We had hardly any food. One had to show the document confirming the sanitary treatment to obtain a bread card: that was because of the fear of epidemics in the ghetto. These cards were for little rations of gray bread with sawdust. Sometimes we were given black peas, frozen potatoes and cabbage. We were even given horsemeat once. It stunk when boiling. Mama didn't fail to joke: she added some vinegar to the cabbage and called it ground herring. She made 'liver paste' from peas, and 'sweet tsimes' from frozen potatoes. At one time we were given something called 'vobla' fish [salted fish]. They had taken off its skin, drained it in water and made cutlets. Mama managed to go outside the ghetto once. She brought our belongings from the Lithuanian woman. I started knitting for policemen's wives. I remember knitting a sweater for the fiancee of the policeman at the gate torturing people. When searching people at the entrance to the ghetto, the guards stored everything they could find in the former Gleizer's sausage store at the entrance. However, everybody tried to hide whatever food in the inner pockets of their clothes to smuggle it into the ghetto, and many of them managed.
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Displaying 23251 - 23280 of 50826 results
Fania Brantsovskaya
Those who went to work outside the ghetto were supposed to walk in groups. There were policemen on guard at the gate to the ghetto. One of them, the cruelest of all, beat people black and blue for trying to smuggle some miserable food into the ghetto: a glass of sugar or cereal, a few potatoes. Another order was issued ordering the inmates to live according to the work group division and we had to move to another apartment in Strashnogo Street near the location where my father worked. One day all those who had worker's certificates and their families were moved to the smaller ghetto and all inmates in the smaller ghetto who had no jobs were taken to Ponary.
Our life was more of existence, really. My father was an excellent specialist and was given a yellow certificate. The color of these certificates was often changed and this was another 'monkey trick' the fascists played. Those who failed to obtain new cards were taken to Ponary. Each worker could register his wife and two children under the age of 16 as his dependants. Since I was short and tiny my father wrote I was born in 1926 instead of 1922, and I was registered as his dependant until 1942. This gave me the right to stay at home, obtain a dependant's card, in this way he rescued me from forced labor that I would not have survived. Many workers registered their relatives as their dependants: fathers as husbands, mothers and sisters as wives, and even strangers to rescue them.
There were a few Judenrat offices responsible for various aspects of life in the ghetto. There was a work office, a social service office, a shop maintenance office, an office of culture, a medical office and a funeral office. There was also a hospital primarily keeping patients with infectious diseases, a children's home in the hospital, and a drugstore in the ghetto. The children in the ghetto were taught in schools organized by schoolteachers. There was also a sports ground, though nobody seemed to go there, and a library in the ghetto. There was only a small collection of books in the library, but I borrowed some to read and my name can be found in the library archive.
On the first days of our imprisonment various actions began. It seemed the fascists enjoyed changing the ways of selecting Jews for killing. Young people were taken to work in the peat bog and one day they were told to go to the sauna. My acquaintance Dodke Vedutskiy felt ill and didn't go with his comrades on this day. The young people were locked in a shed and burnt. There were a few synagogues in the ghetto. The yard of one synagogue was in the smaller ghetto. On Yom Kippur, 21st September 1941, all Jews that were praying there were taken to Ponary. My friend Motke Gurewich's parents were also there. His father told him to stay at home that day. The ghetto inmates used to make shelters to hide away during various actions. They were called 'malina' shelters [Russian slang for a secret apartment where those who were against the regime had their meetings]. Our schoolteacher's daughter was born in such a shelter and he named her 'Malina'. Unfortunately, I have no information about what happened to her.
The ghetto was fenced. In narrower streets wooden or brick walls were installed. The Judendrat settled down in the building of my former Realschule on 6 Rudninka Street. Jewish police headed by Yacob Gensas also settled down there. There were police offices established in the ghetto. Jewish policemen watched over order in the ghetto and that all fascist directions were followed.
There were two ghettos created on 6th September: the one where we were was big with a central point on Rudninku Street. The smaller one was on Stikle and Jidu Streets. Many Jews from other streets were taken to Ponary. All Jews from Antokolis, my grandfather Velvl and grandmother Rohe-Gisia, and all Jews from Lidskaya Street were taken to Ponary. We were almost lucky to be living near the ghetto and getting there before it was overcrowded. All sick and older people were taken to the smaller ghetto. People who specialized in some crafts were kept in the bigger ghetto. In late October 1941 the smaller ghetto was eliminated.
On 4th-5th September the situation in the town grew tenser. Lithuanian and Polish residents were forced to leave their homes on Strashuno, Rudninku, Mesino and some other streets in the center of Vilnius. On 6th September at 6am Lithuanian policemen knocked on our door rather politely. They gave us 30 minutes to pack and move to the Jewish ghetto. We could take as much luggage as we could carry with us. One Lithuanian, a more decent man than the others, told us not to worry since the ghetto was nearby, just across the street from the house and we could take a lot of things since we didn't have to walk far. We were just to cross the street to get there. We crossed Pilimo Street and were pushed into a yard across the street from the Jewish hospital on Shpitalnaya Street. Our Jewish neighbors and other Jews were in the yard already. My school friend Hona Tanhu lived in a house in this neighborhood. His mother heard the noise in the yard and came out of her apartment. She invited us to come in. We settled down in her apartment and felt a bit relieved - at least we had a place to stay again.
We knew there were Soviet prisoners-of-war kept in the open air. On 31st August my friend visited me to collect things for the prisoners. I keep admiring our being brave: we were young and the young have no fear. My friend Pupa Kavergi and her grandmother lived in the district of the old medieval Jewish ghetto [36]. Her mother died at childbirth and her father, an outstanding Bund member, had passed away some time afterward. She left shortly before the curfew started ignoring my invitation to stay overnight. On 1st September fascists stage an incident to cause provocation: on the corner of Dijoy Street they left two dead Germans and accused the locals of having killed them. At night all residents of this neighborhood were taken to Ponary or the Lukishki prison [the oldest prison built in the center of Vilnius during the tsarist regime in the 1860s. Its prisoners were those who were not loyal to the regime. The prison is still operating today]. Pupa was one of the first to perish. I'm still tortured by the thought that she might have survived had I insisted on her staying.
Every day men were taken away. At first they explained they were taken to work and men were ordered to take towels and soap with them. But people said they were taken to shooting grounds. On 11th July shootings in Ponary, a dacha [cottage] village 12 kilometers from the town began. It became a death factory. The Soviet authorities had built huge concrete pits to store fuel, but failed to ever get to use them. When those pits were full of dead bodies the victims were forced to dig graves before they were shot themselves. The Jewish population was to pay the contribution of 5 million Marks and we, just like everyone else, gave away all our money and valuables.
Jews weren't allowed to walk on pavements, go to the market or stores or use public transportation. There were two small food stores where we could receive food products for cards. The circulating currency was Marks. The curfew started two yours earlier for Jews than for other citizens. Fascists cane to Jewish houses taking away valuables and making inventory of the furniture. They also took away more expensive pieces of furniture. There were local reporters giving them information about wealthier houses. Jews tried to hide their valuables with their Lithuanian friends. An old Lithuanian woman, who did our laundry, took a few bags of our belongings to hide. I even gave her the yarn that aunt Tyoma had given to me.
A few days later pogroms took place in our town. Fascists tortured religious Jews making them shave their beards and forcing them to dance. Every day new orders were issued. The first one was for communists and Komsomol members to get registered. Fortunately, nobody in Vilnius knew I was a Komsomol member. My father was forced to work for the Reich. I was also taken to do odd jobs: we gathered lime blossoms and other herbs. Later we were sent to clean the streets and public toilets. All Jews were to wear a big white quadrate with a yellow circle and the letter 'J' in it on our chest and back. We obeyed and immediately felt ourselves outcasts. Later these were replaced with white armbands with a yellow star and then just a yellow star. Germans shot people if they caught them without the bands. Jews were killed for not following German orders.
It's hard to find words to describe our family reunion. We all cried. Mama said that when the town was occupied, our housekeeper, an adamant anti- Semite, came to see her to ask about where we had gone. He told us we had escaped along with the communists. Then the wife of our new janitor came by. She said: 'Fania, why don't you tell him that your husband and daughter went to visit your brother in Kaunas and then the war began and they had to stay'. So she gave Mama a hand.
We stopped to take a rest in the town of Gorodishche in Western Belarus. The house we stayed in was on a hill. The owner's son, a teacher, showed us the German parachutists landing. I buried my documents in their garden, while the German motorcyclists were riding along the streets. The occupation began. In the morning all men including my father and uncle were taken to the market square. These were the frontline forces and these men just scared the men around a bit before letting them go home. We headed home, but in the first village we passed the villagers took away our horses and we had to walk on. A few days later we returned home.
On 22nd June the bombings started. My parents and many other people thought it was another emergency training, common at the time. My parents had bags packed with everything necessary in case of an emergency. We grabbed them and went to the basement. On that day my uncle Finskiy, who was the director of a leather factory, brought a wagon to pick us. We talked and decided that my father and I were going: my father wanted to go to the Soviet army and I was a Komsomol member and was sure I simply had to go. We decided that my mother and sister could stay at home. It never occurred to us that the fascists could do any harm to a woman and a girl. In a hurry I grabbed my hot water bottle: I had had a kidney surgery earlier and never went out without a hot water bottle. We were going on a horse-drawn wagon and this was a horrible exodus. The retreating Red army trucks were passing us. We begged them to take us with them and I even showed my Komsomol membership certificate, but they were just passing by. There were many dead people on the road. I thought there could be nothing worse than what we were going through, but it was all just ahead of us.
In spring 1941 I went home to Vilnius on vacation. The Baltic Republics were already occupied by the Soviets. My parents didn't have anything against it. They believed that at least there was no fascist threat to Jews any longer. When I came home, Mama was at the parents' meeting. My sister Riva studied in the former Realschule. Having missed home-made food for so long, I was eating my mother's borscht right from the pot. A week later I returned to Belarus. On 1st June 1941 I went to enter Vilnius University. When I came to submit my documents, I was told to come back in July. I met with my friends whom I hadn't seen in two years. At this time the Soviet authorities began with the deportation of Lithuanian Zionists and wealthier people to the Gulag [35] camps. Some of my friends were gone. On 21st June I met a friend, whose father was an outstanding doctor. We were standing near my house discussing whether his parents could possibly be subject to deportation. On the following morning, 22nd June, the [Great Patriotic] war began.
In early 1940 my friends and I were summoned to the passport agency and ordered to leave Grodno. We didn't belong there and had no right to reside in the areas adjoining the border. [The Soviet regime did not trust those who lived in the areas that were annexed to the USSR. In particular, it restricted their freedom of movement. They were not supposed to be close to the border to prevent them from escaping from the country]. The point of destination indicated in my passport was Navahrudak, a town in Belarus and I went there. Navahrudak was a nice town, the town where Adam Mickiewicz was born. I took a teachers' training course. I was a good student. I joined the Komsomol and was an activist. Here I fell in love with Ezhi Chizhik from Poland. We spent a lot of time together and dreamt about the future. When we finished our studies we were sent to work in different villages. I went to Zherebkovichi. I taught Belarus, Russian, history and physical education in a small school. My first class was with an army service pre-conscription group. I was to teach them how to put their signatures. My students respected me.
,
1940
See text in interview
In 1939 Vilnius was given to Lithuania and became its capital. That summer I finished Realschule. Four of my friends and I decided to go to study in Grodno in Western Belarus. This was my idea - first of all teaching in Grodno was in Polish, which we all knew. Secondly, my aunt Esther lived there. In Grodno I entered the teachers' training college. Before the Soviet power was established in Western Belarus the pupils had to say a Catholic prayer before classes. The prayer was cancelled and the lyceum switched to Russian [in 1939, when the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Poland]. It was difficult to study. I lived in a hostel with other Polish and Belarus girls. They gave me a warm welcome and even gave me a present according to Catholic traditions. Some of the girls' parents were arrested by Soviet authorities. One such girl was the daughter of a policeman. Once she tore the picture of Stalin grabbing it from the sideboard that belonged to another girl in our room. The girl realized she might get in trouble and came to me to ask advice. I told her to go get another picture to replace the one she had torn and pretend nothing had happened. She did as I told her. Some time later our lyceum was renamed to college and we had to take entrance exams in physics and Russian. I said I could only do it in Yiddish and one Jewish professor agreed to be my examiner.
Young people argued a lot about the Soviet regime: about the period of terror [see Great Terror] [30] in the USSR, trials of the Trotsky [31] and Zinoviev [32] followers [see Zinoviev-Kamenev triumvirate] [33]. Once I even had a fight with my father's apprentice who also stayed with us. He was telling me that there was something horrible happening in the USSR and that Lenin's comrades, such as Trotsky, could not be enemies of the people [34]. Older people also had discussions. Some were for the Soviet regime and were interested in everything happening in the USSR.
In those years, young Jewish people in Vilnius followed different political convictions. In opposition to young fascists who propagated racial hatred and also used to break windows of Jewish stores, they formed different unions. There was an underground 'Union of the school youth', fond of antifascist and communist ideas, and there was an underground Komsomol [28] organization. There were two Bund organizations: one for younger and the other one for older members. I belonged to the Zionist Jewish scout organization 'Bin'. We spent much time together going on excursions and hiking tours in summer. We often went to the theater. There were two Jewish theaters and a Jewish conservatory in Vilnius. In spring our schools had a meeting at the Maccabi [29] stadium. I remember that when we passed by the Jewish Bank its employees threw flowers from the balcony of the building. I can still remember the overwhelming feeling of joy that I had.
I went to the Realschule. The fee was lower there and they focused on natural sciences. I was good at those subjects: mathematic, physics, etc. We were taught in Yiddish. We also studied Jewish history and literature. Our teachers also lectured at Vilnius University. There was a wonderful library at school where I spent much time. Our teacher Malka Heimson, who was also the tutor at our literature club, perished in the ghetto in 1942.
We also celebrated Jewish holidays at school. We had a masquerade on Purim. We wore costumes. I remember wearing a Chinese costume once. We also brought shelakhmones to school. We put everything we brought from home into a big basket and everyone could take a treat from it. In this way poor children could also enjoy better shelakhmones. The gymnasium charged fees. My father paid 50 percent of my tuition fees as he was a member of the teachers' association. However, it happened sometimes that I wasn't allowed to come into the classroom when my father didn't pay my fees on time. We particularly liked the event we celebrated on 1st March - the School Day. We had a banner made of all kinds of geometric figures: quadrates, triangles and rhombi that we took outside. There was a meeting and Sophia Gurewich made a speech. In 1933 the gymnasium was closed. I know that Sophia Gurewich starved to death while in evacuation in a town in Russia.
There were a number of schools and gymnasiums for Jewish children in Vilnius. They were schools where the teaching was in Hebrew and Yiddish or in Polish. There were 7 and 8-year schools. There were a number of Yiddish schools: Gurewich, Shimon Fruk, Zeire Kuperstein schools. They were named after their sponsors and founders. There was a Tiksin school for retarded children, named after its founder Tiksin. The humanitarian Realschule [27] and the Sophia Gurwich gymnasium were the best. I went to the Sophia Gurewich gymnasium. Doctor Shabath's wife was my teacher. This Jewish doctor was a very nice person. There were legends about his professionalism and kindness towards the poor. The teachers were extremely skilled. Our teachers had high goals to educate and teach Jewish children and make them well-cultured people. They taught us real things. I remember our teacher once brought milk to the class. It got sour and after that we knew how sour cream and butter were made. We wrote compositions and in senior grades we discussed literary characters.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
So these are the stories of the people living in our house. There were two little huts and a bigger house with two apartments in the yard. One apartment belonged to an old Jewish man. He stored oil products, kerosene in barrels that he sold. The janitor and his family lived in the other apartment. All Jews living in these houses also died in the ghetto. Only one girl survived. After the war she worked as a dancing teacher and taught Jewish children who had survived the ghetto.
, Lithuania
The Minz family, who lived on the fourth floor of our house, had several daughters. Sima, one of them, used to slide down the handrails and ring the Gringolds' doorbell before running away. This was a monkey-trick, but it disturbed the neighbors a bit. When the Soviets came to Lithuania [see Occupation of the Baltic Republics] [25], the Minz family moved to Japan. Sukiahara [26], a Japanese diplomat, rescued from oppression many Jews, Buddhists and Zionists by issuing Japanese visas to them. Sima lives in the USA. She happened to sit next to Ada Gringolds' at a congress of Vilnius Jews in New York. They started talking and it turned out they had lived in the same house and that Sima had been the very girl ringing the doorbell of Ada's apartment.
There was also the Gringold family living in our house. They owned a fabric store on Rudnitskaya Street. They had two daughters. The older one was my age, and Ada Gringold, the younger one, was about two years younger. The girls' parents died during the typhoid epidemic shortly before the war. When the war began, the girls' uncle took them to live with him in Kaunas. From the Kaunas ghetto [23] they were taken to the concentration camp in Klooga [24] in Estonia where they met my father. They told me a lot about his last months. My father stayed strong and supported the girls as much as he could. The girls moved to their relatives in America.
There was another family in our house. The father of the family, whose name I can't remember, was a thief. He was the leader of a gang. He was nicely and elegantly dressed. Once, Lelka Steiman's father's fur coat disappeared from the ante-room. The neighbors started discussing this incident loudly and two days later the fur coat reappeared as suddenly as it had been gone.
Our other neighbor Hasia, a Jewish girl, finished Medical Faculty. During the Great Patriotic War she was at the front. She had a child from a Ukrainian guy. After the war he took their child to his first wife. Hasia knew she couldn't manage raising a child during hungry times. Her son grew up and found out who his real mother was. He is a sailor. He lives in the north of Russia and often visits Hasia in Israel.
Our neighbors Sneidman had two children: Lusia and Noah or Nenia. The father of the family, a tall handsome Jew, owned a warehouse. He purchased bowels, washed and cleaned them and sold them to his clients for making sausages. He was a religious Hasid [21], he celebrated all Jewish holidays. On Sukkoth he installed a sukkah and we enjoyed spending time there. He died of a heart attack by the door to their house in the ghetto. His children survived the war. Lusia was in Riga [today Latvia] and was then taken to a camp in Poland. After the war she met with her cousin brothers in Vilnius and they took her to Canada where she married a Jewish man who had been rescued by Schindler [22]. Noah was in a partisan unit. After the war he stayed a while with my husband and me. Noah finished a teacher's training college. He got married and moved to his sister in Toronto. He became a Russian literature professor at Toronto University.
The second factory packed cotton wool. And the third factory had a special machine to stuff cigarettes. There was also a kitchenware and everyday goods store in the yard. Maximov, our neighbor, was an actor of the local Jewish theater. This was his pseudonym; I've forgot his real name. His son pricked his finger with a pen and died from blood poisoning. We, cruel kids as we were, took advantage of it showing our teacher that we pricked our fingers just to get out of the classroom. Maximov, his wife and children perished in the ghetto.