Testimony of Ovadia Walter Lapid Gebrandsdoffer, born in 1927 in Frankfurt Am Main, Germany, regarding his experiences in Frankfurt Am Main, in Strasbourg, in the Dordagne area, and in the ranks of the underground, during the war, and more.

Testimony of Ovadia Walter Lapid Gebrandsdoffer, born in 1927 in Frankfurt Am Main, Germany, regarding his experiences in Frankfurt Am Main, in Strasbourg, in the Dordagne area, and in the ranks of the underground during the war, and more. Son of a traditional, non-Zionist family in Frankfurt Am Main; studies in a Jewish school; activity in the Habonim movement; deportation of his maternal grandparents to Krakow in 1934, because they were Polish citizens; confrontations with the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend -); escape to Strasbourg in 1937; studying in a non-Jewish school; antisemitism; government-initiated evacuation of all Strasbourg residents on September 2, 1939; moved to Geniss; receiving a living stipend from the government; studies at the Ort school in Perigueux with the approval of the Vichy government; Aktion by the French gendarmerie and the Gestapo around the school; escape to Genis; the family’s escape to Clairvivre at the end of 1942; recruitment into the ranks of the underground at the end of 1943; encounter with and joining the FTPF (the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans Français); covert anti-Semitism; receiving supplies from the British via air-drops, by means of radioed slogans; blowing up bridges; handling collaborators; the fall of fellow tracker Rolf Baumgarten during encounters with a German force; liberation of the Dordogne region in July 1944; recruitment through Dr. Zauberman to a hospital; assistance in treating the sick Maquis members who arrived from the forests; move to the Jewish community in Perigueux; receiving a certificate; immigrating to Palestine from Toulon in September 1945; deportation to Atlit and liberation as a legal immigrant; absorption and rehabilitation; participation in the establishment of the Negev Research Institute; responsible for the merger of the Negev Research Institute and Ben Gurion University of the Negev and vice president of the university.