Shalom (Kaplan) Eilati — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Shalom (Kaplan) Eilati was born in Kovno Lithuania in 1933 to his mother - a nurse and a poet - and her father - a teacher and writer. He is the brother of Zipporah who is a few years younger than him.

In 1941, he was interned in the ghetto with his family. He survived various Aktions, and in 1944, pushed by his mother, he escaped alone and survived. His mother and little sister perished. His father, who was in concentration camps outside the ghetto, survived. They met after the war.

Eilati made Aliyah to Eretz Israel in 1946 and started a family. He served as an agronomist, guide and editor of publications.

A Group of Children in the Ghetto

In one of the passages in his book, Eilati describes the group of children that took form in the ghetto. Pay attention to the words he chooses to describe the children's play experiences in the ghetto, and the feelings of a child longing to be part of a group. Try to think if there are any manifestations of childhood with normal characteristics in this description?

"We apparently had plenty of time and it was filled with dense activities. I do not remember this period as a time of dull idleness. I spent most of the day with my two friends Arike and Maimke and their friends. When the weather was good and the conditions were right, we played outside. This was a great period for games. On cold, rainy or "bad" days, we were in one of the apartments. In the winter, we built snowmen and waged snowball fights like children all over the world […]

We improvised sledges made of a plank supported by two narrow beams, placed underneath. We used them to slide, giving them momentum by pushing them in every possible direction. Large excavated pits found in a number of plots were a special source of gravitation, and one of these, with particularly steep slopes, became a popular and dangerous sliding site […].

The games we played at home for several days were not only chess and checkers, monopoly and various card games, but also other type of competitive games where victory in one of them contributed to your position on the social ladder. I especially liked the game that involved preparation of long lists of names of writers, of places, or of objects which begin with a particular letter. I really wanted to be successful as part of Arike and Maimke's group. In those kinds of competitions I was able to show my strength. When my knowledge was not enough, I did not hesitate to take the volume of the children's newspaper in our house, or the yearbook of the historical-ethnographic society, and diligently copy from there the names beginning with the necessary letter.

With Arike and Maimke and their group, I discovered the world. It was a group of 'good kids,' very alert and active - an energetic bunch. Things that were new to me - were already known to them […], their eyes missed nothing, and there was no safer place than to be in their company. Only recently did I realize the meaning of their relative knowledge, which was extreme in my eyes - most of them were a year or two older than me, and I did not notice the fact until Ruhama recently told me. In the summer we played ball games of all kinds, although balls were very rare […] and when playing football outside was not possible, and we were tired of chess, a new game rose to prominence - table football with buttons. [This is how it went] Football-buttons was invented and developed by children aged 10-13 in the Kovno ghetto. [...]. There were home games and league games, and an enthusiastic crowd of spectators around the board accompanied the game."

Eilati uses expressions that bring the reader closer to a world of childhood with ordinary characteristics: the children in the ghetto play and have fun; the evident importance and centrality of the 'peer group' in the eyes of an adolescent child, and although physical boundaries close them in, German orders make their lives very difficult and hunger and cold are oppressive – communication within the group breaks across the boundaries of the limited world in which they live.

To describe the world of childhood in the ghetto, Eilati uses words that deceive the reader: on the surface it seems to describe ordinary characteristics of a childhood,  but below the surface, with gentle words and subtle hints, we are exposed to the cruel reality of children's life in the ghetto; a reality in which life only ostensibly continues, while they are housed in a closed and confined space that disconnects the people in it from the world around them; a reality in which the adults are helpless in the face of German orders, but a world of freedom opens for children -but this is forced freedom. The reality of impromptu sledding and ball games only widens the gap between the child's sense that it is like other "children of the world" and the adult's knowledge of the fate that awaits Jewish children. In this reality where the most important thing for a teenager is to be a 'hero' and a social leader, to be part of a group of young people who consider themselves unconquerable ("there was no place safer than to be in their company") except during those "bad days", for example when the Germans carried out Aktions to deport Jews for "resettlement in the East," meaning deportation ending in murder. The gap between the perspective of the adult Eilati and of Eilati the child, highlights the fact that children and adults were thrown together into a chaotic period, but apparently did not experience the Holocaust the same way, and their experiences and interpretations of the overall picture of reality was different.

Adults and Children Role-Reversal in the Ghetto

Although the children's and the adults' experiences and interpretations were not the same, there is no doubt that a fatal blow was inflicted on parents of children in particular, and on adults in general. During the Holocaust, children and adults were forced to experience the collapse of a world familiar to them, but the adults, whose life experience might have helped them under normal circumstances, were now left helpless in the face of the fact that the Holocaust bore no resemblance to what they had experienced in the past. Any rational analysis of the situations they faced was done in a world where choices were increasingly reduced, until every choice became a "non-choice," especially in the "final solution" stages - where every choice was a "minimal evil."

One of the most difficult situations adults and children had to face was the critical damage the Germans inflicted on the unwritten social contract that stated that adults protect children, that the strong protect the helpless. Parents and children were forced to undergo role reversal. In the following section, Eilati describes one of the Holocaust's most common experiences of everyday reality - a reality in which children became the family's breadwinners:

"At first, when the sale of food restriction to Jews took place, we the children acquired special status, especially those who did not have a distinctly Jewish appearance. My parents now had no choice but to resort to my help, to recognize me as a valuable partner. When I noticed that at the butcher shop opposite, supplies which were distributed sparingly among the city stores had arrived, I would go out - once, twice and a third time, at intervals, and buy everything that was sold as rations. From the butcher next to me, I would rush to other stores in the area, without going too far, and also buy there everything that I could. Thanks to my forays, various foods and sausages appeared on our table that in those days had rarely been seen, even on ordinary days - all that could be purchased with Soviet money that the merchant still accepted. For a little while I became the breadwinner of the family and my pride knew no bounds. However, it soon became too dangerous and my short-lived fame expired."

As in many other cases during the Holocaust, the move to the ghetto caused a reversal in family roles: young boys and girls, and even boys and girls who witnessed their parents' humiliation and helplessness, assumed responsibility for the family's livelihood, like the young Eilati. The children's physical size and agility, the idea that by moving to "Aryan" areas outside the ghetto they would not be suspected of smuggling because of their young age, the hope that if they were caught, the Germans' would take pity, the fact that some of them, especially the young  did not know or remember a reality of life other than that of the ghetto - all these resulted in children and teenagers becoming involved in the smuggling of food into the ghetto, and many of them lost their lives as a result. It is difficult, therefore, to decide whether to call them 'children' or 'teenagers,' since, according to their age and in normal living circumstances, they would be considered 'children,' but in war circumstances they were forced to grow up. We have chosen here to continue calling them 'children,' emphasizing the gap between their age and their experiences, their interpretation of reality, and the dilemmas they were forced to face.

Eilati was aware that his parents were not interested in his help, but he happily stepped into the adults' shoes. He does not specify here why his parents did not want his help, but from the words in which he chooses to describe his feelings in those days, it is clear to us - and also to his parents - who later did not allow him to continue smuggling – that Eilati was not aware of the extreme danger involved in smuggling, and saw it as an adventure accompanied by fame. In this passage, too, it is evident that for the child, the new reality creates a change (blessed in the short term) in the status and manner in which he is perceived by the adults around him. It is clear, however, that he is not mature enough to understand the painful consequences of this change.

The Encounter between Education, Values, ​​and the Reality of Living in the Ghetto

This role reversal even led to another new and difficult challenge for parents. Given that they were forced to recognize their children, at least for a time, as equal partners, they were forced to recognize the new limitations applied on their parental authority: a clash between education and moral values and norms and the reality of hunger, humiliation, contempt and death forced on daily life in the ghetto. In the following section, Eilati addresses this new and complex reality:

"At this stage of my accelerated adolescence, I was ready to take part in distribution of any loot. The life of the ghetto turned out to be rich in states of semi-abandonment from which the more alert and agile could derive considerable benefits. The concepts of what was allowed and forbidden became very flexible. I came to realized that social success now tended, even among us children, to be in favor of poachers, not necessarily on the side of the well-mannered. My parents were not happy, to say the least, with my drifting after the street spirit. They repeatedly tried to ban me from participating in various poaching and rip-offs by giving up in advance - so they would repeat again and again that they preferred to give up the material benefits that might arise from these dedicated efforts. However, they found it difficult to withstand the winds that blew. Other parents gave up or did not try to intervene at all - this was not the right time to get into questions of education and morals. I wanted to be like everyone else, to shake off the figure of the educated boy from a good home. I wanted to compete with my friends and succeed - like back then in Grandpa's town, when, on Shabbat, I hung behind a Gentile's cart. I wanted to bring things home, food for the family, like in the early days of the occupation. 'They will inevitably recognize my important place in the family and I will be praised.' "

The desire to survive the reality of daily life in the ghetto confronted its inhabitants with difficulties, and sometimes with the real inability to keep and maintain universal codes of value, which before the war was never questioned. How can a parent educate his child not to steal when that child sees his family tormented by the torture of starvation? Eilati recounts that the desire to shake off the image of the 'good boy' and the ambiguity arising from the difference between good and evil, overcame for him the authority of his parents.

These questions take us to the next issue: If 'this is not the right time to get into questions of education and morality,' maybe attempts to maintain underground schools are merely false attempts that will not have the power to prevent educational and moral deterioration. Let us turn to the following section which describes such an experience: The parents did not give up one of the main source of knowledge and education to be found in any reformed society, and insisted on conducting studies in secret:

"The classes were secret. They were set up with the quiet consent of the parents and teachers committee who initiated the resumption of classes instead of the schools closed by German order. Classes were held several times a week in the morning in different apartments, and the children were integrated according to their level of knowledge and the language study they preferred - Yiddish or Hebrew. Now my mother no longer objected to my studies in Hebrew. Perhaps also because the study class in this language took place close to our house, in the apartment of Arike and Maimke. On a normal day we had three or four lessons, with a fifteen minute recess between them to allow the teachers to reach their classes from various teaching areas. I don't know who was responsible for the whole framework - probably Dr. Haim-Nachman Shapira. What was the number of classes that took place at the same time throughout the ghetto? I don't know; however the system worked perfectly and ran like this for almost two years."

What lay behind these studies, and does this describe a different perception of reality prevailing between different ages? For the children, the studies might have filled the present with content and continued some of the characteristics to which they were accustomed from the pre-war period. For the parents, the resumption of schooling and the hours the children would spend in school might have been quality time for expanding education, as well as a period of time to keep the children from wandering outside and possibly be tempted to acts and situations that parents sought to prevent as much as possible. Added to this was the hope that the war would end as soon as possible; hence, parents saw great importance in maintaining (or establishing) an underground education system that would allow children to integrate properly into society in the future.

In addition, for adults, the studies were seemingly proof that the world could go on as usual, meaning that not all their known world had collapsed; and therefore they were still able to influence and protect their children. For these reasons, the studies were also perceived as a promise for a better future. It seems, then, that one of the main things that differentiated the perspective of adults and children on this issue lay in the ability to look forward. It is evident that children's scope of endurance is shorter than that of adults: for children, the thought of a distant future is almost inconceivable. For the experienced adult, the existence of the future is a real fact; hence, giving up studies in the ghetto basically meant giving up hope there might be some future for the children.

Living in the Shadow of Death - The Uncertainty, the Rumors, the Decisions

In the next section, Eilati best describes the temporary, immediate sense of uncertainty in the ghetto, which also brought to the children a sense of freedom. It is clear from Eilati's words that the children lived, in part, and much more than the adults, 'as if there were no tomorrow' out of a greater ignorance than that of the adults. Although in the first and last sentence, his remarks show contemporary points of view - of the adult Eilati - the rest of the passage deals with a kind of  daily 'intermediate time' (perhaps 'present time'), which the children experienced. The relative advantage of children over adults is reflected here in their ability to turn the threatening and unknown intervening time into a period of growth, play and adolescence as well.

"We were trapped like in an air pocket in a sunken ship. In the meantime, we breathed and hoped, but no one had any idea whether the dwindling air would be enough before rescuers arrived. In that air pocket, in a bubble within a bubble, we spent with the children about two winters and two summers of our lives. Like minnows swimming safely in basins of clear water, unaware of the receding sea, or the approaching low tide, so were we - ignoring as much as possible what was going on around us, we continued our childhood - abandoned during the day, without school – that was banned - unattended - now even the mothers, including my mother, forced to go to work - we had to fill our day ourselves. We played and played, from morning to night. Like the vine whose roots bypass obstacles and deepens its growth even in soil full of rocks and stones, we continued to grow. Those of us who were destined to survive this period had to stock up on materials for the rest of their lives, and those whose fate had already been decided, even though they themselves did not yet know it, like a plant in distress which hurries to flourish, they endeavoured to fill their day as much as possible. After all, each of us belonged, at the same time, to both groups."

Both adults and children had no knowledge of what might be their fate, but as mentioned, there were differences in the level of knowledge and internalization. The hope that the day of liberation would come soon was everyone's hope. For now, they sought to 'keep their heads above water' and survive the remaining days until the end of the war. Eilati writes about the way adults dealt with the children's questions about what might happen in the future:

"In autumn, people here started talking about gas. Sunday was a sunny day. My mother, my little sister and I are walking down the street one afternoon and Mother tells us recent news. Suddenly, my sister asks: 'Mom, does it hurt to die from gas?' My mother- a registered nurse - answers her in the same fashion she would always explain to us things related to health – 'No, you don't feel anything; you fall asleep and don't wake up anymore.' And I, finding myself part of the 'adult brotherhood,' support my mother's words, and find myself adding my own opinion – 'No, it does not hurt at all, you just fall asleep and that's it.' "

The horror, the ghosts of a threatening future, of a horrible reality, penetrates the children's world as well as that of the youngest among them. It is no longer possible to hide from the children the talk in the ghetto about impending death. The mother is forced to confront a direct question asked by her young daughter, and give her a "matter-of-fact" response. Even the older brother, still a child himself, finds himself part of the adult world in the face of his sister's question. The use of the phrase "adult brotherhood" demonstrates how the young boy is aware that as an 'adult' and 'as the man' of the family, he is obliged to navigate between knowing what is happening and the need to reassure his sister. We witness the process of adolescence the young boy is going through, during which he realizes that entering the adult world does not only mean glory, but also involves sensitivity towards the other, and the taking of responsibility for his distress.

"Giving your child to strangers in a high- risk situation – how do you do that? How many questions do you need to ask? Even when people seem to you to be good-natured and seemingly decent, will they show warmth to your child and do they know how to keep secrets?; are they living in a house that is sufficiently isolated? Is there potential danger from hostile neighbours or a policeman who lives nearby? Do they have relatives in the village to whom they can transfer the girl if danger approaches? How good are they in thinking up a suitable cover-story that will arouse the confidence of their surroundings; and how resourceful are they when they need to hide immediately in the face of a sudden emergency without losing their nerves? Are they strong enough to maintain their composure and not run to demand the return of the girl to the ghetto at the first appearance of difficulties? Or, God forbid, might they get tired of the whole situation and hand the child over to the Germans? Or might they just be cynical fraudsters, or Gestapo collaborators?"

The mother had to collect and check many details before she could decide; and all this so important information she had to gather carefully and tactfully. A Jewish mother, alone and tormented, stooping under daily physical burdens, has to gather, assess and weigh all the information and the alternatives – if they exist at all – and reach the fateful decision: to trust the Lithuanians, and hand over her child to them, or to give up the idea; to boldly step out of the herd, or not be swept away by the 'sit and do nothing' temptation forced upon you and keep the child with you.

She had to undergo these deliberations alone, without any help, without any partner to share the responsibility and the decision. Of course, she also consulted me a ten-year old child. She told me a lot. I served as her ear for some of her worries - the part she was willing to share with me. In the end, after much hesitation and tedious negotiations that also included financial matters and payment arrangements, Mother decided to hand over my sister to Martha's family."

If it is possible to identify the place where Eilati's childhood bubble burst, the place where the irreversible rupture took place, then it is this decision concerning the fate of his sister. The young Eilati actually took part in one of the most difficult decisions parents had to make during the Holocaust: the decision to hand over their child to strangers to save him. Although it is clear that full responsibility for the decision rests with his mother, she still finds in him, the child, having no other choice, a family member she can consult. Not only are parents unable to unfold a screen and obscure before their children's eyes the reality visible in the ghetto, they also cannot hide their helplessness. But in this section, this helplessness is interpreted - from a perspective of years - precisely as strength. Out of pain and distress, the power of the mind is born. Many parents, like Eilati's mother, chose to do everything to save their children, even if it meant leaving them, without knowing what the end might be. The sensitivity to which the young Eilati is witness as he enters the adult world is revealed here in his mother, at the height of its power. Eilati tells about the separation from his sister as follows:

"At the end of December, on the shortest day of the year, my sister left the ghetto. [...] Two days before, already four in the afternoon and we kids were engaged with passion in being gold seekers, searching  house-to-house, apartment after apartment, in an area that was about to be handed over to the Germans the next morning. [...] I promised my mother that I would return home on time. It was already four in the afternoon and I knew I was late, but it was hard for me to break away from the seductive giddiness I had been in since the morning. When I recovered, as if from a heavy dream, I realized it was too late to hurry home now. Instead, I ran straight to the gate, hoping that I would run into my mother and sister still on their way there [...] but I was late - the gate plaza was empty. [...]. I had missed all the preparations for that day – I had missed the last possible hours for all three of us to be together."

These painful words about the sister who was taken out of the ghetto and would not return, describe the intensity of the rupture the child underwent in this situation. On the one hand, he was drawn, like all children, by the temptation of an adventurous search for treasure in the homes of deportees from the ghetto, and on the other, he was torn by the desire to properly part from his sister. After it became clear that his sister was no longer in the ghetto, he describes his mother returning from the house where she had left her toddler:  'I do not remember seeing her as irritated and furious as on her return that evening, alone, back to the ghetto.' In an act of recklessness, the boy went out into the street during the curfew, and in his heart asked that ghetto guards might catch him or that he might be hit by one of the bombs, so that 'his mother would be sorry.' Before and after all, Eilati is still a child.

In this article we sought to open a window into the world of children in the Holocaust. We tried to examine whether, in light of the collapse of a familiar world, of hunger, humiliation, and death, the phrase 'childhood in the Holocaust' remains meaningful, or whether these children should be treated as adults in every way. Like other events related to and resulting from the Holocaust, we do not have absolute answers. By examining passages from several of Shalom Eilati's memoirs, we observed that children and adults alike were thrown together into a chaotic, dizzying period, one that changed world orders and familiar values. However, they did not experience the Holocaust the same way, and their experience and interpretation of the general picture of reality were often different.

"Crossing the River" - Shalom Eilati

The Holocaust period robbed children of their childhood. We define this period during a normal life as a period that is mostly innocent, full of joy, of love, learning, and the protection of adults. Children in the Holocaust were exposed to other realities: hunger, disease, humiliation, contempt and death. They were deprived of parental and family love, of education, of play and hope.

They mostly foresaw the collapse of the world familiar to them, and the helplessness of those who had previously been their natural protectors and the mediators between them and the world. Children were often forced to mature faster than expected and to take on heavy responsibilities for their own fate and that of their family. Many of them even had to deal alone with the hardships imposed on them by the war.

In light of this, the question arises whether it is even possible to talk about 'childhood ' in the Holocaust? Where did 'childhood' end and were there places and times where one could find revelations of a childhood with as ordinary characteristics as possible,' even if a different childhood?

Other questions that arise are whether children and adults experienced the Holocaust in the same way. Were their experiences and the way they interpreted and viewed their collapsing world the same? Is there anything that characterizes children in the

Holocaust differently from adults?

This book opens a window into the world of children during the Holocaust. The article will show how this source can be used educationally according to the emotional and cognitive level of the students. Examining these questions through a book of memoirs that focuses on the story of one child and his family integrates well into our educational perception. As part of this perception, we emphasize the person's character during the Holocaust and the importance of using interdisciplinary means in Holocaust education.