Avraham Aviʼel

Avraham Aviel (Lipkunski) (born January 20, 1929) is a writer, director of a book distribution agency called Beith Alim, and a witness in the Eichmann trial.

Biography Aviel was born in Poland, in the Jewish village of Dowgalishok, to Moshe David and Sara Mina. He acquired Torah education at a small yeshiva in Radun, the town of Chafetz Chaim.

On May 10, 1942, at the age of 13, he witnessed the extermination of the Jews of Radon and the surrounding region in the death pits. He fled to the forests and fought against the Nazis until liberation. He lost his family in the Holocaust, during which he witnessed the murder of his brother Pinchas before his own eyes.

At the Eichmann trial in 1961, he appeared as a witness for the prosecution and in his testimony recounted the extermination of the Jews of Radon as an example of the tragic story of Lithuanian Jews and the life of the partisans in the forests.

On Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2011, he lit the sixth torch at the main ceremony held at Yad Vashem.

His story culminated the state ceremony "Every man has a name" that took place in the Knesset on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2018 in the presence of the Speaker of the Knesset, the Prime Minister and the President of the Supreme Court.

Publications

A village named Dowgalishok, Ministry of Defense Press, 1995. The English edition was published in London: Avraham Aviel, A Village Named Dowgalishok: The Massacre at Radun and Eishishok, Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd.

Freedom and Loneliness, Tammuz Publishing - Writers' Association, 2000 The English edition has been published in Israel: Avraham Aviel, Freedom & Loneliness, KIP Ltd.

A Family from Two Twigs, living testimony, Beith Alim Publishing, 2017. The English edition was published in Israel: Avraham Aviel, A Family from Two Twigs, Living Testimony, Beith Alim.