Testimony of Batia Bashinka (Lewin) Berkowicz, born in Smorgonie, Poland, 1929, regarding her experiences in Smorgonie, Schischmaren, as a forced laborer in Koschedaren, in Stutthof, Gleiwitz and in other places

Testimony of Batia Bashinka (Lewin) Berkowicz, born in Smorgonie, Poland, 1929, regarding her experiences in Smorgonie, Schischmaren, as a forced laborer in Koschedaren, in Stutthof, Gleiwitz and in other places Family background; attends a "Tarbut" school; the community and synagogues; her father's Gordonia activities. Soviet occupation, 1939; Jewish life under Soviet rule and confiscation of her father's workshop; German occupation, June 1941; attempt to escape to the Soviet Union; burning of the village; murder of men including her father; deportation to the Smorgonie Ghetto; life and work in the ghetto; yellow badge; deportation to Schischmaren by train; typhus; work; forced labor in peat in Koschedaren; the Ukrainian guards; transfers to other places: Aleksotas Kaunas; hospitalization in a Kaunas hospital; activities in the underground General Jewish Fighting Organization and as a partisan; whipped as a punishment by a Kapo; separation from her mother and meeting with her after a time in Kazlu Ruda; deportation from Kaunas to Stutthof, Germany, by ship; march to the ship under the supervision of the Wehrmacht; labor removing corpses; hunger in the camp; roll calls (Appel); failure to report to a roll call and punishment; transfer to Gleiwitz; forced labor; return to Stutthof; from Stutthof by ship to Neustadt in Holstein; liberation, May 1945. Her mother's death; move to a children's home in Blankensee with help from Jewish Brigade soldiers; aliya to Eretz Israel, 1947.