March 17, 1926
Yaakov was born to his parents Aryeh (Leib) and Pnina (Perel) Biskovitz in the town of Kharovyeshiv, in the Lublin region, Poland.

1940-1941
On a Saturday morning, the Jews were told that the mayor wanted to give a speech in a field called Polgon (a field for growing black strawberries), which was behind the town, near the Christian cemetery. The Jews came to hear the mayor, but there was no speech. The SS began to chase the Jews with dogs, forcing them to run in the winter mud toward Sokol and Belz, on the Russian-Polish border, and later to the train station to Polgon. Those who tried to escape were killed. The Jews who reached Sokol were chased in the winter across the Bukh River. Some drowned, and others crossed, but the Russians sent them back to the German side.
Yaakov’s father reached Belz, and after a few months, he sent a message to the family asking for clothes and money. When he received the shipment, he returned after ten days to the family home in Kharovyeshiv.

1941-1942
Near Kharovyeshiv, there was a labor camp named Oberowicz, and Yaakov was taken to work as a porter at the train station at the age of 14.

April 1, 1942
A week before Passover, the first Aktion (German: “shipment”) began. The Jews were removed from the center of the town and placed in the Kharovyeshiv ghetto (which stretched from Lubelska Street to the Hochba River).
Yaakov’s father worked as a carpenter and received a food card from his workplace, which provided the family with slightly more food.

June 1942
A week after the Shavuot holiday in June 1942, he was sent by the Germans to the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland.
The family was taken in the first Aktion on a freight train that traveled all night and arrived at the camp in the morning. After being separated from the women, several Germans came to search for professionals, and because Yaakov’s father was a carpenter, they took him to work in carpentry. He took his son Yaakov with him as a “strong child,” and so they stayed in the camp.
The selected professionals were left near a water well in the center of the camp. The rest of the people (about 2,000) were taken to the forest to be killed by machine guns and gas.
Yaakov was selected to work in the “Bahnhof Kommando” (train station workers group), and his job was to clean the wagons after people had exited them.
A few months after arriving at the camp, during the two months when no transports arrived, toward the end of 1942, Yaakov’s father fell ill with typhus, and the camp commander, Obersturmführer Tomla, ordered him to be killed in the Lazeret (German: clinic), where the sick, weak, and elderly were killed.
Wagner Gustav and Franzel Karol caught him and killed him.

October 14, 1943
Yaakov participated in the Sobibor uprising and managed to escape from the extermination camp into the forests near the city of Volodymyr.
He remained alone in the forest for about four months.
Later, he met Sasha Fatserski and three of his friends, and together they went to the Skrodnica forests, where they encountered an abandoned camp with plenty of food. Yaakov went to the river to fetch water for bathing when he saw a convoy of women and children escorted by armed men, but out of caution, he did not approach them.
His friends took some bread and a pot from the abandoned camp and spent the night in a desolate building in the nearby village of Skrodnica. The pot was placed on the windowsill.
The next morning, armed partisans from the “Hail-Group” (Jewish partisans led by Yechiel Grinshpan) gathered outside and identified the pot from the camp. They intended to kill them because they thought they were robbers and murderers. When the partisans learned that they were survivors from Sobibor, they decided to join Fatserski and one other friend in the group. Yaakov and two others, who were without money and weapons, stayed alone in the forest and each went their separate ways.
Yaakov continued toward the Ohuza forest, having heard there were Jews there. Along the way, he joined several other Jews, and together they crossed the half-frozen Bukh River.

October 1944
In a small village near the town of Melorita, Yaakov joined a group of Russian partisans from Vostok, who were parachuted in by the Soviet army behind enemy lines. The group numbered about 30 people and operated in the Polesia region. Their direct commander was a Ukrainian Jew named Kaplan.
Stefan Kaplan commanded the “Kaplan” battalion in the “Didia Patia” division, and later a brigade.
Yaakov joined the Polish army under Russian command in Lublin and was sent to the training base in Trabniki. After training, he joined the engineering corps (sappers) in Lublin.
He participated in a battle against the Germans near the town of Jablonno on the Vistula River, near Warsaw.
He advanced with his battalion and was one of the first to break into Warsaw during the battle, which was under German occupation.

January 17, 1945
After Warsaw was captured, Yaakov remained in the city as a soldier and worked on clearing mines inside the city.
About two months later, he was transferred to the town of Staszow, where he cleared minefields around Pczanow.

May 8, 1945
After a quarrel with Polish soldiers over an anti-Semitic issue, Yaakov deserted from his battalion but was arrested the following day and transferred to detention in Pczanow, and later to Buzko.
He was tried in a military court in Prague, which sentenced him to death.
He was sent to the Pabiak prison in Warsaw, to the death row cell, where he was required to document his life story, which was sent to the Marshal of Poland, Rola Zimierski.
He received a presidential pardon, and his sentence was commuted to twenty years in prison.
After serving about four months in prison, his sentence was converted to three months of active military service at the front. Since the war had already ended, he was released and sent to continue his active service in the Polish army.

October 1945
Yaakov deserted again from the Polish army, reached Lublin, and joined the Betar movement.
With the help of Betar, he crossed the border to Austria and entered the displaced persons camp Trapiak near Graz, where he served for several months as a camp policeman.
After several months, he moved to the displaced persons camp in Parnwald, Germany, and joined the camp’s sanitary police.

1947
Yaakov boarded the illegal immigrant ship Ben Hecht to reach Israel.
The ship was captured by the British, and Yaakov was transferred to Camp 66, Block 35, in Cyprus.
He married Bella in Cyprus, where their first son, Aryeh, was born.
They divorced in 1955.

1949
Yaakov immigrated to Israel on the ship Galila and stayed in the transit camp in Beer Yaakov.

1950
He enlisted in the Israeli army, serving in the Central Command and the Medical Corps in Sarafand (now Tzrifin) and Hospital 5 (now Tel Hashomer).
He was released from security service after fulfilling his duty.
He served for two years and one month in mandatory service and one year and one month in reserve duty.

He enlisted in the Israel Police on August 29, 1952.
Yaakov served as a regular police officer for 22 years.

1961
He served as a witness in the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
Yaakov also testified in the trial of SS Obersturmführer Karl Franzel, an officer responsible for the workers in the extermination camps, who, along with SS Obersturmführer Gustav Wagner, personally killed many Jews, including Yaakov’s father.

1963
Yaakov married Tova in Israel, and they had their second son, Yechiel.
Yaakov passed away on February 8, 2002 (26th of Shevat 5762).