Poland, 1925, regarding his experiences in Bialystok, Tashkent, a Soviet punishment camp and the Polish Army From a modern traditional family. Outbreak of the war, 1939; German occupation; Soviet occupation; life under Communist rule; his father's labor building bunkers; learns the weaving trade; German occupation, 22 June 1941; shelling and air-raids; escape with his teacher and other students in the direction of the Soviet Union; air-raids en route; dispersion of the children in the class; joins another group of refugees; stay in Jewish homes; joins a group staying in an evacuated factory; advances towards the eastern Soviet Union as far as Tashkent; leaves the group and joins an engravers school; completion of studies and work in a tank factory; life at the tank factory; escape and work in a bakery; arrest by the NKVD; fake trial; transfer to a punishment camp; pardon and release; transfer to work in a whetstone factory; draft into the Polish Army; combat in Poland; participation in the liberation of Majdanek; release from the Polish Army, 07 May 1945. Return to Bialystok; restoration of possessions; aliya attempt; detention in Cyprus; aliya, 1947.