Tuvia Kessel — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

1935-2020       

I was born in 1935 in Kupiskis, northern Lithuania, about 50 kilometers east of Ponevezh. My parents, Bronia and Haim Kessel, were both born in Kupiskis. We lived in a large house that had belonged to my grandmother’s family, the Vin family, for generations. The house stood on a large block of land, and in the yard there was a workshop for processing leather, which produced equestrian products such as saddles, reins, and similar items. Most of the customers were gentile farmers and agricultural workers, who had a good relationship with my father. This would later prove to be very important after the war.

I was named after my paternal grandfather, who was born in Latvia but, at the age of 12 or 13, was sent to the yeshiva in Kupiskis, where his mother had family. In Kupiskis he met my grandmother, Hava Vin, and after their marriage they moved into the Vin family home. My father’s family had all emigrated from Lithuania to America or Israel in the 1920s or 1930s; he was the only one who remained. He earned a good living from the workshop, maintained friendly relations with his gentile customers, and saw no reason to leave Lithuania.

On the morning of 22 June 1941, as the Germans began bombing in the Barbarossa Campaign, we loaded a wagon with a few personal effects, and my father decided that we would flee as far as possible from the war front. When we reached the Lithuanian–Latvian border, Red Army soldiers refused to let us continue. They ordered my father to return the horse and wagon and proceed to the nearest train station. We returned to the village, and my father left the horse and wagon with his friend Rubka, the baker. Rubka refused to join us, despite my father’s pleas, saying: “The Rebbe ordered the Jews to stay in the village because the Germans are a civilized nation and will not harm the Jews.”

We went to the train station, where crowds of people from surrounding villages were being loaded into freight trains. As soon as one train was full, it left, and another arrived. My father, mother, my two younger sisters, and I boarded a train headed for the Lithuanian–Latvian border, carrying only a small bundle of personal belongings. After a short journey we reached Zilopa, on the border, where there was a Red Army armaments base. Suddenly, two planes appeared and began bombing the base and the railway line. Bombs exploded everywhere. The train stopped, and we were told to jump off and take cover under the trees in the nearby forest.

When the bombing ended, everyone got up—except for my mother, who lay dead, struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel. She was the only one killed under the tree where we had been lying, though there were other casualties nearby. Families who lost relatives refused to leave. A Red Army tractor came, dug a large pit, and threw all the casualties into a mass grave. My father pulled one of my mother’s shoes from her foot and hung it on a stick in the grave, perhaps thinking he would one day be able to return to her burial place.

It was impossible to return to the train because the tracks had been destroyed, so we were ordered to walk to the next train station, a few kilometers away. My father carried my 1½-year-old sister on his shoulders, while my other sister and I walked at his side holding his hands. We were the last in line. After about an hour, an army truck stopped, and we were the only ones taken by the Russian soldiers to the next train station.

The train stopped frequently to let westbound trains pass on their way to the front. Along the way, we saw destroyed villages and abandoned, looted shops. Occasionally, when the train halted, my father would jump off and return with something essential—perhaps a dry loaf of bread or another food item he had managed to find. Each time, we were terrified that he would not make it back in time, and more than once he leapt aboard at the very last moment. The only food distributed to us during the entire two-month journey was hot tea and dry bread. There were many delays—waiting for military trains to pass, loading coal, or changing trains when tracks had been blown up. By early September we had reached Mordovia in the U.S.S.R., about 1,000 kilometers beyond Moscow.

It was already winter there, but we were still dressed in the summer clothes we had worn since leaving Lithuania. In this area, the Russians began dropping families off at local kolkhozes, two or three families per kolkhoz. All the men and horses had been conscripted, leaving only women to work the fields and tend the animals. We were assigned a house on the edge of the kolkhoz. The women were drawn to my father, who was tall and strong. His job was to train cows to replace the horses—plowing fields, pulling wagons, and similar tasks.

Resourcefulness was vital to survival. My father went out to the fields at night and returned with potatoes or other vegetables. Over time, we acquired goats that lived with us in our room. Each morning, my father placed potatoes in a saucepan, poured goat’s milk over them, and left the pot on the stove all day until he returned from work. By evening, the dish had become a kind of stew, which to us was a delicacy.

We stayed indoors all winter, not attending school, lying by the oven for warmth because we had no warm clothes. All summer we went barefoot, our soles hardened like leather. Occasionally my father brought home grasses to scrub our feet clean. During our years at the kolkhoz we never used soap or detergent. Each winter my father made us shoes by cutting a flat piece of straw or leather, attaching two strands of rope, and winding them around the foot and up to just below the knee. These sandals were called lapches. He occasionally shaved our heads, as it was the only way to deal with lice.

About a year after arriving at the kolkhoz, one of my sisters and I contracted dysentery and were sent to a nearby hospital. After we recovered, the hospital sent several letters asking my father to collect us, but he did not come. I tried to persuade my sister that we should steal back the clothes we had worn when admitted and walk home, but she was afraid. We remained there for two months. One day my father arrived. When we asked why he had not come earlier, he said he was glad we were in a clean place, dressed, sleeping in proper beds, and eating regularly, so there had been no urgency to take us back to the kolkhoz.

Four years passed. In the short summers we attended school, but in the winters we did not. Every year we had to start first grade again—we must have begun first grade four or five times.

In 1945, soldiers returning from the front arrived at the kolkhoz and announced that the war was over. We had no newspapers, telephones, or radios, so we had no way of knowing what was happening in the world. Moreover, my father did not speak the local language. He went to the local authorities and requested repatriation to Vilna. His request was granted: we were given train tickets to Moscow and the necessary documents.

We had no money at all. In Moscow, my father seated us on the platform and told us not to move, speak, or even go to the toilet until he returned. He went to the Lithuanian representative office, proved that he was a citizen of Vilna, and was given documents, train tickets to Vilna, and a small allowance.

When we arrived in Vilna, the city was in ruins and its people were starving. We searched for family or friends. My father found some people from Kupiskis with whom we stayed for two weeks. Then he decided it was time to return to our home in Kupiskis. Our friends warned him: “The gentiles in the area will murder you.” But he insisted, saying: “I have always had friendly relations with them and I am not worried.”

We returned to Kupiskis and discovered that we were the only Jewish family to come back after the war. We could not return to our home because it had been looted by gentiles. Across the road stood a clinic run by two spinster sisters, the Glemzaitel sisters, who were nurses. Behind the clinic was the Jewish quarter, where women had traditionally given birth at the clinic. The sisters invited us to stay there.

Every day we looked across at our home and saw another piece of our furniture appear outside: one day a closet, another day a table. Word spread that Haim Kessel had returned. One day, one of my father’s former customers brought food from his farm—cheese, eggs, and vegetables. About two weeks later, we returned to our house. My father found work, and we finally went back to school.

A year later, however, trouble struck. A Jewish accountant who worked with my father was accused of embezzling funds. When the police came to arrest him, he accused my father instead. While the police pursued my father, the accountant escaped with all the money. My father was arrested, and we three small children were left home alone. Every day we went to the police station and spoke to him through the barred window on the second floor, while he awaited trial. Relatives in Vilna heard of his arrest and came to take us to the children’s home at 9 Zygmonto Street in Vilna.

Written by Tuvia Kessel