Testimony of Yitzhak Sanderovitz Zur, born in Siauliai, Lithuania, 1922, regarding his experiences in the Siauliai Ghetto and in hiding in a forest

Testimony of Yitzhak Sanderovitz Zur, born in Siauliai, Lithuania, 1922, regarding his experiences in the Siauliai Ghetto and in hiding in a forest Life in Siauliai before the war; from a Zionist family; attends a Jewish elementary school and a Jewish high school; Hashomer Hatzair activities; his sister’s aliya to Eretz Israel, 1936. Soviet occupation, 1940; closing of Jewish institutions; deportation of well-to-do people to Siberia; establishment of a Zionist underground; nationalization of Jewish enterprises; appointment as manager of a company; verbal antisemitism on the part of the Lithuanians; German occupation, 1941; murder of Jews by Lithuanians; escape with his family; establishment of the Siauliai Ghetto; ghetto life including Judenrat activities; establishment of a grocery store and hospital; meets refugees from Poland; "Aktion" against the elderly and children; the ghetto is turned into a camp, 1943; abortions performed on pregnant women; labor at a hide factory manufacturing shoes for the German Army; transfer to an airfield, 1943; life at the airfield including physical labor; airfield is guarded by SS men with dogs; Red Army approach; escape in a water truck; help from Lithuanians; murder of escaping Jews by Lithuanian partisans; finding a hiding place in a forest; liberation by the Red Army. Return to Siauliai; life in Siauliai including NKVD activities; secret Zionist activities; aliya to Eretz Israel, 1945.