Eighty Years Since the Escape from the Ninth Fort 2024 — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

With a delay of about six months (due to the “Iron Swords” war), we gathered in May 2024 at Beit Vilna to mark the 80th anniversary of the daring escape from the Ninth Fort. Yaarit Glazer, who was born in Kovna and a member of the Association's executive board, organized the event, which was attended by families of the escapees and a large audience that filled the house.

Yaarit’s father, Pinchas Karkinovsky, who was a prisoner in the group of 64 forced to burn corpses, drilled 312 holes in one of the iron gates of the Ninth Fort, thus enabling the escape plan that he and his comrades had devised—out of the walls of that death fortress.

Prof. Moti Zalkin, a distinguished member of the Association and a historian of Eastern European Jewry, and an expert on the Jewish communities of Vilna and Kovna, spoke about daily life in the Kovna Ghetto. Yaarit’s granddaughter read a poem written in the ghetto by Yaarit’s mother. On screen, testimonies of Yaarit’s mother and of escapees from the Ninth Fort were shown, adding many further details about this heroic operation. These stories were told, played, and sung by Udi, Gali, Zhanna, and Regina from the Nechama Lifshitz Yiddish Song Workshop.