Testimony of Avraham Tavori Tureholz, born in Staszow, Poland, 1930, regarding deportation to Auschwitz, jumping off a train, joining partisans and assistance in the fighting against the German army

Testimony of Avraham Tavori Tureholz, born in Staszow, Poland, 1930, regarding deportation to Auschwitz, jumping off a train, joining partisans and assistance in the fighting against the German army Family background, religious family; relocation to Arad, Romania, 1932; a visit to Eretz Israel, 1933, where his mother's family lives; attempt to stay in Eretz Israel; buying a plot of land; stabbing of his father by an Arab in Jaffa; the British authorities' investigation of the father and the understanding that there are no certificates for the family to remain in Eretz Israel; deportation within four weeks from Eretz Israel; back to Romania; studies in a room and in a Jewish school; studies at a Jewish gymnasium; family visit to Eretz Israel; family visit to Poland. The outbreak of war; prohibition of keeping a non-Jewish assistant in Jewish homes; closing Jewish schools; ghettoization; yellow badges; public beard shaving; humiliations; taking Jewish men up to the age of 55 with witness’ father and grandfather to forced labor; bribery and success in freeing his grandfather from forced labor; return of his father after 3.5 years; taking his brother later when he turned 16.5 to forced labor for a year and a half; a warning to his father from a Romanian acquaintance one evening to flee the house because a fascist operation to assassinate Jews is planned for the next day, late 1939; a pogrom the next night against the Jews, the murder of the father of a friend of the witness; over 100 Jews were murdered that night; assistance to Jewish refugees who reached the Romanian border; ghettoization; collection of Jews by the Romanian police and deportation by train to Auschwitz; jumping from the train to the woods; a meeting with Serbian partisans in the forest; joining the partisans; registration of train’s timetable; photographing the murder of Jews in pits; hiding Judaism from the partisans; good relations with the Serbian partisans. The end of the war; back home; meeting with his parents and brother; life after the war; aliya to Israel; absorption.