Testimony of Sioma Gendelman, born in Rokitno, Poland, 1927, regarding his experiences in Rokitno and with the partisans in a forest

Testimony of Sioma Gendelman, born in Rokitno, Poland, 1927, regarding his experiences in Rokitno and with the partisans in a forest Life before the war; well-to-do Zionist traditional family; attends a Tarbut school; ban of speaking Yiddish; membership in Beitar. Soviet occupation, 1939; deportation with the family to forced labor; concentration of the Jews in the market square guarded by the Ukranian police; escape with the father and siblings to a forest; life in the forest including joining the Soviet and Jewish partisans; testimony of the sabotage of 22 German trains by Zvi Elshinsky; return to Rokitno, 1944. Life in Rokitno in an empty Jewish home; move as Polish citizens to Beuthen; life in Beuthen; joins Hashomer Hatzair; move with a group to a kibbutz in Katowice; meets emissaries of the Bericha organization; chooses an assignment in Czechoslovakia; arrest by Czech gendarmes; bail paid by the Bericha movement and release; move to Austria; move to Bernstein; life in the kibbutz; receives help from the JDC and UNRRA; move to Marseilles; aliya attempt on the ship "Kaf Tet Benovember", November 1947; detention in Cyprus; aliya to Israel, February 1949.