Testimony of Zelig Shmeilovitz, born in 1930 in Iwje, Poland, about the Iwje ghetto, murder of the Jews of Iwje, and hiding in a pit owned by Christian acquaintances

Childhood in Iwje; antisemitism; war breaks out in September 1939; Soviet forces enter; German occupation ensues in June 1941; men set away for forced labor; abuse; murder of 220 Jewish members of the local intelligentsia in Stanowicze; Poles inform on Jews; life in an open ghetto from September 1941 on; Judenrat; overcrowding; the Grossaktion in May 1942; selection; murders in Stanowicze; Ukrainian collaborators; back to the ghetto, now sealed; the yellow star; smuggling food; digging hideouts; mutual assistance; receiving help from the Golovienko family in Luchshino village; ghetto liquidated in January 1943; escaping to the Kurbat family in Iwje (subsequently recognized as Righteous among the Nations); hiding in a pit in the Kurbans' courtyard; sneaking into Luchshino for food; help from the Golovienkos; the retreating Germans approach and the witness escapes into the fields; liberation by Red Army forces in July 1944; rehabilitation after the war; immigration to Israel in 1959; adjustment to life in Israel.