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

1935-2020       

I was born in 1935 in Kupiszki, northern Lithuania, about 50 kilometers east of Ponevezh. My parents, Bronia and Haim Kessel were both born in Kupiszki. We lived in a large house that had belonged to Hava née Vin, my grandmother's family for generations. The house was 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 etc. Most of the customers were gentile famers and agricultural workers who had a good relationship with my father; this would turn out 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 Kupiszki, where his mother had family. In Kupiszki he met my grandmother, Hava Vin and, after their marriage, they moved to the Vin family home. My father's family had all left Lithuania for America or Israel in the 20s or 30s; he was the only one left. He made a good living from the workshop and was friendly with his gentile customers and saw no reason to leave Lithuania.

On the morning of the 22/6/41, as the Germans began bombing in the Barbarossa Campaign, we all got into the 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 would not allow us to continue. They ordered my father to return the horse and wagon and go to the nearest train station. We returned to the village and father went to his friend, Rubka, the baker, and left the horse and wagon there. Rubka refused to listen to my father's pleas to flee with him, 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 got to the train station where hordes of people from all the surrounding villages were crowded into freight trains. As soon as a train was full it left the station and another one arrived. We got on a train that was headed for the Lithuanian-Latvian border: me, my father, mother and two younger sisters. All we had with us was a small bundle of personal effects that we had packed as we were leaving. After a short journey, we reached Zilopa on the Lithuanian-Latvian border. At the train junction there was an armaments base of the Red Army. Suddenly two planes appeared and began bombing the armaments base and the railway line. Bombs were flying everywhere. The train stopped and we were told to jump off the train and take cover under the trees in the nearby forest. When the bombing stopped, everyone got up except my mother who lay dead with a piece of shrapnel stuck in her head. She was the only person under the tree where we were lying who was hit although there were other casualties nearby. The people whose family members were hit did not want to leave.  A tractor of the Red Army came, dug a big pit and tossed all the casualties into a mass grave. My father pulled one of my mother's shoes off her foot and hung it on a stick in the mass grave. Perhaps he thought that he would be able to return to her burial place.

It was impossible to return to the train because the railway line had been bombed so we were ordered to walk to the next train station a few kilometers away. My father put my 1½ year old sister on his shoulders and my other sister and I walked alongside him holding his hands. Everyone was ahead of us. We were at the very end of the line. After we had been walking for about an hour an army truck stopped and we were the only ones who were picked up by the Russian soldiers and taken to the next train station.

The train stopped every now and again to let trains westward- bound pass on their way to the front. On the wayside we saw destroyed villages and abandoned looted shops. Occasionally, when the train stopped, my father would jump off the train and return with an essential item or two such as a dry loaf of bread or other food that he was able to find in the shops. Every time he did so, we were very worried, afraid that he would not make it back to the train in time. Sometimes he really did jump back at the very last minute. The only food we were given throughout the whole two-month journey was hot tea and dry bread. There were many stops to let the army pass on its way to the front, to load coal and to change trains because the railway lines had been blown up. The weather got cooler and cooler and, by the beginning of September we had reached an area called Mordovia in the U.S.S.R. about 1000 kilometers beyond Moscow.

It was already winter there but we were still wearing the summer clothes we had been wearing since we left Lithuania. In this area the Russians began to drop families off at local kolkhozes. 2 or 3 families were left at each kolkhoz. All the males and the horses in the kolkhozes had been conscripted to the army and only the women were left to work in the fields and tend to the animals. We were assigned a house at the edge of the kolkhoz and the women were drawn to my father, who was tall and strong. His job: to train the cows to do the work of the horses – to plow the fields, pull wagons etc. Anyone resourceful with common sense would have found a way to keep us alive and in good shape. My father would go out to the field every night and return with potatoes or other vegetables. Over time, we also got goats that lived together with us in the room. Father would get up every morning and put the potatoes into a saucepan and pour goats' milk over them. The pot would stay on the stove all day until he returned from work. The dish became a kind of stew and, for us, it was a real delicacy. We stayed home all winter, not going to school but lying next to the oven to keep warm because we did not have any warm clothes. All summer we went barefoot and the soles of our feet were as hard as leather. Every now and again, father would bring some sort of grass to scrub the soles of our feet clean. All the years we were at the kolkhoz we never used soap or detergents. Every winter father would make us shoes by taking a flat piece of straw or leather, to which he attached two strands of rope and wound them around the foot and up the leg to just below the knee. These sandals were called lapches. Occasionally he would shave our heads because there was no other way to deal with lice.

About a year after we got to the kolkhoz, one of my sisters and I got dysentery and we were sent to a hospital nearby. When we had recovered, the hospital sent my father a number of letters asking him to come and get us; however, he did not come. I tried to convince my sister that I knew the way back to the kolkhoz and that we should steal the clothes we had worn when we were hospitalized and go home. My sister was afraid so we stayed at the hospital for two months. One day my father arrived. We asked him why he had not come to take us earlier and he said that he was pleased that we were in a clean place, dressed, sleeping in a clean bed and being fed regularly, so there was no hurry to come and take us back to the kolkhoz.

Four years passed: in the short summer we would go to school but we did not go during the winter. Every year we would begin first grade again—we must have started first grade four or five times!!

One day in 1945, soldiers from the front began returning to the kolkhoz, saying the war was over. We didn't have a newspaper, a telephone or even a radio in the kolkhoz; we had no way of knowing what was going on in the world. Furthermore, my father did not speak the local language. My father went to the local authorities and asked to be repatriated to Vilna. His request was granted and we were given train tickets to Moscow and the relevant documents. We didn't have a cent to our name!  When we reached Moscow, Father sat us down on the platform and told us not to move, not to talk to anyone and not even go to the toilet. Just to sit and wait until he returned. He went to the Lithuanian representative in Moscow, proved that he was a citizen of Vilna and was given the relevant documents to enable him to return to Vilna. He was also given train tickets to Vilna and some pocket money. We arrived in Vilna to find a city that was completely destroyed and its people starving. We looked for family or friends. Father found some people from Kupiszki with whom we stayed for two weeks. Father then decided that it was time we returned to our home in Kupiszki. Our friends warned him that the gentiles in the vicinity would murder him but he stuck to his guns, saying: "I have always had friendly relations with them and I am not worried".

We returned to Kupiszki and it transpired that we were the only Jewish family that had returned to the village after the war. We were unable to return to our home because gentiles had ransacked the house. Across the road from our house was a clinic run by two spinster sisters who were also nurses. Behind the clinic there was an area where the Jews had always lived and the Jewish women had given birth at the clinic. The Geltmezeitl sisters invited us to stay at the clinic. Every day we looked at our house and saw another piece of our furniture outside the house. One day it was a closet, another day a table etc. The rumor spread around the village that Haim Kessel had returned. One day, one of my father's former customers appeared with cheese, eggs and vegetables from his farm. About two weeks later, we returned to our home. Father found work and we finally returned to school. A year later, the Jewish accountant who worked with father was accused of embezzling funds at his place of work. The police came to arrest him but he claimed that father was the embezzler. They went to find father and, in the meantime, the accountant absconded with all the money. Father was arrested and we three little children were left home alone. Every day we went to the police station and talked with father through the barred window on the second floor. He awaited trial. Our relatives in Vilna, who had heard about the arrest, came to take us to the children's home on Zygmont Street in Vilna.

Written by Tuvia Kessel