Videotape testimony of Arie Z., who was born in Pruz︠h︡any, Poland (presently Belarus), in 1923, the elder of two children. He recounts his father managing the estate of a Russian princess; attending Hebrew schools; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; increasing antisemtism, including his father being fired in 1938; his finding another job on a distant estate near the Bialowieza Forest; his visits; completing gymnasium in 1939; German invasion on September 1; joining his father with his mother and sister; Soviet occupation; returning home; his father joining them; completing final exams for the Soviet school in June 1941; German invasion; ghettoization; his father's employment by the Judenrat; a former Polish neighbor, a radio expert, employing him in his workshop outside the ghetto; smuggling food; taking bullets from visiting German soldiers; transfering them to those who escaped to the partisans; deportation with his family to Auschwitz/Birkenau in January 1943; separation from his mother and sister; slave labor building rail lines; his father's hospitalization (he never saw him again); transfer to Zgoda; slave labor in a munitions factory with Soviet prisoners of war; joining a group in winter 1944 digging an escape tunnel (he was the only Jew); escaping two months later; hiding by himself; posing as a non-Jewish escapee to receive assistance from Poles; and capture by a Volksdeutsche five weeks later.

Mr. Z. recounts incarceration in Bielsko-Biała; torture during interrogations; transfer to Auschwitz after a week; claiming he stumbled upon the tunnel and denying knowledge of the plan; transfer to Monowitz; encountering his uncle; assisting him; public hangings; claiming not to know a fellow escapee who had been recaptured; transfer to Salza; meeting Josef Rosensaft (later president of DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen); slave labor in an airplane factory; transfer to Buchenwald; evacuation by train; abandonment by the Germans; liberation; hospitalization by the Red Cross in Terezín; assistance from the Joint; moving to Landsberg, Feldafing, and Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camps, with assistance from the Jewish Brigade; helping found Noʻar ḥalutsi, a Zionist youth group; assistance from UNRRA; Beriḥah organizing their illegal emigration by ship to Palestine via Italy in spring 1947; interdiction by the British; incarceration on Cyprus; helping administer the camp; marriage; release to Israel in 1949; and the births of two children. Mr. Z. discusses focusing solely on surviving a day at a time in camps; thinking of a future again during the escape plans; and not sharing his story due to lack of Israeli understanding. He shows a letter and newspapers related to his work on Cyprus.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) > Personal narratives.

World War, 1939-1945 > Personal narratives, Jewish.

Jews > Belarus > Pruz︠h︡any.

World War, 1939-1945 > Jewish resistance.

Concentration camps > Psychological aspects.

Prisoners of war > Germany.

Prisoners of war > Soviet Union.

World War, 1939-1945 > Prisoners and prisons, German.

Concentration camp inmates > Family relationships.

World War, 1939-1945 > Atrocities.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) > Public opinion.

Public opinion > Israel.

Palestine > Emigration and immigration.