1933-39: I belonged to one of the Zionist youth organizations in Iwie. We heard lectures, often on Palestine [Yishuv], and had many sporting activities. In 1937 I graduated from high school and began learning to be a dressmaker. After the Soviets seized our region of Poland in 1939, I entered the nursing school in Slonim. Before the Soviet takeover, I couldn't have afforded such an education, but higher education became subsidized by the state.

1940-42: After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, I returned to Iwie. In 1942 a partisan group that included my friend Ruben helped me escape from Iwie's ghetto. I began working in a partisan hospital in the woods--a camouflaged cavern in the earth. We "appropriated" medical supplies from captured German stores, and performed surgeries by grease lamps. Instruments were sterilized by boiling. We used liquor as an anesthetic and salt to clean wounds. When we couldn't find a surgical saw for amputations we used a carpenter's saw.

Chaja and Ruben were married in 1942 while with the partisans. They were liberated in July 1944, and emigrated to the United States in 1949.

1933-39: In 1935 my father secured a good position in the city of Katowice. There, I worked in the sausage business. Since Katowice was close to the German border, many there spoke German fluently. When the war broke out in September 1939, I fled east towards the USSR, but I turned back when I realized that I didn't know if conditions there would be any better than they were in Poland. My route back took me through many small Polish towns.

1940-44: I was in Kolomjya when the Germans set up a ghetto there. In 1942 I was deported by train with hundreds of others. En route I decided to escape, but before I jumped from the train, a family begged me to go to Budapest to find their daughter, Erzebeth, to tell her goodbye for them. I jumped, and escaped. In 1944 I joined Czechoslovak partisans in rebellion against the Germans. In the Carpathian Mountains we sabotaged the Germans by supplying Soviet troops with information about German artillery positions.

After the war, Henryk traveled to Budapest to keep his promise to look for Erzebeth. Henryk and Erzebeth married, and in 1951 they emigrated to the United States.

1933-39: In 1936, after completing yeshiva, I made my living as a house painter. In Ivenets people would stand in front of Jewish stores and drive customers away, telling them not to buy from Jews. In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland; several weeks later the Soviet army invaded from the east. The Soviets nationalized all businesses but our daily life didn't change much. I managed to continue working as a painter.

1940-44: In 1941 Germany invaded the USSR. I was deported to Novogrudok in 1942 but escaped to join the Soviet partisans. That winter, my patrol entered a village to retaliate against pro-German collaborators. We crossed a river to get there, killed the sympathizers and burned part of the town. As we left, a comrade approached a man to get his boots; he was a German soldier! We ran to the river, sure we wouldn't make it and they'd shoot us before we reached the other side. Luckily, the river had frozen overnight and we fled.

Rubin fought with the partisans until liberated by the Red Army in July 1944. After the war he lived in Austria and Italy, before emigrating to the United States in 1949.