Lakhva

Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Kopel Kolpanitsky

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• published: 04 Apr 2012
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If you do not see the English subtitles click "cc" (red). Kopel Kolpanitsky was born in Lakhva, Belarus, in 1926, the youngest of four children. In 1940, the Soviets arrested his father Izhaq for being a member of the bourgeoisie and an activist in the Zionist movement. He was sent to Kazakhstan, where he was liberated in 1941; however, he remained in the Ural Mountains area until the end of the war. When the Germans occupied Lakhva in the early 1940s, Kopel and his family were ghettoized there. Kopel's brother Moshe was active in the resistance in this ghetto. On 3 September 1942, as the ghetto was being liquidated, an uprising broke out at the initiative of the underground. Moshe killed a German soldier but was killed himself. Another brother of Kopel's, Elhanan, fled from the ghetto but was murdered by Russian partisans. Kopel's mother Pessia and sister Ida were killed in the ghetto. Kopel himself managed to escape to the forests, where after several months of wandering he joined a partisan unit and saw action against the Germans. When his unit was liquidated, Kopel volunteered for service in the Red Army and fought against the retreating Wehrmacht. After the war, Kopel deserted from the Red Army and attempted to reach Palestine. His tortuous route led him through Poland, Austria, and Germany. He joined a training farm of the Dror movement and, subsequently, Betar. He boarded the clandestine immigrants' vessel Lancegev but, along with the other passengers, was taken to Cyprus. It took him until 1948 to reach Israel; once there, he immediately enlisted in the Israel Defence Forces and was discharged as a major. Kopel Kolpanitsy has three children and eight grandchildren. Online Torchlighter Film Archive http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/torchlighters.asp