Tag #123075 - Interview #99947 (Samuel Birger)

In early 1946 mother and I finally got a permit, took the train and went home. We went on an ordinary passenger train, in an open-plan carriage. After several years of deprivation that trip seemed a holiday top me. We had spent the whole day in Moscow as we had to change trains there. I was impressed by the capital. I had never seen such a huge city before. Father met us in Vilnius. It did not take my parents long to make a decision to stay in Vilnius. Nobody wanted to go to Jonava as there were practically no Jews. We were not willing to walk along the streets imbibed with the blood of our kin. Almost all surviving Jonava Jews, or those ones who returned from the front and evacuation settled either in Vilnius or Kaunas. We had stayed in the synagogue for couple of days. Here all new-coming Jews came over. We settled in one of empty apartments, but hardly had we stayed there for couple of days and we were evicted. It was a large apartment in downtown area. Some sort of organization took it for its office premises. At night a ceiling fell in another apartment we were told to move in. At last we were provided with the room at Russo street (it was previously called Russkaya). Half of the house was taken by publishes. Our room was not heated. There was a large round iron stove in the room and we stoked it with firewood. The five of us settled in that room - mother, father, father, I and two my brothers. Aunt Vera was offered a job of a house-keeper by roentgenologist Shneider. She settled in his house. His wife was a dentist. Vera did all house chores and took care of children. Vera and I were happy as those were the years of hunger and every exra ‘mouth’ in the family was a burden.