Simcha Ben Shaul — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Excerpt from the book written by Simcha Ben Shaul - Childhood During the Holocaust, 1977.

The Nazis occupy Vilna.

After spending several nights in the basement due to the bombing, there was suddenly an eerie silence. That was when the building watchman came down to tell us that the Germans had taken the city and that we could leave the basement.

The Jews were frightened right from the beginning of the occupation. Lithuanian thugs started maltreating any Jew who crossed their path.

The Jews lost the right to protect their property and, even more distressing, were unable to protect themselves and their lives. We kept ourselves indoors. On occasion, one of my parents would go out but only for really urgent errands or shopping. Queues were split into two – one for non-Jewish customers and the other for Jewish ones. My mother told us about the rumors of Jews being kidnapped, never to return.

The Lithuanians were more than happy to join the ranks of the occupying Nazis and formed the Lithuanian Nazi Party. Together with the Germans, they started to plan the methodical elimination of the Vilna Jews.

At the beginning of July, notices were put up on the walls stating that all Jews, regardless of gender or age, were obliged to wear a yellow patch. This was to make it easy for the Lithuanians and Germans to identify the Jews and seize them off the streets for forced labor or take them to some unknown destination. It was later learned that most of them had been taken to Panieri forest, close to Vilna, which had become the ‘killing valley’ of the Jews of Vilna and Lithuania as a whole.

My mother got busy straight away making patches for the whole family. I remember going out into the yard to show the neighbors’ children the ‘beautiful’ yellow Star of David that my mother had made.

Before the war, there had been over 70,000 Jews living in Vilna. They comprised about one third of the city’s population, but only very few of them survived. That summer, was the beginning of the end of the impressive community of Vilna – Jerusalem of Lithuania.

The end of a happy childhood.

One day, my father returned home from the city frightened and agitated, saying that groups of Germans and Lithuanians had raided the city kidnapping Jews. Most of them were taken to the Gestapo (the Nazi Secret Police) building, and then taken to Panieri where they were shot. From that day on, the kidnappings became a daily occurrence. The kidnappers, were Lithuanian students in civilian clothing who had eagerly volunteered for the Lithuanian police. They would search the streets in the Jewish quarters, house by house, taking any Jew they came across. They also kidnapped Jews straight off the streets, taking them to the Lukishki prison, from where they were sent to Panieri to be killed.

The Judenrat was established to represent the Vilna Jews when dealing with the occupation authorities. This was deemed necessary as the Germans needed to recruit Jewish workers with technical knowledge for forced labor in workshops and garages, as well as other types of forced labor for the German army. The Judenrat’s role was to supply a work force, raise funds and valuables for the German war effort.

The only way to avoid being kidnapped was to report to the Judenrat and register as an essential technician and receive authorization from the Germans that they were essential to the war effort. Every morning, dozens of men went to register as carpenters, electricians, metalworkers etc. at the Judenrat premises at 6 Strashun Street.

On 26^th July, 1941, my father left home to report to the Judenrat Labor Council. We never saw him again. My mother started worrying when it got dark and my father had still not returned home. She went to our Jewish neighbors to ask if they knew anything, in fact she looked everywhere. Apparently, one of our neighbors who had gone to the Judenrat with my father that morning, had also not returned. We were scared of what might happen to us. I curled up next to my mother who couldn’t sleep a wink all night.

She left early the next morning, leaving me at home and instructing me not to open the door to anyone. I stayed on my own for hours, scared and worried about the fate of my father and what might happen to my mother. When my mother returned in the late afternoon, she was shattered. Crying, she told me that she had learned that my father had been kidnapped, together with a number of other Jews, and had been taken to the Lukishki prison.

My mother didn’t stay for long but went out again looking for friends and contacts to help rescue my father from prison, but all her efforts were in vain. He had apparently been taken from the prison straight to Panieri that day, and executed.

My mother was beside herself, no husband, no news about my brother, her eldest son, and very concerned about the rest of the family. We were now on our own and realized that our future was bleak.

A civil German authority was set up in Vilna, with Franz Murer being appointed head of Jewish Affairs. Several decrees were issued by the Germans prohibiting and restricting Jews in various ways, such as: not being allowed to walk on the sidewalks, or making them walk in line, like geese. They were not permitted to walk in public parks, enter public institutions, such as cinemas, theaters or hospitals, or to go to holiday resorts. A curfew was imposed on the Jews from 6 p.m. till 6 a.m. the following morning. Anyone caught violating these restrictions could be subjected to the death penalty.

In the meantime, the kidnapping and killing of the Vilna Jews continued. The number of victims rose from day to day. Every day, hundreds of Jews were being sent to the ‘killing valley’ at Panieri, so that as autumn 1941 drew near, and after the murders and deportations over the summer months, the number of Jews in Vilna had dwindled to about 48,000. There were rumors that the Jews from the small towns around Vilna had been practically wiped out during the first months of the occupation.

The next stage of the German liquidation of the Vilna Jews was to set up the ghetto. On the morning of 31^st August, 1941, we woke up to shouts in German and Lithuanian coming from the street. Looking out of the window, we saw that our street was full of German soldiers and their Lithuanian helpers. They went from house to house pushing Jews into the street while beating them and aiming their weapons at them. We got dressed quickly, and my mother started packing some clothes. One of our neighbors came running in, in a panic, and said that the whole quarter, including Deutsche Street and Rodnitski Street, had been surrounded by the Germans who were carrying out an Aktion (campaign of mass murder). We realized that this was the end and expected the worst - Panieri.

We heard footsteps and shouts from the stairwell followed by a loud banging on our door. I clung to my mother in fear, and kept close to her when she went to open the door. A number of Lithuanians burst into the room and started shouting in Russian and Polish that we should take the bare necessities and go and stand in the yard. They started looking for valuables in the apartment, destroying anything that got in their way. Just as we were about to leave our home, a German officer, a major, suddenly walked in with some other German soldiers. The officer was short and well-rounded and looked more Jewish than German. Looking at both of us, he went up to my mother and, with a smile on his face, gently asked: “Why are you so agitated, you have nothing to fear”, and then suddenly asked: “Would you like to go to Palestine?”.

That question remains ingrained in my memory, and I still remember it even though more than fifty years have gone by since then. I still remember what the German officer, our mysterious savior, looked like. My mother was taken aback by the question but quickly pulled herself together: “That was what I always wanted – that if I survived, I would go to Palestine”. The German officer placed his hand on her head and said: “You will live. Don’t worry. You will go there”. He ordered the Lithuanians to leave the apartment, saluted my mother and left. We were thunderstruck. My mother hugged me tightly, “There is a God in heaven, and he is going to help us and save us”, she said and burst out crying.

By evening, the Aktion was over. The German stuck huge notices on the walls of the houses saying that the Jews had shot at German soldiers who had been walking through the Jewish Quarter, minding their own business, and that was why appropriate measures had had to be taken by the German and Lithuanian authorities to prevent such things from happening again. There was no doubt, even for a 9-year-old child like myself, that the notice was simply a provocation without a shred of truth.

That day, about 10,000 Jews were murdered.