Testimony of Lea (Feinstein) Orbach, born in Vilna, Poland, 1925, regarding her experiences in the Vilna Ghetto, Riga, Kaiserwald, Stutthof and a death march

Testimony of Lea (Feinstein) Orbach, born in Vilna, Poland, 1925, regarding her experiences in the Vilna Ghetto, Riga, Kaiserwald, Stutthof and a death march Life in Vilna before the war; Zionist, traditional family; witness attends Jewish schools; meets Jewish deportees from Germany; help by the Jewish community to the refugees. Outbreak of the war, 1939; Soviet occupation; transfer of Vilna to Lithuanian rule; deportation of wealthy people to Siberia; German occupation, 1941; air-raids; anti-Jewish restrictions including the yellow badge; termination of studies; forced labor; deportation to the Vilna Ghetto; Vilna Ghetto life including "Aktions"; establishment of workshops; theater and library in the Vilna Ghetto; handing over of Yitzhak Wittenberg, head of the FPO, the United Partisan Organization, to the Germans; murder of Yaakov Gans, head of the Jewish police, by the Germans; murder of her parents in Ponary; disappearance of her older sister; rescue of her family by her sister who served as a nurse in a hospital; deportation to Riga; transfer to Kaiserwald; camp life including labor in an airfield; "Aktion" against children; approach of the Red Army, 1944; shelling of Kaiserwald; transfer to Stutthof; life in Stutthof; death march; liberation by the Red Army. Illegal aliya attempt to Eretz Israel on the "Exodus" ship, 1947; aliya to Israel, 1948.