Israel Gruzin

Israel Gruzin (M / Lithuania, 1928)

• <Kovno Ghetto> <Dachau> <Death March>

USHMM Oral Interview

Israel Gruzin, born in Slobodka (Vilijampolė), Lithuania on December 28, 1928, describes his family; attending cheder as a child; heading towards Latvia in 1941 on a horse and buggy because they feared the German arrival in Lithuania; having to return to Slobodka because the bridge they wanted to cross was destroyed; moving into the Kovno ghetto and doing forced labor at an old school; being deported with his father and his brother to Dachau in 1943; his mother’s deportation to Stutthof; his transfer to Landsberg, where he had to build barracks; being forced on a death march with his father in April 1945 but being abandoned by the Germans because American troops were approaching; his liberation on May 2, 1945; and marrying his wife in a displaced persons camp; and immigrating to the United States shortly after the war.