Tag #116312 - Interview #78774 (Fania Brantsovskaya)

I've never been in Svencionys. All I know about my grandmother's relatives is that her brother Dovid Gilinski was a painter and he was the one who introduced my grandmother to Grandfather Velvl. Dovid's son Mordke Gilinski was popular in the Jewish circles. Before the war there was the Meidem recreation home near Warsaw. It was well known in Poland and Lithuania. [see Annexation of Vilnius to Lithuania] [1] It was founded by a Bund [2] activist named Meidem for poor children in Poland. There were two employees there whose surname was Gilinski: one was the director, who wasn't related to our family. The other one was Mordke Gilinski. Mordke was a teacher. The children liked and respected him and addressed him 'father', 'batka' in Polish. Many Jewish teachers knew Mordke in Poland and Lithuania. Children spent two to three months in the recreation home. There was a puppet theater, a radio station broadcasting in Yiddish and a brass orchestra. The classes were conducted on a high professional level. Mordke and his wife, who was also a teacher, arrived in Svencionys at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War [3]. Mordke was a member of Judenrat [4] in the ghetto in Svencionys. Later he moved to the ghetto in Vilnius. I saw him last before I escaped from the ghetto. Most likely, Mordke Gilinski, a great pedagogue and educator, ended his life in Ponary [5]. People said his wife survived, but we lost track of her after the war.