rescuers of jews
Dautartas Juozapas
Ariela Abramovich Sef
IN THE GHETTO
Today is May 9th, Victory Day (1). For me it is the most important holiday of all – more important than New Year or Passover.
I was born at the end of October 1941. It was a premature birth at 12, Raguchyo Street during a round-up in the Kaunas Ghetto, when the Germans were approaching Moscow. It was very bad timing, but there was nothing to be done and when I was only five days old I went, or rather I was taken, wrapped up against my mother’s breast – to the “Great Action” (That was when the ill, the elderly, cripples and new-born babies were selected and sent off to die or, to use the German term, to do “lighter labour”, while the young and healthy were sent off to work “for the good of Germany”).
All the Jews were driven out into Democrats’ Square, which was cordoned off. Early that morning the Lithuanian volunteer policemen, who called themselves partisans, had started searching all the flats, every single cellar and attic, emptying the whole Ghetto. The SS commander, Rauca, had been in charge of the whole operation. He was standing on raised ground, so as to get a better view of the crowd: people were walking along in groups, in families, in households. The “Selection” began. Rauca pointed with his truncheon to indicate who should go to the right and who to the left. He was separating families. Relatives were pushing and straining towards each other. People did not yet realize that Right meant death and Left life. It was very cold. People were becoming more and more agitated.
Our relatives clustered tightly round me and my mother. We managed to go to the Good side, the whole of our family except Grandmother. She was old and wise – a woman, who understood everything that was going on: so as not to upset her family, she had hidden in the crowd of those ‘selected’ for death. Everyone was very worked up. Then suddenly, as I was told later, my father took three leaps over to the Bad side, hunted out and literally dragged Grandmother out of the crowd. Then with his mother, who was not aware of what was going on, he ran back to the Good, side. When they tried to stop him amidst the heart-rending weeping, noise, barking of dogs, the curses and lashings meted out by the Lithuanian Polizei, Father ran up to an officer and explained to him in fluent German that he had been given permission to go and fetch his mother.
“Who gave you permission?”
“Why did they give you permission?”
“What error was made?”
Before they had time to realize what was happening, Father had brought Grandmother back to the vital side.
Later my father used to be asked: “How come you weren’t afraid. You could have been shot. You’re a hero!”
“What d’you mean ‘hero’? I was simply frightened, more than everyone else. That’s why I ran”.
When life was calm and peaceful, Father was often plagued by doubts, but in serious situations I don’t really know anyone who could be more decisive. That was how he saved Grandmother.
It was more than likely that he saved our mother too on one occasion. In a garden plot next to the house where they lived Mother pulled up a carrot one evening in the dark thinking nobody would see her, but a high-ranking German officer caught her in the act. He stopped her there and then, but because he was hurrying somewhere at the time, merely instructed to report to the commandant’s office the next morning. She was bound to have been given a harsh punishment for thieving. When he first caught pinching the carrot, the officer had clearly not had time to deal with the matter. When our father came home at the end of his work shift, he found mother sobbing. It was clear that she might well be shot or, at best, be sent to the nearby camp. She kept asking:” What shall I do, what shall I do? Who will there be to look after the baby?”
Father replied in a tired, utterly calm voice, sounding even slightly indifferent: “Don’t do anything, don’t go”.
Mother did not go…
All the members of our family on Father’s side, with the exception of Uncle Beno, were granted a little longer to live.
When it became known that there was going to be another raid my Father said firmly: “Ariela’s not going to be rounded up”.
Sometimes children were placed outside the Ghetto fence or gates and would be picked up by friends or acquaintances or just complete strangers. We did not have any friends to hand.
Father gradually came round to the idea of hiding me – come what may. The other relatives regarded him as a madman. They all decided he was out of his mind, but like a paranoid he went on saying “I’m going to throw her out of here”.
The family was a warm, close-knit one and all our relatives lived close by. His sister and brothers and his parents begged him not to: “Such a lovely child! We’ve all been feeding her. You go off to work, but the child’s not even hungry. Just look how pretty she is, how beautiful”.
Grandfather kept on saying: “She’s not just a baby,. She’s a picture. What will happen to all of us? If something happens, perhaps God will help”.
Father replied that he could not take the risk and nor did he intend to start negotiating with God…
IN THE GHETTO
Today is May 9th, Victory Day (1). For me it is the most important holiday of all – more important than New Year or Passover.
I was born at the end of October 1941. It was a premature birth at 12, Raguchyo Street during a round-up in the Kaunas Ghetto, when the Germans were approaching Moscow. It was very bad timing, but there was nothing to be done and when I was only five days old I went, or rather I was taken, wrapped up against my mother’s breast – to the “Great Action” (That was when the ill, the elderly, cripples and new-born babies were selected and sent off to die or, to use the German term, to do “lighter labour”, while the young and healthy were sent off to work “for the good of Germany”).
All the Jews were driven out into Democrats’ Square, which was cordoned off. Early that morning the Lithuanian volunteer policemen, who called themselves partisans, had started searching all the flats, every single cellar and attic, emptying the whole Ghetto. The SS commander, Rauca, had been in charge of the whole operation. He was standing on raised ground, so as to get a better view of the crowd: people were walking along in groups, in families, in households. The “Selection” began. Rauca pointed with his truncheon to indicate who should go to the right and who to the left. He was separating families. Relatives were pushing and straining towards each other. People did not yet realize that Right meant death and Left life. It was very cold. People were becoming more and more agitated.
Our relatives clustered tightly round me and my mother. We managed to go to the Good side, the whole of our family except Grandmother. She was old and wise – a woman, who understood everything that was going on: so as not to upset her family, she had hidden in the crowd of those ‘selected’ for death. Everyone was very worked up. Then suddenly, as I was told later, my father took three leaps over to the Bad side, hunted out and literally dragged Grandmother out of the crowd. Then with his mother, who was not aware of what was going on, he ran back to the Good, side. When they tried to stop him amidst the heart-rending weeping, noise, barking of dogs, the curses and lashings meted out by the Lithuanian Polizei, Father ran up to an officer and explained to him in fluent German that he had been given permission to go and fetch his mother.
“Who gave you permission?”
“Why did they give you permission?”
“What error was made?”
Before they had time to realize what was happening, Father had brought Grandmother back to the vital side.
Later my father used to be asked: “How come you weren’t afraid. You could have been shot. You’re a hero!”
“What d’you mean ‘hero’? I was simply frightened, more than everyone else. That’s why I ran”.
When life was calm and peaceful, Father was often plagued by doubts, but in serious situations I don’t really know anyone who could be more decisive. That was how he saved Grandmother.
It was more than likely that he saved our mother too on one occasion. In a garden plot next to the house where they lived Mother pulled up a carrot one evening in the dark thinking nobody would see her, but a high-ranking German officer caught her in the act. He stopped her there and then, but because he was hurrying somewhere at the time, merely instructed to report to the commandant’s office the next morning. She was bound to have been given a harsh punishment for thieving. When he first caught pinching the carrot, the officer had clearly not had time to deal with the matter. When our father came home at the end of his work shift, he found mother sobbing. It was clear that she might well be shot or, at best, be sent to the nearby camp. She kept asking:” What shall I do, what shall I do? Who will there be to look after the baby?”
Father replied in a tired, utterly calm voice, sounding even slightly indifferent: “Don’t do anything, don’t go”.
Mother did not go…
All the members of our family on Father’s side, with the exception of Uncle Beno, were granted a little longer to live.
When it became known that there was going to be another raid my Father said firmly: “Ariela’s not going to be rounded up”.
Sometimes children were placed outside the Ghetto fence or gates and would be picked up by friends or acquaintances or just complete strangers. We did not have any friends to hand.
Father gradually came round to the idea of hiding me – come what may. The other relatives regarded him as a madman. They all decided he was out of his mind, but like a paranoid he went on saying “I’m going to throw her out of here”.
The family was a warm, close-knit one and all our relatives lived close by. His sister and brothers and his parents begged him not to: “Such a lovely child! We’ve all been feeding her. You go off to work, but the child’s not even hungry. Just look how pretty she is, how beautiful”.
Grandfather kept on saying: “She’s not just a baby,. She’s a picture. What will happen to all of us? If something happens, perhaps God will help”.
Father replied that he could not take the risk and nor did he intend to start negotiating with God…
I spent two years in the Ghetto. The family accepted its fate. We behaved just like the rest. Our relatives and all the other tenants of our communal flat used to feed and clothe me. They knitted me little dresses and socks out of old jumpers. At that time hardly any children were being born in the Ghetto. If the Polizei came across any new-born babies, they were killed straightaway. By the time I was 18 months old, I knew all too well which of the neighbours would be eating their dinner where and when. I would make sure to be in the right place at the right time and by the right door. I was even nicknamed the “little white gypsy”.
My father, being a doctor, could have worked actually in the Ghetto, but because of me he used to work with a special brigade out at the aerodrome, to which he and his fellow workers would be sent out under escort to break up the remains of shot-down Soviet aircraft, or “Stalintsy” as they were known. The work was physically much harder, but there were far more ‘perks’.
My father had been on duty in an army hospital when the War began. When he heard that the Germans were marching into the town, he telephoned the medical director of the hospital and said: “The Germans are coming and we need to do something with the patients”.
The reply came back: “Don’t stir up panic, things will get sorted out without you”.
In short, Father never saw that doctor again, but he did not have time to get away himself. My parents were marooned in occupied Lithuania. Father, his brother Beno and my mother were arrested as Leftists and Communist sympathizers in a matter of only a few days after the German invasion. They released my pregnant mother, but Father did not think that he would get out alive. Mother gave him some gold jewellery to take with him, just in case. He gave it to his brother hoping that Beno would manage somehow to escape, but he was convinced that he himself was going to be shot by the Germans. In the end everything turned out the other way round. His brother was led off and shot straight away in the Seventh Fort, but my father, thanks to efforts by Mother, who ran round to all the Lithuanian army doctors she could find, under whom her husband had worked before the War, was released thanks to help from Professor Zilinskas.
While Father was still in prison, Germans broke into our flat accompanied by some Lithuanians. A caretaker or servant must have tipped them off. They came in two lorries armed with a list. The list they had was very precise. Mother’s belongings made the visit worthwhile: they took everything she had inherited from her mother (pictures, silver, diamond necklaces purchased at various auctions when she was travelling in Western Europe). She had also inherited all the family valuables. Her mother had only left Lithuania for Palestine in 1940 and by then she had not been able to take anything with her.
Some German or Lithuanian had pushed his pistol up against my pregnant mother’s belly and demanded she bring out all the items on the list. She did not resist. Everything was accessible, nothing was locked away. So they took everything, literally everything, including the furniture. The lorries drove off crammed to the top and when Father was released, the two of them were some of the last to set off to the Ghetto without furniture and without belongings. With ‘luggage’ like that, a small room in a communal flat was ample.
After the War my mother became completely indifferent to material belongings. Her interest in anything like that had vanished completely. She no longer bought expensive furniture, dresses or jewellery, although such opportunities presented themselves and naturally offers were made to her. Beautiful pieces in those days could be had for a song. All she had, as far as I can remember, were two or three dresses from the pre-war days: there were also a blouse and cardigan and a threadbare astrakhan coat bought in a commission store and full of darns and patches. That was the only winter coat she had right up until the time she left for Israel.
When I was born, we were given a wickerwork cot – a left-over of bygone luxury. It was the main ornament of our little room at 31, Ariogalos Street, to which we had to move within the Ghetto.
Our neighbours for the most part were educated people. My main friends and mentors were the neighbours’ two boys – 11-year-old Beba and 9-year-old Veva Mintz. Before the War their father had been a professor of philosophy or chemistry (I can no longer recall which), but in the Ghetto he fell sick, he was in acute pain because his stomach ulcer had flared up again and completely incapable of heavy physical labour. At work, Father used to exchange their ‘valuables’ for food. Other people not employed in his work-team, who were unable or unwilling to take risks, used to give him their belongings as well. Father used to barter very honestly and quite successfully. Admittedly there was one occasion when he was given a whole can of oil, which turned out to be motor oil, not cooking oil. There were several cases of deception like that (May those scoundrels rot in Hell).
Before the War Father had never sold anything, let alone engaged in barter, despite the fact that he was descended from a family of merchants. My grandfather and two uncles had traded in fabrics, while my father – the youngest of seven children – had studied medicine in Paris and then started work as a junior hospital doctor. He had come back on a temporary visit to Lithuania for a short period of military service and had also worked as a doctor in the Army. When it came to practicalities though, he could not even boil an egg. He had been planning to go back to France after his military service and then go to French Canada for two years to enable him to obtain French citizenship and the right to permanent work.
Strange though it may seem, in the Ghetto my uncles turned out to be less adaptable, less healthy and older than their years. My grandfather was very old and the only young and healthy member of the family to find his bearings was my father. Admittedly though, he was the only one with a baby. Initially his brother, Ruvim, was in the same work-team and also Max and his beautiful daughter, Rivochka.
The local inhabitants used to go over to the Jewish prisoners and were only too happy to barter with them. The Jews risked being shot, but they had no choice and so they took risks. In the very beginning the Germans used to look the other way. Most of the guards were old soldiers, who had been through the First World War: they were serving in the rear, almost too old still to be in the Army. They were not malicious in the least and it was possible to come to an understanding with them, especially for those prisoners who had a good command of German. This applied in my father’s case. They knew that he was the doctor in his work-team, who had studied in Paris and they were prepared to forgive him a good deal. One German officer even said to him: “I’m ashamed to be a German now”.
On one occasion, my father managed to come to the rescue of an unlucky barterer, a clumsy man in glasses. He became so carried away with his dealing that he would have been shot, if my father had not stepped in with some far-fetched explanation. The man in question, by the name of Yakov Rabinovitch, became the editor of the German newspaper Allgemeiner Journal in America and he sent us a letter from Canada, after learning of my father’s fatal accident, saying how grateful he had been to our father, who had helped him and other prisoners. It would not have been possible for Father to have accomplished as much as he did, if he had been up against Lithuanian policemen instead of old German soldiers.
My father, being a doctor, could have worked actually in the Ghetto, but because of me he used to work with a special brigade out at the aerodrome, to which he and his fellow workers would be sent out under escort to break up the remains of shot-down Soviet aircraft, or “Stalintsy” as they were known. The work was physically much harder, but there were far more ‘perks’.
My father had been on duty in an army hospital when the War began. When he heard that the Germans were marching into the town, he telephoned the medical director of the hospital and said: “The Germans are coming and we need to do something with the patients”.
The reply came back: “Don’t stir up panic, things will get sorted out without you”.
In short, Father never saw that doctor again, but he did not have time to get away himself. My parents were marooned in occupied Lithuania. Father, his brother Beno and my mother were arrested as Leftists and Communist sympathizers in a matter of only a few days after the German invasion. They released my pregnant mother, but Father did not think that he would get out alive. Mother gave him some gold jewellery to take with him, just in case. He gave it to his brother hoping that Beno would manage somehow to escape, but he was convinced that he himself was going to be shot by the Germans. In the end everything turned out the other way round. His brother was led off and shot straight away in the Seventh Fort, but my father, thanks to efforts by Mother, who ran round to all the Lithuanian army doctors she could find, under whom her husband had worked before the War, was released thanks to help from Professor Zilinskas.
While Father was still in prison, Germans broke into our flat accompanied by some Lithuanians. A caretaker or servant must have tipped them off. They came in two lorries armed with a list. The list they had was very precise. Mother’s belongings made the visit worthwhile: they took everything she had inherited from her mother (pictures, silver, diamond necklaces purchased at various auctions when she was travelling in Western Europe). She had also inherited all the family valuables. Her mother had only left Lithuania for Palestine in 1940 and by then she had not been able to take anything with her.
Some German or Lithuanian had pushed his pistol up against my pregnant mother’s belly and demanded she bring out all the items on the list. She did not resist. Everything was accessible, nothing was locked away. So they took everything, literally everything, including the furniture. The lorries drove off crammed to the top and when Father was released, the two of them were some of the last to set off to the Ghetto without furniture and without belongings. With ‘luggage’ like that, a small room in a communal flat was ample.
After the War my mother became completely indifferent to material belongings. Her interest in anything like that had vanished completely. She no longer bought expensive furniture, dresses or jewellery, although such opportunities presented themselves and naturally offers were made to her. Beautiful pieces in those days could be had for a song. All she had, as far as I can remember, were two or three dresses from the pre-war days: there were also a blouse and cardigan and a threadbare astrakhan coat bought in a commission store and full of darns and patches. That was the only winter coat she had right up until the time she left for Israel.
When I was born, we were given a wickerwork cot – a left-over of bygone luxury. It was the main ornament of our little room at 31, Ariogalos Street, to which we had to move within the Ghetto.
Our neighbours for the most part were educated people. My main friends and mentors were the neighbours’ two boys – 11-year-old Beba and 9-year-old Veva Mintz. Before the War their father had been a professor of philosophy or chemistry (I can no longer recall which), but in the Ghetto he fell sick, he was in acute pain because his stomach ulcer had flared up again and completely incapable of heavy physical labour. At work, Father used to exchange their ‘valuables’ for food. Other people not employed in his work-team, who were unable or unwilling to take risks, used to give him their belongings as well. Father used to barter very honestly and quite successfully. Admittedly there was one occasion when he was given a whole can of oil, which turned out to be motor oil, not cooking oil. There were several cases of deception like that (May those scoundrels rot in Hell).
Before the War Father had never sold anything, let alone engaged in barter, despite the fact that he was descended from a family of merchants. My grandfather and two uncles had traded in fabrics, while my father – the youngest of seven children – had studied medicine in Paris and then started work as a junior hospital doctor. He had come back on a temporary visit to Lithuania for a short period of military service and had also worked as a doctor in the Army. When it came to practicalities though, he could not even boil an egg. He had been planning to go back to France after his military service and then go to French Canada for two years to enable him to obtain French citizenship and the right to permanent work.
Strange though it may seem, in the Ghetto my uncles turned out to be less adaptable, less healthy and older than their years. My grandfather was very old and the only young and healthy member of the family to find his bearings was my father. Admittedly though, he was the only one with a baby. Initially his brother, Ruvim, was in the same work-team and also Max and his beautiful daughter, Rivochka.
The local inhabitants used to go over to the Jewish prisoners and were only too happy to barter with them. The Jews risked being shot, but they had no choice and so they took risks. In the very beginning the Germans used to look the other way. Most of the guards were old soldiers, who had been through the First World War: they were serving in the rear, almost too old still to be in the Army. They were not malicious in the least and it was possible to come to an understanding with them, especially for those prisoners who had a good command of German. This applied in my father’s case. They knew that he was the doctor in his work-team, who had studied in Paris and they were prepared to forgive him a good deal. One German officer even said to him: “I’m ashamed to be a German now”.
On one occasion, my father managed to come to the rescue of an unlucky barterer, a clumsy man in glasses. He became so carried away with his dealing that he would have been shot, if my father had not stepped in with some far-fetched explanation. The man in question, by the name of Yakov Rabinovitch, became the editor of the German newspaper Allgemeiner Journal in America and he sent us a letter from Canada, after learning of my father’s fatal accident, saying how grateful he had been to our father, who had helped him and other prisoners. It would not have been possible for Father to have accomplished as much as he did, if he had been up against Lithuanian policemen instead of old German soldiers.
My friends Beba and Veva completed their school syllabus at home. They worked away long and hard as if they had been preparing for the entrance exams to gain a place in a gymnasium or at university, not for the crematorium or the firing squad. I used to repeat the names from their lessons, which impressed me like Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, Marshal Foch, Cardinal Richelieu and so on. They were fascinated by history.
When I was finally taken out of the Ghetto, the boys wanted to come too. They would not have stood a chance – two boys of obvious Jewish appearance. It would have been impossible to find anyone to take them in. So those perfectly innocent boys perished along with the rest.
In 1943 people started digging a tunnel, a hide-out’, where it would be possible to shelter during bombing raids. The Russians were already advancing westwards. People hoped it would be possible to hide there, when prisoners were being rounded up. Our family was not allowed in though, because of me, the small child, who might cry at the wrong moment.
Numbers in the ghetto kept dropping: more and more active efforts went into shooting the Jews or taking them off to camps.
In September 1943, the Germans took the whole of Uncle Ruvim’s family out of the Ghetto along with three thousand other Jews. They were sent to Estonia. Uncle Ruvim was already ill by then and his son, twelve-year-old Borya, went along with him to the same camp. They say that he was a remarkable boy with a real talent for poetry and mathematics, always thinking up devices for everyone in the Ghetto to use – one of them was for stealing electricity. Borya used to spend all his time with his father, although he realized that his father was hardly likely to be selected for work and that his days were therefore numbered. No-one saw them again after that. Uncle Ruvim’s wife, Basya, and daughter Miriam survived, however, and at the time of the Liberation they found themselves in the American Zone of Germany. Later they left for Canada.
Basia’s sister, Marusya, and her husband used to come over from Switzerland or Israel to Paris and would always make a point of finding me there. They looked after me as best they could and used to take me out to restaurants and exhibitions: sometimes they would buy me clothes and they always used to talk about my father in very warm terms, clearly recalling what Basya used to say.
Through young members of the underground my parents learnt it would be possible for a small girl, pretty and blonde, to be given shelter in an orphanage, where a certain Dr. Baublys was the director. Father had known him slightly before the War, as a colleague, so the rest would not be a problem. The guards would need to be bribed or he would have to clamber through a hole in the wire fence, make his way out of the Ghetto, with a small child, carry her a fair distance and then leave her outside the orphanage door.
The rest of the family was in tears.
“How could you? Abandon a pretty little girl loved by everyone, virtually on the street, when the temperature was freezing cold -25º?”
On December 14, 1943 Father gave me an injection to send me to sleep and after the parents had dressed as peasants, they took me out of the Ghetto. Then my father carried me to that orphanage. He left me by the door in the porch in a sack with a label on it which read: “I am an unmarried mother and unable to care for my child and ask for my daughter Bronya Mažilyte to be taken into your care”.
Mother’s real maiden name had been Maizelyte. That was how I was ‘farmed out’. Apparently, when I woke up, I began to scream from fright and I was taken into the building. Through those same members of the underground, Father managed to let Dr. Baublys know what the child’s real name was.
During the occupation, thanks to Dr. Baublys, more than twenty Jewish children were kept safe in that orphanage.
My parents were back in the Ghetto the next morning. There was nowhere for them to hide. For a time they did not receive any news about me. Father was still going under armed escort to work at the aerodrome, while Mother remained inside the Ghetto.
Meanwhile Jews were being deported en masse to other camps or simply being killed.
In December 1943 Uncle Max was taken off with his family – his son, beautiful daughter Rivochka and his wife. They were all sent to the Šančiai camp. Uncle Max’s son was mentally handicapped and the family was sent to Auschwitz quite soon where he and his son perished. His wife and daughter, however, survived. My aunt settled in Israel and married a second time: her daughter settled in America.
Later on Mother used to tell me about all the very different kinds of people to be found in the Ghetto. There was a famous professor, Dr. Elkes there, whom the Germans had even been prepared to release: he had been a well-known individual and doctor, who had been living in Germany before Hitler came to power. He and his wife, although far from young, had decided not to leave, and remained behind with their fellow Jews. Later Dr. Elkes perished in a concentration camp.
A young nurse had been working with him in the Ghetto and he had assisted at the birth of her child in March 1942. It had been in the basement so that no-one would hear the cries of either mother or child. The nurse’s husband, Marcus Kamber, had been conscripted into the 16th Lithuanian Division at the very beginning of the war and then set off for the front. He had had no idea that his wife was pregnant then and that he would be the father of a small daughter. Once again it was Dr. Elkes who protected the little girl and helped her reach safety.
Then there was the surgeon, Doctor Zakharin, who had been universally respected before the War. He had said to my terrified mother: “Well, if she dies, she dies. What difference does it make. What would become of her, after all, if she did survive? There would just be one more whore”.
I survived and had the chance to grow up, but he met his end. He was a doctor with God-given talent. People in the Underground were very keen to take him off with them to their partisan detachment, but he refused to go without his senior nurse, although his other two nurses had been sent to join the partisans earlier and they promised to take on his senior nurse later. Dr. Zakharin had not really ingratiated himself with the Germans. When numbers in the Ghetto were declining dramatically, he too was taken to Auschwitz where he was appointed doctor in charge of the prisoners. They say that he did not treat people well, especially fellow Jews from the Kaunas Ghetto. After the War he was tried and given a harsh sentence, but I do not remember which.
Another of Father’s friends at that time was young Doctor Abraham Zilberg. Before the German occupation he had fought for a time in Spain in the International Brigade against Franco’s forces. In the Ghetto he joined the Underground and was fearless in his efforts to remain in contact with the world outside and the partisans. He undertook highly complicated assignments. From the last of them he never returned. His son, however, did survive. He had been born in the Ghetto and later became a doctor like his father.
Haim Elin, uncle of my childhood friend, wunderkind Esther (Esya) Elin, who went on to be a pianist and take part in international music competitions, was one of the most prominent members of the Underground. He used to warn people before imminent round-ups and thanks to him many Jewish children were saved, far more than in other Ghettos. The Germans used to trust him, but when they found out the truth, they killed him off brutally. His niece Esya was rescued by the widow of the composer and artist, Mikalojus Čiurlionis. Her father who had graduated as a construction engineer in Berlin became a writer and journalist and wrote a book about the Jewish Underground in Kaunas.
At one time, a young doctor by the name of Miron Gink had worked in a team alongside my Father. After qualifying as a doctor in Kaunas, he had been sent, no more than a few months before the German invasion, to the small town of Taurogen (2) on the border. In the next few days of the Occupation, Lithuanian fascists had murdered most Jews in that town. A few hours before Miron had left the place on foot to join his wife and five-week-old son back in Kaunas. He walked for two whole days to get there. Soon afterwards all three of them were in the Ghetto. Miron was also one of those who survived. After the War he was put in charge of the health service in Kaunas and later he was the head doctor of the ambulance service in Vilnius. His son was initially taken in by the family of the Lithuanian poet, Binkis: subsequently he was passed on from one family to another up until the very end of the war. Eventually he was to become the theatre director, Kama Ginkas.
There were large numbers of ordinary people as well: craftsmen, cab-drivers, shop assistants. They made up the majority. They were tougher and quicker off the mark. Their survival skills were clearly superior.
Life was more complicated for the educated people. Almost all of them spoke excellent German and had been brought up to love German poetry and culture. In Lithuania there were many Jewish households where only German was spoken and people would go away to German universities to study.
My parents had not been ‘Germanophiles’ to that extent. My father had studied in France and Mother in England, but most of the intelligentsia or young people from affluent families used to spend a good deal of time in Germany. Their parents used to spend holidays and take the waters in German spas and their splendid libraries consisted mainly of German books, which the occupying forces eventually took with them back to Germany. My English-speaking mother could recite Heine in German by heart. In Kaunas most educated young Jews spoke German or Russian. Almost all of them knew Hebrew as well (in educated circles usually only the elderly spoke Yiddish). At any rate, they would all have been brought up on German literature and German science and they felt so disorientated by everything that was happening that they were incapable of understanding what was going on.
When I was finally taken out of the Ghetto, the boys wanted to come too. They would not have stood a chance – two boys of obvious Jewish appearance. It would have been impossible to find anyone to take them in. So those perfectly innocent boys perished along with the rest.
In 1943 people started digging a tunnel, a hide-out’, where it would be possible to shelter during bombing raids. The Russians were already advancing westwards. People hoped it would be possible to hide there, when prisoners were being rounded up. Our family was not allowed in though, because of me, the small child, who might cry at the wrong moment.
Numbers in the ghetto kept dropping: more and more active efforts went into shooting the Jews or taking them off to camps.
In September 1943, the Germans took the whole of Uncle Ruvim’s family out of the Ghetto along with three thousand other Jews. They were sent to Estonia. Uncle Ruvim was already ill by then and his son, twelve-year-old Borya, went along with him to the same camp. They say that he was a remarkable boy with a real talent for poetry and mathematics, always thinking up devices for everyone in the Ghetto to use – one of them was for stealing electricity. Borya used to spend all his time with his father, although he realized that his father was hardly likely to be selected for work and that his days were therefore numbered. No-one saw them again after that. Uncle Ruvim’s wife, Basya, and daughter Miriam survived, however, and at the time of the Liberation they found themselves in the American Zone of Germany. Later they left for Canada.
Basia’s sister, Marusya, and her husband used to come over from Switzerland or Israel to Paris and would always make a point of finding me there. They looked after me as best they could and used to take me out to restaurants and exhibitions: sometimes they would buy me clothes and they always used to talk about my father in very warm terms, clearly recalling what Basya used to say.
Through young members of the underground my parents learnt it would be possible for a small girl, pretty and blonde, to be given shelter in an orphanage, where a certain Dr. Baublys was the director. Father had known him slightly before the War, as a colleague, so the rest would not be a problem. The guards would need to be bribed or he would have to clamber through a hole in the wire fence, make his way out of the Ghetto, with a small child, carry her a fair distance and then leave her outside the orphanage door.
The rest of the family was in tears.
“How could you? Abandon a pretty little girl loved by everyone, virtually on the street, when the temperature was freezing cold -25º?”
On December 14, 1943 Father gave me an injection to send me to sleep and after the parents had dressed as peasants, they took me out of the Ghetto. Then my father carried me to that orphanage. He left me by the door in the porch in a sack with a label on it which read: “I am an unmarried mother and unable to care for my child and ask for my daughter Bronya Mažilyte to be taken into your care”.
Mother’s real maiden name had been Maizelyte. That was how I was ‘farmed out’. Apparently, when I woke up, I began to scream from fright and I was taken into the building. Through those same members of the underground, Father managed to let Dr. Baublys know what the child’s real name was.
During the occupation, thanks to Dr. Baublys, more than twenty Jewish children were kept safe in that orphanage.
My parents were back in the Ghetto the next morning. There was nowhere for them to hide. For a time they did not receive any news about me. Father was still going under armed escort to work at the aerodrome, while Mother remained inside the Ghetto.
Meanwhile Jews were being deported en masse to other camps or simply being killed.
In December 1943 Uncle Max was taken off with his family – his son, beautiful daughter Rivochka and his wife. They were all sent to the Šančiai camp. Uncle Max’s son was mentally handicapped and the family was sent to Auschwitz quite soon where he and his son perished. His wife and daughter, however, survived. My aunt settled in Israel and married a second time: her daughter settled in America.
Later on Mother used to tell me about all the very different kinds of people to be found in the Ghetto. There was a famous professor, Dr. Elkes there, whom the Germans had even been prepared to release: he had been a well-known individual and doctor, who had been living in Germany before Hitler came to power. He and his wife, although far from young, had decided not to leave, and remained behind with their fellow Jews. Later Dr. Elkes perished in a concentration camp.
A young nurse had been working with him in the Ghetto and he had assisted at the birth of her child in March 1942. It had been in the basement so that no-one would hear the cries of either mother or child. The nurse’s husband, Marcus Kamber, had been conscripted into the 16th Lithuanian Division at the very beginning of the war and then set off for the front. He had had no idea that his wife was pregnant then and that he would be the father of a small daughter. Once again it was Dr. Elkes who protected the little girl and helped her reach safety.
Then there was the surgeon, Doctor Zakharin, who had been universally respected before the War. He had said to my terrified mother: “Well, if she dies, she dies. What difference does it make. What would become of her, after all, if she did survive? There would just be one more whore”.
I survived and had the chance to grow up, but he met his end. He was a doctor with God-given talent. People in the Underground were very keen to take him off with them to their partisan detachment, but he refused to go without his senior nurse, although his other two nurses had been sent to join the partisans earlier and they promised to take on his senior nurse later. Dr. Zakharin had not really ingratiated himself with the Germans. When numbers in the Ghetto were declining dramatically, he too was taken to Auschwitz where he was appointed doctor in charge of the prisoners. They say that he did not treat people well, especially fellow Jews from the Kaunas Ghetto. After the War he was tried and given a harsh sentence, but I do not remember which.
Another of Father’s friends at that time was young Doctor Abraham Zilberg. Before the German occupation he had fought for a time in Spain in the International Brigade against Franco’s forces. In the Ghetto he joined the Underground and was fearless in his efforts to remain in contact with the world outside and the partisans. He undertook highly complicated assignments. From the last of them he never returned. His son, however, did survive. He had been born in the Ghetto and later became a doctor like his father.
Haim Elin, uncle of my childhood friend, wunderkind Esther (Esya) Elin, who went on to be a pianist and take part in international music competitions, was one of the most prominent members of the Underground. He used to warn people before imminent round-ups and thanks to him many Jewish children were saved, far more than in other Ghettos. The Germans used to trust him, but when they found out the truth, they killed him off brutally. His niece Esya was rescued by the widow of the composer and artist, Mikalojus Čiurlionis. Her father who had graduated as a construction engineer in Berlin became a writer and journalist and wrote a book about the Jewish Underground in Kaunas.
At one time, a young doctor by the name of Miron Gink had worked in a team alongside my Father. After qualifying as a doctor in Kaunas, he had been sent, no more than a few months before the German invasion, to the small town of Taurogen (2) on the border. In the next few days of the Occupation, Lithuanian fascists had murdered most Jews in that town. A few hours before Miron had left the place on foot to join his wife and five-week-old son back in Kaunas. He walked for two whole days to get there. Soon afterwards all three of them were in the Ghetto. Miron was also one of those who survived. After the War he was put in charge of the health service in Kaunas and later he was the head doctor of the ambulance service in Vilnius. His son was initially taken in by the family of the Lithuanian poet, Binkis: subsequently he was passed on from one family to another up until the very end of the war. Eventually he was to become the theatre director, Kama Ginkas.
There were large numbers of ordinary people as well: craftsmen, cab-drivers, shop assistants. They made up the majority. They were tougher and quicker off the mark. Their survival skills were clearly superior.
Life was more complicated for the educated people. Almost all of them spoke excellent German and had been brought up to love German poetry and culture. In Lithuania there were many Jewish households where only German was spoken and people would go away to German universities to study.
My parents had not been ‘Germanophiles’ to that extent. My father had studied in France and Mother in England, but most of the intelligentsia or young people from affluent families used to spend a good deal of time in Germany. Their parents used to spend holidays and take the waters in German spas and their splendid libraries consisted mainly of German books, which the occupying forces eventually took with them back to Germany. My English-speaking mother could recite Heine in German by heart. In Kaunas most educated young Jews spoke German or Russian. Almost all of them knew Hebrew as well (in educated circles usually only the elderly spoke Yiddish). At any rate, they would all have been brought up on German literature and German science and they felt so disorientated by everything that was happening that they were incapable of understanding what was going on.
One fine day Dr. Baublys sent word that I was dying and that, if there was even the slightest chance, the parents needed to come and fetch me. Yet taking me back into the Ghetto was not an option…
It turned out that I had retained word-perfect everything our neighbours’ sons had taught me. Well aware that this attracted attention, I started reciting the names I had learnt: Napoleon Bonaparte, Marshal Foch and so on. “That can’t possibly be an abandoned bastard child!” was the response. To make matters worse, when I cut my finger I asked for streptocide! It had only just come out at that time. Soon, it was all too clear. A little Yid! Despite my obvious blonde hair, a pronounced blue vein on my forehead (full of blue blood!) and my not very Jewish features. My eyes were brown, not a very common combination with blonde hair among Lithuanians! That was what really worried the woman looking after me, the only “Jew-hater” in that orphanage, who was of the opinion that all Jews should be wiped out. All the rest of the staff were loyal to Dr. Baublys.
She stopped putting my shoes on in the orphanage and I was made to patter about barefoot on the tiled floors. She often did not bother to dress me properly either. “We’re having to look after little Yids as well! As if there weren’t enough of our own kind…”
There was nobody to protect me. Dr. Baublys could not give himself away. If he had, all the other Jewish children would have perished and he too. The only thing that kept my tormentor from informing on me was that she felt sure I would die anyway.
My father, who was still in that team working outside the Ghetto, began desperately searching for someone among the local inhabitants, who would take in his child. A fisherman turned up one day near where they were working and recognized Father from the days when he used to sell fish to people nearby in their summer cottages. Father began talking him round. The fisherman said he would have to talk to his wife and sons. My father gave him the only photograph that had been taken of me in the Ghetto (photography had been strictly forbidden there). I looked pretty enough in it and, most important of all, I was blonde. On the night of January 3, 1944 Father left the Ghetto taking Mother with him and, after saying goodbye to his elderly parents, left the Ghetto for good and set off to persuade the fisherman’s family to take me in. Mother was always very persuasive and in this case more so than ever, since she truly believed in the unique beauty and brilliance of her child! She described to them how clever I was and all about the small blue vein on my forehead through which the blue blood flowed. In short, there was no better decision they could possibly take, although in fact the last thing the family needed was an extra member. Yet those people were deeply religious and their own daughter had died not long before. My parents succeeded in convincing them that it would be the right thing for the God-fearing to do. The idea appealed to them. After that Mama Julia, my future foster-mother, set off with her son Zigmas, an officer from the Lithuanian Army, to the orphanage to fetch their wondrous and beautiful little ‘granddaughter’.
Mama Julia had two grown-up sons at home. When the Soviet regime had been imposed in Lithuania, they had deserted from the Lithuanian Army and had naturally not joined the Soviet one. They had simply stayed at home and were helping out.
Mama Julia Dovtort (Dautartiene) could not read or write and her son filled out all the documents. The child was duly handed over to them. The woman who thought that the ‘Aryan’ child in her care was a little Yid, was made to feel very sheepish. By this time everyone at the orphanage was embarrassed by it all. Mama Julia was told that the little girl was very clever and blonde, but what was handed to them was a blood-stained mess. They could not very well just abandon their “indisposed granddaughter”. They brought me back to their home in a state of panic. They had been deceived. What kind of little blonde was this? What nonsense? This was a squealing creature, who must have been about to die. Their faith got the better of them though and they started praying for me to recover, although their hopes were very slim. My parents meanwhile had decided to come and find out if everything had worked out all right. They came back to my new home, walking through the woods to get there for several days in the bitter cold.
What a horrific sight greeted them! Mother’s first reaction was that there must have been a mistake and it was impossible to convince her otherwise. Then at last, when she recognized a mole somewhere on the bleeding piece of meat, she accepted that it must be her daughter after all.
They managed to persuade the family to try and save me. Zigmas kept quiet and so it was up to Mama Julia to decide. My father promised that he would come over at night-time to help and that he would get hold of medicines and treat me.
Being homeless now, Father first of all disguised himself as a peasant and went into town. Then he started doing the rounds of the pharmacists whom he had known from before the War. Some of them shut the door in his face, but some gave him medicines and even let him and Mother shelter in their warm home for a few days, but no-one could let them take refuge for long. With the medicines he could come by Father went back to Shilialis (3), that was the name of the village, and worked his magic. The little walk there involved 20 kilometres…and he did it night after night. Mama Julia’s husband knew a good deal about folk remedies, made herbal infusions and cleaned my wounds with them. Indeed, in the village he had a reputation as a healer. They brought me back from the brink. Fast and faster than they would have thought possible, I regained consciousness and began to get better. My hair started growing back. I started talking again, although only in Polish now, like Mama Julia and her husband. My Russian did not reappear after my illness and so much the better in those circumstances.
On his last visit Father brought my mother with him. It was cold and Mother was very tired. On the way they had seen a peasant with a cart. They waved him down, but after a mere two or three words the peasant whipped his horse and galloped off. My parents realized that he had guessed what kind of people they were.
After that they forgot about their tiredness and made their way to their destination as fast as they could. Zigmas and Juozas, the second son, hurried my parents into the shed and covered them with logs. The Germans came rushing over soon afterwards: they searched the whole house, jumped about on the logs in the shed but, when they failed to find anyone, they asked straight out whether the family had seen two run-away Jews. Tall, well turned out, dashing Zigmas said that some had run past and he pointed out the direction they had taken. When the Germans set off in hot pursuit, the brothers pulled my parents out from under the firewood. After that they did not come to visit me again until the Liberation. Nor did I really need them then.
They just left the following instructions with a member of the family:
“We, Jakob Abramovitch and Bronia (Bracha) Maisel-Abramovitch, residing before the war at Maironio Street No. 14, beg to inform our relatives that wanting to rescue the life of our only child we are compelled on the 26th February 1944 to give away our little daughter Ariela Abramovitch under the name of Brone Mažilyte born on the 24th September 24, 1941 to the family Dovtort (Dautortas). The family Dovtort has been so kind and obliging as to adopt the child and look after her till the end of the war. We ask our relatives at the first possibility to take our child to themselves and to bring her up.
The family Dovtort after having returned the child to you, should be compensated.
Dr. Jacob Abramovitch
Signed by Jacob Abramovich (also in Hebrew) and dated 26 February 1944, the letter was written both in Russian and in English and the latter version was intended for relatives who escaped to England,USA and Palestine before the War. The letter was kept inside the envelope which had writing on it Testament 1943. (Dr. S.Abramovich’s note)
It turned out that I had retained word-perfect everything our neighbours’ sons had taught me. Well aware that this attracted attention, I started reciting the names I had learnt: Napoleon Bonaparte, Marshal Foch and so on. “That can’t possibly be an abandoned bastard child!” was the response. To make matters worse, when I cut my finger I asked for streptocide! It had only just come out at that time. Soon, it was all too clear. A little Yid! Despite my obvious blonde hair, a pronounced blue vein on my forehead (full of blue blood!) and my not very Jewish features. My eyes were brown, not a very common combination with blonde hair among Lithuanians! That was what really worried the woman looking after me, the only “Jew-hater” in that orphanage, who was of the opinion that all Jews should be wiped out. All the rest of the staff were loyal to Dr. Baublys.
She stopped putting my shoes on in the orphanage and I was made to patter about barefoot on the tiled floors. She often did not bother to dress me properly either. “We’re having to look after little Yids as well! As if there weren’t enough of our own kind…”
There was nobody to protect me. Dr. Baublys could not give himself away. If he had, all the other Jewish children would have perished and he too. The only thing that kept my tormentor from informing on me was that she felt sure I would die anyway.
My father, who was still in that team working outside the Ghetto, began desperately searching for someone among the local inhabitants, who would take in his child. A fisherman turned up one day near where they were working and recognized Father from the days when he used to sell fish to people nearby in their summer cottages. Father began talking him round. The fisherman said he would have to talk to his wife and sons. My father gave him the only photograph that had been taken of me in the Ghetto (photography had been strictly forbidden there). I looked pretty enough in it and, most important of all, I was blonde. On the night of January 3, 1944 Father left the Ghetto taking Mother with him and, after saying goodbye to his elderly parents, left the Ghetto for good and set off to persuade the fisherman’s family to take me in. Mother was always very persuasive and in this case more so than ever, since she truly believed in the unique beauty and brilliance of her child! She described to them how clever I was and all about the small blue vein on my forehead through which the blue blood flowed. In short, there was no better decision they could possibly take, although in fact the last thing the family needed was an extra member. Yet those people were deeply religious and their own daughter had died not long before. My parents succeeded in convincing them that it would be the right thing for the God-fearing to do. The idea appealed to them. After that Mama Julia, my future foster-mother, set off with her son Zigmas, an officer from the Lithuanian Army, to the orphanage to fetch their wondrous and beautiful little ‘granddaughter’.
Mama Julia had two grown-up sons at home. When the Soviet regime had been imposed in Lithuania, they had deserted from the Lithuanian Army and had naturally not joined the Soviet one. They had simply stayed at home and were helping out.
Mama Julia Dovtort (Dautartiene) could not read or write and her son filled out all the documents. The child was duly handed over to them. The woman who thought that the ‘Aryan’ child in her care was a little Yid, was made to feel very sheepish. By this time everyone at the orphanage was embarrassed by it all. Mama Julia was told that the little girl was very clever and blonde, but what was handed to them was a blood-stained mess. They could not very well just abandon their “indisposed granddaughter”. They brought me back to their home in a state of panic. They had been deceived. What kind of little blonde was this? What nonsense? This was a squealing creature, who must have been about to die. Their faith got the better of them though and they started praying for me to recover, although their hopes were very slim. My parents meanwhile had decided to come and find out if everything had worked out all right. They came back to my new home, walking through the woods to get there for several days in the bitter cold.
What a horrific sight greeted them! Mother’s first reaction was that there must have been a mistake and it was impossible to convince her otherwise. Then at last, when she recognized a mole somewhere on the bleeding piece of meat, she accepted that it must be her daughter after all.
They managed to persuade the family to try and save me. Zigmas kept quiet and so it was up to Mama Julia to decide. My father promised that he would come over at night-time to help and that he would get hold of medicines and treat me.
Being homeless now, Father first of all disguised himself as a peasant and went into town. Then he started doing the rounds of the pharmacists whom he had known from before the War. Some of them shut the door in his face, but some gave him medicines and even let him and Mother shelter in their warm home for a few days, but no-one could let them take refuge for long. With the medicines he could come by Father went back to Shilialis (3), that was the name of the village, and worked his magic. The little walk there involved 20 kilometres…and he did it night after night. Mama Julia’s husband knew a good deal about folk remedies, made herbal infusions and cleaned my wounds with them. Indeed, in the village he had a reputation as a healer. They brought me back from the brink. Fast and faster than they would have thought possible, I regained consciousness and began to get better. My hair started growing back. I started talking again, although only in Polish now, like Mama Julia and her husband. My Russian did not reappear after my illness and so much the better in those circumstances.
On his last visit Father brought my mother with him. It was cold and Mother was very tired. On the way they had seen a peasant with a cart. They waved him down, but after a mere two or three words the peasant whipped his horse and galloped off. My parents realized that he had guessed what kind of people they were.
After that they forgot about their tiredness and made their way to their destination as fast as they could. Zigmas and Juozas, the second son, hurried my parents into the shed and covered them with logs. The Germans came rushing over soon afterwards: they searched the whole house, jumped about on the logs in the shed but, when they failed to find anyone, they asked straight out whether the family had seen two run-away Jews. Tall, well turned out, dashing Zigmas said that some had run past and he pointed out the direction they had taken. When the Germans set off in hot pursuit, the brothers pulled my parents out from under the firewood. After that they did not come to visit me again until the Liberation. Nor did I really need them then.
They just left the following instructions with a member of the family:
“We, Jakob Abramovitch and Bronia (Bracha) Maisel-Abramovitch, residing before the war at Maironio Street No. 14, beg to inform our relatives that wanting to rescue the life of our only child we are compelled on the 26th February 1944 to give away our little daughter Ariela Abramovitch under the name of Brone Mažilyte born on the 24th September 24, 1941 to the family Dovtort (Dautortas). The family Dovtort has been so kind and obliging as to adopt the child and look after her till the end of the war. We ask our relatives at the first possibility to take our child to themselves and to bring her up.
The family Dovtort after having returned the child to you, should be compensated.
Dr. Jacob Abramovitch
Signed by Jacob Abramovich (also in Hebrew) and dated 26 February 1944, the letter was written both in Russian and in English and the latter version was intended for relatives who escaped to England,USA and Palestine before the War. The letter was kept inside the envelope which had writing on it Testament 1943. (Dr. S.Abramovich’s note)
Mama Julia and ‘Grandad’ Dovtort (Dautartas) were very fond of me: people definitely believed that I was their family’s child and they used to tell the neighbours a fairy-tale to the effect that they had taken me in, after their daughter had apparently had a child by a German and died soon afterwards. They had me christened at the nearby church and used to take me to services there every Sunday: I used to pray very earnestly. I would learn my prayers faster than the other children of my age in the village. Everything was splendid. I even used to go with the other village children to the local SS head-quarters and the Germans used to give us chocolate. They say that I used to come away with more chocolate than anyone else. I used to make a deeper impression on the Germans than the other village children because my hair was so fair.
Yet when the Germans used to come by, Vladik, the youngest son in the family who later became the writer Vladas Dautartas, tried to take me away on a boat: he was fourteen then and had no confidence in me. He thought I might give myself away again. He was a pupil at the gymnasium and believed in heredity. He used to lay me on the bottom of his boat, cover me up with this jacket and gave me strict orders not to peep out, until we had got over to the opposite bank. He used to recall how I, like an obedient, clever little dog would lie there quietly when it was dangerous and stay there till the boat-ride was over.
Everyone would have long since forgotten about my past, if it had not been for Mama Julia’s third son Leonas (also known as Lyonka). He was serving in the police, was already married with children of his own, had a terrible weakness for the bottle and used to get out of control. He used to try and wheedle money out of his parents all the time and threatened to give me away. Mama Julia used to cry and gave him money, while the brothers did not react at all.
When the Germans withdrew, he left with them, leaving his wife and three children behind. Many years later he wrote his parents a letter, with gratitude for the help given his children: he invited his family to join him in Canada and us to pay him a visit. He had settled in well. My parents did not write to him but via Vladik they relayed to him that they knew about his threats. In response Lyonka later wrote back: “Yes, I did make threats, but I did not betray her.” That had indeed been the case: he could have betrayed me and was duty bound to do so, particularly since he was in the local Polizei, but “God moves in a mysterious way”. My family, on the other hand, helped his relatives – Mama Julia’s grandchildren. Lyonka had, after all, not betrayed me.
After long wanderings, my parents made their way to Lukšakaimis farm near the village of Kulautuva, where Father’s family had rented a dacha before the War, and the head of the household, Jurgis Kumpaitis, had driven them to his home from the town. He was German by descent. By then the Russians were already advancing in our direction. Father promised him a reward after the war (we would have to survive that long though!) and the Kumpaitis family let my parents live under the floor of a shed housing cows and pigs. They spent seven months there, only coming out for fresh air at night, when the coast was clear. Much later, in the 1950s, my parents rented a summer cottage nearby and showed me that cowshed. The animals were at ground level and my parents in the cellar. They were given food at regular intervals, at the same time as the animals. They survived. If things had turned out badly, the lives of the Kumpaitis family would have been at risk, but they were convinced that my father would be able to help them after the war, for they had known his whole family – and they were right to have thought so. They had been prosperous peasants and they could easily have been sent to Siberia. The first shipment of “bourgeois” elements had been dispatched east before the War and after that there was a second round. Immediately after the Liberation, however, helping Jews stood people in good stead: a little later on though it was something best not mentioned, better forgotten altogether.
Yet when the Germans used to come by, Vladik, the youngest son in the family who later became the writer Vladas Dautartas, tried to take me away on a boat: he was fourteen then and had no confidence in me. He thought I might give myself away again. He was a pupil at the gymnasium and believed in heredity. He used to lay me on the bottom of his boat, cover me up with this jacket and gave me strict orders not to peep out, until we had got over to the opposite bank. He used to recall how I, like an obedient, clever little dog would lie there quietly when it was dangerous and stay there till the boat-ride was over.
Everyone would have long since forgotten about my past, if it had not been for Mama Julia’s third son Leonas (also known as Lyonka). He was serving in the police, was already married with children of his own, had a terrible weakness for the bottle and used to get out of control. He used to try and wheedle money out of his parents all the time and threatened to give me away. Mama Julia used to cry and gave him money, while the brothers did not react at all.
When the Germans withdrew, he left with them, leaving his wife and three children behind. Many years later he wrote his parents a letter, with gratitude for the help given his children: he invited his family to join him in Canada and us to pay him a visit. He had settled in well. My parents did not write to him but via Vladik they relayed to him that they knew about his threats. In response Lyonka later wrote back: “Yes, I did make threats, but I did not betray her.” That had indeed been the case: he could have betrayed me and was duty bound to do so, particularly since he was in the local Polizei, but “God moves in a mysterious way”. My family, on the other hand, helped his relatives – Mama Julia’s grandchildren. Lyonka had, after all, not betrayed me.
After long wanderings, my parents made their way to Lukšakaimis farm near the village of Kulautuva, where Father’s family had rented a dacha before the War, and the head of the household, Jurgis Kumpaitis, had driven them to his home from the town. He was German by descent. By then the Russians were already advancing in our direction. Father promised him a reward after the war (we would have to survive that long though!) and the Kumpaitis family let my parents live under the floor of a shed housing cows and pigs. They spent seven months there, only coming out for fresh air at night, when the coast was clear. Much later, in the 1950s, my parents rented a summer cottage nearby and showed me that cowshed. The animals were at ground level and my parents in the cellar. They were given food at regular intervals, at the same time as the animals. They survived. If things had turned out badly, the lives of the Kumpaitis family would have been at risk, but they were convinced that my father would be able to help them after the war, for they had known his whole family – and they were right to have thought so. They had been prosperous peasants and they could easily have been sent to Siberia. The first shipment of “bourgeois” elements had been dispatched east before the War and after that there was a second round. Immediately after the Liberation, however, helping Jews stood people in good stead: a little later on though it was something best not mentioned, better forgotten altogether.
As they retreated, the Germans blew up and burnt the Ghetto. The people who took shelter in the underground tunnels, to which they had refused our family access because there was a small child, were all burnt alive. My grandparents were led out of the Ghetto in March 1944, together with two thousand other old people and children. They died as they were being driven along or they were shot. Our other relatives, as mentioned earlier, were taken off to Estonia and Poland. My uncles Beno, Ruvim and Max and their sons – my cousins – perished, while their wives and daughters survived. My Aunt Rebecca also perished in the camp at Stutthof, but her son, who suffered from poliomyelitis, survived and they managed to get to America.
This is how my father described those events in a letter to his brother Aaron just after the War.
My dear Brother!
I wrote a few letters to you three months ago and I also wrote to Leo, and wonder if you have received them. I am writing you again and hope that the sad news about the tragedy of our family will reach you.
In July, 1941, we were all locked up in Ghetto in Slobodka with the exception of our brother Benno, who perished with 7,000 Jews in Kaunas on the 7th Fort.
On the 24th July (Father mixed up July and June here. A.S.) 1941, a few days after the Nazi attack on the Russians I, Benno and, my wife and her uncle were arrested without cause and locked up in the Yellow Prison. My wife, being pregnant, was released, and due to her efforts and those of the Director of the Hospital, where I used to work, I was also released. 7,000 Jews, including our brother Benno, were transferred on August 1st to the 7th Fort, and within a few weeks were all cruelly killed. There they went through the worst horror and torments any human being could think of.
In the ghetto the Nazis started a series of killings and acts of terrorism. The technique of the sadist murderers is impossible to describe in a letter. A few weeks after being locked up a part of the ghetto was surrounded and the people were driven on to the 9th Fort where they were thrown half alive into the pits. The Jewish hospital was set on fire and the patients in it were all burned alive, amongst them our uncle Z. Caplan, who was lying there as a result of a heart-attack, which he got while on forced labour. Our Auntie Goldie and their daughter Rebecca were visiting him there and they also perished.
We all lived close to each other in ghetto. We used to exchange our clothes for bread with the Lithuanian workers on forced labour, but this did not last for long, as the Nazis confiscated all our clothes.
On the 24th October, 1941, the Nazis with the Lithuanian Fascist Police broke into my room and knocked out the windows. My wife had a shock and gave birth to a daughter. This happened at night without light and there was no food for her. On the 28th October, 1941, the Nazis, with the help of the Police armed heavily, surrounded the ghetto, separated parents from children, old men and women, and eleven thousand Jews were sent on to the 9th Fort where they were all shot (4). The majority of the children were thrown alive into the pits. Our Mother came into this group with the old people, but I succeeded in prolonging her life until March 26th, 1944. And so, with the exception of Benno we all lived together in the ghetto. Max, Anna and their daughter Rebecca, Ruwim and I used to go on forced labour. Our shirts, clothes, shoes, sheets and blankets we exchanged for bread. And every day we were tormented physically and morally by the threat of being killed.
On the 28th September, 1943, 3,000 Jews were deported to Esthonia. Our brother Ruwim, Bassia and their children were amongst them. A few people who were able to escape from Estonia and were liberated by the Red Army have told us that they were all killed or burnt. This depended on which camp they fell into. The small children and old people were killed at the Kaunas Railway Station where the children were taken away from their parents. In any case our brother Ruwim and his family perished there(5).
When the Red Army reached the Lithuanian Frontiers, we had messages as follows: that the ghetto in Vilno had been burned down, that the people of the ghetto in Schawel (6) were deported to Taurage and there killed (7).
In our ghetto they had already started to separate us into groups. This was a preliminary to immediate extermination…
[Page missing: A.S.]
…on the steps of a Lithuanian Orphanage under a Lithuanian name. The doctor who was Director of the Orphanage was a colleague of mine with whom I had worked in a hospital before the War. I left your address with him and Leo’s and Bronnia’s family’s, with the request that after the War they should contact you to tell you about my child. I contacted him on a dark night after crawling through the barbed wire of the ghetto. On the night of December 14, 1943, I smuggled Bronnia and our child out of the ghetto, and left my child at the orphanage as arranged. There was nowhere for us to hide and the next day we smuggled ourselves back.
Meanwhile the Nazis had started to deport the people into camps. Our brother Max, Anna and their daughter, Rebecca, who had grown into a beautiful girl, were sent in December 1943, to Scanzer (8) camp. In ghetto there remained then our parents, Rebecca, Samuel (9), Joseph (10) Bronnia and I. My wife and I they also wanted to send to Scanzer where Max was. Since our child was in the Lithuanian Orphanage we decided to run away instead of going to a camp. We knew that a camp or ghetto meant death. We also wanted to see our child for once. On January 3rd, 1944, we escaped. For a few days we were hiding in the cellars of Gentiles. Nobody wanted to keep us for long and we were destitute and homeless. I had got to know that our child was seriously ill and dying in the Orphanage. The Director advised me to take her away since they had got to know that she was a Jewess. It was winter and we were without money, clothes and food.
At any moment the Nazis might get hold of us and shoot us.
Bronnia and I set out into the villages in the hope of finding a good person who would be willing to take a dying Jewish child, and we could not find one. Wandering through the villages by night and through the woods by day we reached Kulautuva. Not far from the woods was a peasant Kumpaitis (he used to help our parents to remove in summer). We hid ourselves in a ditch beside his pig-stye. We used to get food at night. Meantime I also found a poor fisherman who adopted my child from the Orphanage. For four weeks my child struggled for life. At night I used to go 15 Kilometres to treat her and give her injections.She was in Rodondware (11). At last she recovered and was there for another seven months.
On March 26th, 1944, the Nazis took out a few thousand children and old people (12). Among them were our parents. They led our Mother and Father with other old people to a horrible death with a few thousand children aged from two to twelve years. Before I ran away from the ghetto I said goodbye to them and I remember my father’s words. He has suffered a lot and he always used to say he would like to live to see the downfall of the Nazis.
Mother has suffered too but she showed no trace of it.
After the horrible murder of the children when they also took with them our parents, there remained in the ghetto still a few thousand Jews, amongst them Rebecca, Samuel and Joseph.
As I have already told you my brother Ruwin and his family were in Estonia, Max and his family in Scanze, I and my wife were hiding in the woods. When the Red Army crossed the Lithuanian Frontier, our sister Rebecca and her family with a few thousand other Jews were sent to Danzig, where Max and his family were sent from his camp. The people who were hiding themselves in the cellars of the Slobodka (13). Ghetto were all burnt, and there are still some corpses lying about. In Lithuania about eight to nine hundred Jews have escaped, and the remainder have all met a horrible death.
On August 3rd, 1944, the Red Army saved us. We collected our daughter from the fisherman and found her a nice healthy child.
This is, in short, the tragedy of our family together with another few hundred thousand Jews. I will write to you again in the near future in detail.
I work in a hospital and earn`relatively enough…
[A page is missing with the end of the letter: A.S.]
From Ariela Sef’s book “Born in the Ghetto“
(Ариела Сеф. Рожденная в гетто, Москва, 2009)
Dr. Jacob and Bronia Abramovich escaped from Kaunas Ghetto in January 1944 and were in hiding until the liberation of Kaunas on 1 st August 1944. The letter of Dr. Jacob Abramovich was written to his brother Aron in Manchester UK soon after the end of War in 1945 relying on his recollections and some known facts and at a time he did not know that part of his family has survived the concentration camps. However, exact numbers of victims of the Holocaust were obtained from the available documents much later and therefore some clarifications were made in the notes (Dr.Solomon Abramovich's note).
Notes:
(1) Victory Day was always celebrated on May 9th in the USSR, not on May 8th as in Western Europe. It is still celebrated in Russia and the other former Soviet Republics on May 9th.
(2) mod. Tauragė
(3) mod. Šilelis
(4) According to the Karl Jäger Report, 9,200 Jews were massacred in the 9th Fort on 29 October 1941, including 2,007 men, 2,920 women and 4,273 children.
(5) Dr. J.Abramovich's brother Ruvim and his son Boria perished in Estonia.
(6) mod. Šiauliai
(7) 23-24 September 1943 Vilnius Ghetto was liquidated. There were about 11,000 people in the ghetto before its liquidation. Able men and women were sent to Estonian and Latvian concentration camps, while women and children (about 5,000) were transported to Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps and annihilated. Several hundred old and sick people were shot in Paneriai;
During the liquidation of the Kaunas Ghetto (8–13 July, 1944) about 6,000–7,000 people were transported to the concentration camps. On the 12 of July, 1944 Kaunas Ghetto was set on fire. Hundreds of people died in the fire or were shot and killed;
About 7,000 Šiauliai Jews as well as Jews brought to the Šiauliai Ghetto from Vilnius, Kaunas and Smurgainys labour camps were transported to Stutthof concentration camp in four stages. From there, men were taken to Dachau concentration camp, while women and children were taken to Auschwitz.
(8) In autumn of 1943, the Kaunas Ghetto was reorganised into an SS concentration camp. Around 4,000 prisoners of the ghetto were transferred to isolated labour camps in the neighbourhoods of Aleksotas and Šančiai.
(9) The husband of Ariela's aunt Rebecca.
(10) The son of Ariela's aunt Rebecca.
(11) At the present time it is known as Raudondvaris and is near the village of Šilelis where Ariela was living.
(12) 27-28 March 1944 a cruel Children’s Action took place in the Kaunas Ghetto: 1,700 children and old people were taken from the ghetto in two days and transported to Auschwitz for annihilation.
(13) Slobodka (also known by its Lithuanian name: Vilijampolė) was the district of Kaunas, in which the Ghetto was situated.
This is how my father described those events in a letter to his brother Aaron just after the War.
My dear Brother!
I wrote a few letters to you three months ago and I also wrote to Leo, and wonder if you have received them. I am writing you again and hope that the sad news about the tragedy of our family will reach you.
In July, 1941, we were all locked up in Ghetto in Slobodka with the exception of our brother Benno, who perished with 7,000 Jews in Kaunas on the 7th Fort.
On the 24th July (Father mixed up July and June here. A.S.) 1941, a few days after the Nazi attack on the Russians I, Benno and, my wife and her uncle were arrested without cause and locked up in the Yellow Prison. My wife, being pregnant, was released, and due to her efforts and those of the Director of the Hospital, where I used to work, I was also released. 7,000 Jews, including our brother Benno, were transferred on August 1st to the 7th Fort, and within a few weeks were all cruelly killed. There they went through the worst horror and torments any human being could think of.
In the ghetto the Nazis started a series of killings and acts of terrorism. The technique of the sadist murderers is impossible to describe in a letter. A few weeks after being locked up a part of the ghetto was surrounded and the people were driven on to the 9th Fort where they were thrown half alive into the pits. The Jewish hospital was set on fire and the patients in it were all burned alive, amongst them our uncle Z. Caplan, who was lying there as a result of a heart-attack, which he got while on forced labour. Our Auntie Goldie and their daughter Rebecca were visiting him there and they also perished.
We all lived close to each other in ghetto. We used to exchange our clothes for bread with the Lithuanian workers on forced labour, but this did not last for long, as the Nazis confiscated all our clothes.
On the 24th October, 1941, the Nazis with the Lithuanian Fascist Police broke into my room and knocked out the windows. My wife had a shock and gave birth to a daughter. This happened at night without light and there was no food for her. On the 28th October, 1941, the Nazis, with the help of the Police armed heavily, surrounded the ghetto, separated parents from children, old men and women, and eleven thousand Jews were sent on to the 9th Fort where they were all shot (4). The majority of the children were thrown alive into the pits. Our Mother came into this group with the old people, but I succeeded in prolonging her life until March 26th, 1944. And so, with the exception of Benno we all lived together in the ghetto. Max, Anna and their daughter Rebecca, Ruwim and I used to go on forced labour. Our shirts, clothes, shoes, sheets and blankets we exchanged for bread. And every day we were tormented physically and morally by the threat of being killed.
On the 28th September, 1943, 3,000 Jews were deported to Esthonia. Our brother Ruwim, Bassia and their children were amongst them. A few people who were able to escape from Estonia and were liberated by the Red Army have told us that they were all killed or burnt. This depended on which camp they fell into. The small children and old people were killed at the Kaunas Railway Station where the children were taken away from their parents. In any case our brother Ruwim and his family perished there(5).
When the Red Army reached the Lithuanian Frontiers, we had messages as follows: that the ghetto in Vilno had been burned down, that the people of the ghetto in Schawel (6) were deported to Taurage and there killed (7).
In our ghetto they had already started to separate us into groups. This was a preliminary to immediate extermination…
[Page missing: A.S.]
…on the steps of a Lithuanian Orphanage under a Lithuanian name. The doctor who was Director of the Orphanage was a colleague of mine with whom I had worked in a hospital before the War. I left your address with him and Leo’s and Bronnia’s family’s, with the request that after the War they should contact you to tell you about my child. I contacted him on a dark night after crawling through the barbed wire of the ghetto. On the night of December 14, 1943, I smuggled Bronnia and our child out of the ghetto, and left my child at the orphanage as arranged. There was nowhere for us to hide and the next day we smuggled ourselves back.
Meanwhile the Nazis had started to deport the people into camps. Our brother Max, Anna and their daughter, Rebecca, who had grown into a beautiful girl, were sent in December 1943, to Scanzer (8) camp. In ghetto there remained then our parents, Rebecca, Samuel (9), Joseph (10) Bronnia and I. My wife and I they also wanted to send to Scanzer where Max was. Since our child was in the Lithuanian Orphanage we decided to run away instead of going to a camp. We knew that a camp or ghetto meant death. We also wanted to see our child for once. On January 3rd, 1944, we escaped. For a few days we were hiding in the cellars of Gentiles. Nobody wanted to keep us for long and we were destitute and homeless. I had got to know that our child was seriously ill and dying in the Orphanage. The Director advised me to take her away since they had got to know that she was a Jewess. It was winter and we were without money, clothes and food.
At any moment the Nazis might get hold of us and shoot us.
Bronnia and I set out into the villages in the hope of finding a good person who would be willing to take a dying Jewish child, and we could not find one. Wandering through the villages by night and through the woods by day we reached Kulautuva. Not far from the woods was a peasant Kumpaitis (he used to help our parents to remove in summer). We hid ourselves in a ditch beside his pig-stye. We used to get food at night. Meantime I also found a poor fisherman who adopted my child from the Orphanage. For four weeks my child struggled for life. At night I used to go 15 Kilometres to treat her and give her injections.She was in Rodondware (11). At last she recovered and was there for another seven months.
On March 26th, 1944, the Nazis took out a few thousand children and old people (12). Among them were our parents. They led our Mother and Father with other old people to a horrible death with a few thousand children aged from two to twelve years. Before I ran away from the ghetto I said goodbye to them and I remember my father’s words. He has suffered a lot and he always used to say he would like to live to see the downfall of the Nazis.
Mother has suffered too but she showed no trace of it.
After the horrible murder of the children when they also took with them our parents, there remained in the ghetto still a few thousand Jews, amongst them Rebecca, Samuel and Joseph.
As I have already told you my brother Ruwin and his family were in Estonia, Max and his family in Scanze, I and my wife were hiding in the woods. When the Red Army crossed the Lithuanian Frontier, our sister Rebecca and her family with a few thousand other Jews were sent to Danzig, where Max and his family were sent from his camp. The people who were hiding themselves in the cellars of the Slobodka (13). Ghetto were all burnt, and there are still some corpses lying about. In Lithuania about eight to nine hundred Jews have escaped, and the remainder have all met a horrible death.
On August 3rd, 1944, the Red Army saved us. We collected our daughter from the fisherman and found her a nice healthy child.
This is, in short, the tragedy of our family together with another few hundred thousand Jews. I will write to you again in the near future in detail.
I work in a hospital and earn`relatively enough…
[A page is missing with the end of the letter: A.S.]
From Ariela Sef’s book “Born in the Ghetto“
(Ариела Сеф. Рожденная в гетто, Москва, 2009)
Dr. Jacob and Bronia Abramovich escaped from Kaunas Ghetto in January 1944 and were in hiding until the liberation of Kaunas on 1 st August 1944. The letter of Dr. Jacob Abramovich was written to his brother Aron in Manchester UK soon after the end of War in 1945 relying on his recollections and some known facts and at a time he did not know that part of his family has survived the concentration camps. However, exact numbers of victims of the Holocaust were obtained from the available documents much later and therefore some clarifications were made in the notes (Dr.Solomon Abramovich's note).
Notes:
(1) Victory Day was always celebrated on May 9th in the USSR, not on May 8th as in Western Europe. It is still celebrated in Russia and the other former Soviet Republics on May 9th.
(2) mod. Tauragė
(3) mod. Šilelis
(4) According to the Karl Jäger Report, 9,200 Jews were massacred in the 9th Fort on 29 October 1941, including 2,007 men, 2,920 women and 4,273 children.
(5) Dr. J.Abramovich's brother Ruvim and his son Boria perished in Estonia.
(6) mod. Šiauliai
(7) 23-24 September 1943 Vilnius Ghetto was liquidated. There were about 11,000 people in the ghetto before its liquidation. Able men and women were sent to Estonian and Latvian concentration camps, while women and children (about 5,000) were transported to Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps and annihilated. Several hundred old and sick people were shot in Paneriai;
During the liquidation of the Kaunas Ghetto (8–13 July, 1944) about 6,000–7,000 people were transported to the concentration camps. On the 12 of July, 1944 Kaunas Ghetto was set on fire. Hundreds of people died in the fire or were shot and killed;
About 7,000 Šiauliai Jews as well as Jews brought to the Šiauliai Ghetto from Vilnius, Kaunas and Smurgainys labour camps were transported to Stutthof concentration camp in four stages. From there, men were taken to Dachau concentration camp, while women and children were taken to Auschwitz.
(8) In autumn of 1943, the Kaunas Ghetto was reorganised into an SS concentration camp. Around 4,000 prisoners of the ghetto were transferred to isolated labour camps in the neighbourhoods of Aleksotas and Šančiai.
(9) The husband of Ariela's aunt Rebecca.
(10) The son of Ariela's aunt Rebecca.
(11) At the present time it is known as Raudondvaris and is near the village of Šilelis where Ariela was living.
(12) 27-28 March 1944 a cruel Children’s Action took place in the Kaunas Ghetto: 1,700 children and old people were taken from the ghetto in two days and transported to Auschwitz for annihilation.
(13) Slobodka (also known by its Lithuanian name: Vilijampolė) was the district of Kaunas, in which the Ghetto was situated.