Moshe Schlechtman — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

The Holocaust memory: the childhood I did not have.

It took me many years to overcome my reluctance to write or talk about my childhood during the Holocaust.   

For many years I did not talk about my past and even my family did not know what I went through during the Holocaust. I did not want to remember. I was sad. All I wanted to do was to live a normal life, not to remember all the tribulations I experienced. However, it would seem that the events were etched in my mind and can never be erased. Nevertheless, despite this, there are events in my life that, over time, have been erased from my memory.

More than once I asked myself – how can one live this way? to live and not to talk, to deny. To live as though everything I went through is not connected to me in any way.

I was an only child and we lived together with my grandparents and other relatives. My grandfather and my uncle, my mother's brother, were rabbis. The only relatives I can remember were the Pudlinskis: Fruma Pudlinski was my mother's older sister. Fruma and her husband, Herschel, lived on Glaziers Street in Vilna and they had four sons. Gershon, Ze'ev, Benzion and Ya'akov. All of them perished in the Holocaust except for Gershon whom I met through a mutual acquaintance in Vilna in 1950. Gershon survived because he was conscripted to the Polish Anders' Army and was not in Vilna during the Holocaust.

When war broke out in Poland in 1939, my father was conscripted to the Polish army. He was taken prisoner but managed to escape and return to Vilna. Even before the outbreak of war in the Baltic region in June, 1941, members of the Soviet Intelligence came to our home and took my father away. He disappeared and I remained with my mother. A few days after the 22/6/1941, the Germans were already in Vilna. Every day new posters were hung in the streets announcing the laws and restrictions on the Jews such as the wearing of yellow stars etc. The Lithuanians, under the aegis of the Germans, ran amok and whipped the Jews to a pulp or to death. Sometime later all the Jews were ordered to leave their homes and move to the ghetto.

Life in the ghetto was very hard. There was not enough room for everyone. Water and food were scarce. It was difficult to breathe because of the cramped conditions. Death was everywhere. People lay in the stairwells, on the footpaths and on the roads. Some were still alive yet others had been whipped to death. People walked past them without batting an eyelid. Nobody knew what the future held.

One day the Germans announced that whoever volunteered to work would get better conditions. People believed those promises. Afterwards it transpired that they had fallen into a trap. In 1941, when the Jews thought that they were going out to work, it turned out that they were taken to the Ponary Forest where they were murdered. The Germans falsely organized outings for children. The first group went off and returned so that the parents would believe in the outings; the second group went off but did not return to the ghetto. Every so often, Lithuanians and Germans would stand at the entrance to the ghetto and lift women, children and the elderly on to trucks. They were crammed into the trucks and, without food or water, taken to the Ponary Forest where they were murdered. Every now and again there were Aktions such as this; during one of them my mother was taken and never returned. I was left alone in the world.

The Gittelmans were my closest family and they took care of me and at a later stage, put me in the orphanage that had been set up by the Jews in the ghetto. At the orphanage they ensured that our most basic needs were met. Many of the events of that period have been erased from my memory; the more time passes, the more difficult it is to remember them.

After a period of relative quiet, the Aktions started up again. In 1942 my close family was also taken to Ponary where they were murdered. They knew they were going to their death and gave me the address of a gentile farmer whom they knew. They told me how to get to his place and warned me only to go through the forests so that I would not be caught. Immediately after that Aktion I went to find the farmer. His name was Frank Lisovski. For many years I could only remember his first name but recently I found a piece of paper with his full name on it – Frank Lisovski. When I arrived at his farm, he was shocked to see me but once he had recovered, he led me to a hiding place which was really a pit in the cellar of his house. During lulls I would occasionally return to the ghetto. Frank would take me in his wagon at night to the ghetto. Since I was short and skinny, I could climb like a cat over all the obstacles and get into the ghetto. Since Frank was afraid of the Germans, he did not want me to stay at this orphanage permanently: after every Aktion by the Germans I would return to him again and again.

When I was in the ghetto I belonged to a group of children below the age of 14. We worked at all kinds of odd jobs such as cleaning the freight carriages at the train station; sometimes wounded Germans were in the carriages. We also worked in the kitchen, peeling potatoes in the stairwells.  I recall that when we were working at the train station, we would steal potatoes, salt and onions and hide them away from the Germans.  Sometimes they would catch us and whip us. There were also cases when German soldiers shot children who were caught smuggling food into the ghetto. Despite the fear, we continued to go out searching for food—we simply had no alternative.        

The Germans continued sending people to Ponary and in the ghetto there was a feeling that the end was approaching. Life was extremely hard. People hid in all sorts of places. Whoever was caught was sent to Ponary immediately.

I returned to Frank's house, to the pit in the cellar. This time Frank was very frightened and it was dangerous to stay on there. When the Germans invaded the homes of the Polish farmers to take food and other products, they took the opportunity to search the houses too. Frank wanted to take me back to the ghetto, however, around the ghetto there were trucks waiting to take men, women and children to Ponary. Frank understood that they were about to be exterminated, so he took me back to his house. If they caught us, they would not only have murdered me but also Frank and his family. Frank built another hiding place in the corner of the cellar and put all sorts of things on top of it so that they would not notice the hiding place. Only when everything was quiet, could I go out at night to look at the moon and the stars and to breathe fresh air.  Frank would bring me one meal every evening. I never saw his family at all. Frank made sure that nobody knew about me and he did not even tell his family. Occasionally, Frank would tell me about the progress the Russians were making and the flight of the Germans. That gave me the hope and stamina to keep going until 1944 when the Russians reached Vilna.

One morning Frank came and told me that the Russians were already in Vilna. That was the first time I let myself cry. Frank hugged me, gave me some bread, a shirt and trousers and we set off to Vilna. I walked along the road where armed Russian soldiers stood. I stopped to look; nothing could frighten me anymore. A Russian officer came up to and asked if I was Jewish. I answered: "Yes. I am a Jew." I told him about the time I had spent in the ghetto and how I had hidden at a Polish gentile's place and that I was on my way back to Vilna to look for relatives. The officer took me by the hand, patted me and said:"I am also a Jew" and the tears poured down his face. He asked if I was hungry and suggested that I join him. I was a boy alone in the world. I agreed immediately. We went together to the Division Commander. The officer spoke to the commander who then asked me if I would like to stay on as a cadet in the Russian army. I agreed.  I wanted someone to take care of me and be in loco parentis. That was how I became a cadet in the Russian army from 1944-1946. I finally had a place of my own. I was no longer alone. I was with other soldiers. But then a problem arose: I suffered from nightmares and I would cry at night. I would shout during the nightmares because I thought someone was chasing me, trying to catch me. This happened every night. The soldiers who slept near me complained so they moved me to another place.  The Jewish officer took me to a doctor. I told the doctor what I had been through during the war. The doctor and I had many thought-provoking discussions and he convinced me to put the memories aside and start a new leaf. Gradually the fear abated and the nightmares declined. It transpired that the doctor was also Jewish and that his family had also perished during the Holocaust. Within six months I was sleeping quietly and behaving normally. The treatment worked but it also made me forget chunks of the past and made it impossible for me to tell my family what I had been through in the war.

While I was a cadet, the Division Commander suggested sending me to Moscow to a special military academy. I agreed. I did, in fact, get to Moscow but then decided not to go to the military academy but to return directly to Vilna.

I reached Vilna in 1946. The scenes there were horrific. There was total destruction and devastation everywhere. The city was in ruins. I looked for my home. I found the place that had been my grandfather's synagogue. All that was left of the synagogue were the columns. I recalled that our home had been close to the synagogue. I arrived at the place and it was just a pile of rubble. I did not know what to do and thought that I might go back to the army. I started walking back to the train station when I saw a woman standing beside her house. I asked her for some water and she asked if I was Jewish. When I answered in the affirmative she asked me what I was doing there. I explained that I had come looking for my home and family. She said that her husband would be returning from work in the evening and invited me to her home. When her husband returned we had a long chat and it transpired that he had known my relatives and none of them had survived the Holocaust. He suggested that I stay at their home and continue to search for my relatives. I did not return to the army. I met many people who were looking for members of their family. I boarded at the home of a Holocaust survivor and was accepted to a technical school.

In 1947 while I was walking down Filimo Street in Vilna, I met the commander of the army unit I had served in as a cadet. At that time I had often been invited to his home. His wife would receive me very warmly and prepare food for me. On one of the visits to their home, they asked me to come and live with them adding: "Live with us as though you were our son." I was happy that I would have a permanent home and someone to care for me.  Sometime later they adopted me and I took on their surname. I completed my studies and began working for my living as a musician. The older I got the more preoccupied I became with thoughts about my existence. Who am I? Am I a Jew or a gentile? Who do I belong to?

One morning I left them a farewell letter explaining that I had to leave, thanking them for all they had done for me. When I met my adoptive father in Vilna, he tried to persuade me to go back to their place but I refused. While he was flattering me and trying to persuade me to return, he suddenly became very angry and menacing. At that moment I understood that despite all the pain I had caused them I could no longer be in contact with them. 

Many years have passed since then but I still ask myself "where I had the strength to withstand him and not to give in". In order to become a Jew again, I went to the archive, took out all the relevant documents and returned to my original surname –Schlechtman.

When the Gomulka treaty (between Poland and West Germany) was signed, I left Vilna for Israel. I lived in Walbrzych in Poland and I worked as a music teacher in a Jewish school. I met my future wife there and, in 1960, we made aliyah to Israel. We have three daughters, eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter and that is my revenge against the Nazis.

Written by Moshe Schlechtman