Rywek Żytnik and his family landed in Dashev as a result of the dismemberment of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. Dashev, east of the Bug River, was in the Soviet zone and safe from German depravity. Two years later, Dashev found itself occupied by the Germans. This was the beginning of the Żytnik family nightmare.

Rywek Żytnik was interviewed in 1997 by the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for its Visual History program. The interview, in Polish, is 3.5 hours in length. Its interview code is 33294. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a brief summary of this interview.