- So tell me when you were born.
- I was born in 1924.
- I was born in the small coastal town on the Baltic Sea.
- In those days it was called Memel, M-E-M-E-L.
- Rather old town with a German culture.
- Was on the northernmost point of the last German Empire.
- After World War II it became known as--
- I mean after World War I became known as Klaipeda.
- And when I was born, it was no longer
- German territory but Lithuanian territory
- which Hitler took back in 1939.
- And tell me your recollections of the start of the war.
- Start of the war I guess we could put a point in time
- as 1940, 1941 after we had had a short Russian occupation
- in Kovno--
- by short may have lasted a year--
- the collapse of the Molotov-Ribbentrop
- Pact of Nonaggression and the entry of the German troops,
- I'm not even sure of the month or year
- but I might say maybe June 1941.
- What did you personally hear or see when they came in?
- What do you remember?
- The night preceding the advance of the German troops
- on their motorcycles and probably armored cars,
- but the night before there was a lot of artillery noise
- that seemed to be coming from the airport in Kovno,
- just a very ominous sound.
- And I think most people, Jews and Gentiles alike, Jews
- and Lithuanians alike, were aware that the German army was
- going to march in that week.
- And what about before the Germans came,
- the pogroms that took place, did you see any of those?
- No, I didn't see any pogroms.
- But I don't even recall hearing about them
- before the German occupation.
- I think all that happened after the German occupation.
- Tell me about it.
- Tell me what you know about it.
- Mostly rumors.
- Well, I do remember that the house we were living
- in then we only had a small room that we were renting
- at the time in a part of Kovno that was called Zalias Kalnas,
- meaning The Green Mountain.
- And it was an apartment house.
- There were two young students living in the basement,
- and even though I didn't know them well,
- I had just a very casual passing-in-the-corridor
- acquaintance with them.
- And they told me the day before the occupation
- that they had planned on escaping with the Russians who
- were in retreat.
- And so there was actually a very, very panic-stricken
- Jewish population trying to decide whether it was better
- to run or to stay.
- And during this mad rush to get out were the Russians.
- I think at that point already the Lithuanian partisans
- went into action and just fell upon some innocent victims who
- were trying to escape.
- But I think the real partisan mass
- murders came after the Russians had finally retreated
- and life resumed some normalcy for those who had stayed
- behind, but not for long.
- What do you mean by "not for long"?
- Well, at that point, rumors--
- Before there even was talk of a ghetto,
- we heard about people in the city
- who had been abducted from their homes
- by willing Lithuanian so-called partisans who also ransacked
- the homes, would round up mostly men and either taunt
- and torture them or shoot them.
- I didn't see any of this with my own eyes
- because I have no idea whether the suburb that we lived in
- was more protected than the rest of the city,
- but no, I have no knowledge of seeing with my own eyes
- the brutal acts of the Lithuanian partisans.
- But you heard about it at the time.
- Yes.
- And so how did you hear about it and what action did you take?
- No action.
- In our case, we were a family of three.
- I'm an only child, and my mother was suffering
- the consequences of a recent stroke
- and was quite incapacitated.
- I can't say that she was totally incapacitated,
- but she had to be cared for.
- So even if we had wanted to escape,
- it would not have been feasible.
- That would not have been practical.
- So we stayed in this little room and consulted
- with all the other neighbors and everybody was panic-stricken
- but not really knowing what to do.
- And tell me about the formation of the ghetto.
- Well, as soon as the German I guess military administration
- was formed, all the racial laws against the Jews
- were put into effect, the racial laws, the Nuremberg laws that
- had already been implemented in Germany
- and other occupied countries.
- And I can be more specific and mention
- that none of the Jewish academicians or professionals
- were allowed to go about their work.
- The doctors were not allowed to practice medicine unless they
- were seeing Jewish patients.
- Lawyers were dismissed from their firms
- and professors were dismissed from their academic positions.
- And a curfew was instituted I think at 6 o'clock
- all the Jews had to be in their homes.
- The yellow star, the wearing of the yellow star
- was made mandatory.
- That was a piece of yellow cloth shaped like a star.
- And this started to be worn on the outer clothing,
- on the left-hand side of the chest, as well as on the back.
- It had to be firmly sewn on versus being pinned on,
- which could always indicate the intention to escape or blend
- with the general population.
- Also, Jews were made to walk in the street or in the gutter.
- They were not allowed to walk on the sidewalk.
- And all the men had to--
- Let's just back up to what happened to the men taking off
- their hats?
- Well, I don't think I can add anything to that.
- Those were the first blows to our civil liberties.
- And tell me about the formation of the ghetto.
- And do you remember moving in?
- Yes, I do.
- The decree went out that all Jews in the city of Kovno
- were ordered to relocate to a ghetto, which was the poorest
- part of the city with mostly dilapidated huts,
- even though there were some more substantial farmhouses
- to be found also, as well as some newly constructed
- apartments, referred to as blocks, which
- had been constructed for the industrial workers,
- Lithuanian workers.
- The date, there was set as the--
- Well, the date was the 15th of August.
- The reason I remember that is because it fell on my birthday
- and I forgot whether it was 1940 or 1941.
- I think it was 1941.
- We had about two months to relocate.
- The way this relocation was handled
- was that first one had to secure a place to stay in the ghetto.
- And the inhabitants, I mean the Jews of Kovno, some of whom
- had been quite well-to-do, had owned
- either their homes, apartments, or houses,
- so they were in a position to trade
- their well-established, comfortable homes
- for a peasant's home in the newly formed ghetto.
- Naturally, it was not an equitable trade,
- but at least they had a place to stay.
- The three of us were at a disadvantage
- because we had nothing to trade, so we
- depended on the kindness of strangers to give us a space.
- And after a long search, my father
- was able to find a pharmacist, an elderly pharmacist
- friend of my mother's, who had owned
- the pharmacy in my mother's village where she had grown up.
- So Mr. Masahovich and his wife told my father
- that they had a small attic space that they could spare,
- that everything else had already been spoken for,
- and that the three of us could have this attic space.
- So that's what we did.
- We had very few belongings.
- I think we may have owned a bedroom suite.
- And we had a sewing machine for some reasons, which
- I till this day don't understand or remember
- how or why we kept the sewing machine
- from our original household, but it came in very handy later.
- So there was a bed that was moved,
- a sewing machine, and maybe a chair or two
- and the clothes that we had been able to save
- from our original home.
- Then my dad hired a, well, found a peasant with a horse
- and wagon and he paid him for the transportation
- of our worldly goods to the ghetto.
- And what was the attic like?
- How big was it?
- Very small.
- I'm very bad at dimensions, but it was a long, narrow space
- that held my parents' bed on the one long wall
- and my cot and the sewing machine opposite my cot.
- And there was a window next to my cot that I could look out,
- and I saw many brutal and memorable, unforgettable scenes
- from that window.
- And just a very primitive door that led from one
- attic space to our small attic space.
- Because on the other side of the wall another family was living.
- And that family consisted of four people,
- mother, father, adult daughter who was a medical student,
- and her young brother who was maybe 12 years old at the time.
- These people became our very good and trusted friends,
- and I would like to mention that the older son, Ted Pace,
- is going to be interviewed tomorrow
- and I hope to have the chance to meet up
- with him after 50 years.
- You said you witnessed some brutal things
- outside the window.
- Was one of them the Intelligentsia?
- That was the first one that I saw from my window.
- Tell me about it.
- A call had to go out for I think 500
- young men with a good academic background and language skills,
- possibly fluent in German and Russian,
- to report for work on a certain day, at a certain time.
- It was early on.
- I don't remember the date.
- It may have been August or maybe early September.
- And because the work conditions seemed so wonderful by ghetto
- standards, because already food was scarce
- and men had been taken away for forced labor--
- I'm not even sure what it was--
- it sounded like a wonderful opportunity
- to be situated in a safe office environment,
- perhaps even get a meal or two during the day,
- and then return at night.
- Because I wasn't working at the time yet--
- excuse me-- I had the luxury of staying in our attic
- and looking out of the window.
- And here I saw them coming to--
- There's open space.
- It was near what we call the big blocks, at least
- that's how I remember it, and I looked at their faces
- and I and I recognized a few of them.
- One had been my former math tutor
- because my math skills were always very weak.
- And I recognized a few other a young men.
- I think I saw some Germans surrounding them--
- it's a little hazy in my mind--
- and some pushing and rough handling,
- and then they were led off.
- So I didn't actually see shootings going on,
- but just very rough treatment.
- And then how did you figure out what happened?
- I didn't have a clue except that--
- Three marker.
- Sorry.
- That made it worse.
- Hold on a second.
- Four marker.
- So you thought you remembered something about the Germans.
- Yes, at the very last I think they
- couldn't find they couldn't get their final count of 500.
- They must have barged into homes and dragged
- some able-bodied, young Jewish men out of their homes
- and added them to the rest of the group.
- And so you had a bad feeling when they left,
- and then how did you figure out what happened?
- I was still optimistic when they left.
- And when the truth finally came out,
- it was just total disbelief.
- Such deception.
- And then--
- Yeah, when I found out that they had been killed,
- I think they were killed at one of the fortresses.
- I forget which one.
- How did you find that out?
- Did it just come in--
- Well, the news just spread like wildfire throughout the ghetto.
- Neighbors huddled together and counted the losses.
- Many of our family friends were in that group.
- The best-- the best minds were taken out of the ghetto.
- The best minds who might have been
- able to provide leadership, they were no longer there.
- And then not long after that, near the end of October,
- was the big action.
- Can you tell me how that happened?
- Yes.
- It was the last Tuesday in the month of October, 1941.
- Again, posters must have been nailed to public buildings,
- and verbal commands had gone out that
- on the morning of Tuesday--
- I forgot the date--
- October.
- Maybe it was the 28th.
- Was it?
- Every person-- every Jewish person in the ghetto--
- had to report at--
- it may have been 6 o'clock in the morning.
- Very, very early-- at the public square, which
- was called Democracy Square.
- Everybody was able to walk, regardless of age.
- The houses had to be left--
- the doors had to be left open.
- Everybody who was found in the home would be executed.
- Executed on the spot.
- And ostensibly, this was done for the taking of a census.
- And it didn't look good.
- In our case, my mother could barely walk.
- But I do remember that the house where we were living
- was very close to the square, so we had
- a very short distance to walk.
- We may have had a 5- or 10-minute walk at the most.
- And we had planned to leave our house around 5:30.
- Well, around 4:00 on that morning,
- I could hear footsteps, never-ending footsteps.
- It was still-- there was still total darkness.
- It was a cold, damp, foggy, kind of late fall, early winter day.
- There may have been some snow on the ground.
- There may have been some wet snow falling.
- And the three of us, my mother, father, and I,
- started getting ready for our trip down the steps
- and out the door.
- Before we did that, I dabbed some lipstick
- on my mother's cheeks to make her look a little more healthy.
- We dressed warmly and just started out towards the square.
- My father was supporting my mother on one side.
- I was supporting her on the other side.
- And we slowly walked--
- joined the rest of the gray mass that
- was walking in front of us, and made it to the square.
- At the square there was total chaos.
- Family units didn't know where to stand.
- Everybody, of course at that point, already had a work pass
- and was affiliated with a work group.
- My father was-- as head of the family--
- we joined his work outfit, and he
- was working at the military airport doing
- just manual labor, construction work, digging, hauling rocks,
- that sort of thing.
- So we looked for the larger contingent of airfield workers,
- and we stood with them, and stood and waited.
- As we were waiting--
- and at that point I think there were about 28,000 Jews
- in the ghetto, so all of them, or most of them,
- were assembled on the square.
- And so we noticed that several German officers--
- I don't know what unit they belonged to, whether they
- were SS or some other unit.
- I suspect they were members of the SS.
- And one of them was greatly feared.
- His name was Rauca, R-A-U-C-A.
- And he was-- I had never seen him before,
- but he was pointed out to me.
- And I think he was standing behind some sort of table,
- and there may have been a chair, and there
- were some papers on that table.
- And he was not alone.
- There were other Germans with him.
- I don't know whether there were dogs or not.
- I don't remember that, but they all
- had their pistols in their holster and possibly whips.
- Well, as soon as family units had found their were groups,
- there was a little more order in the square.
- And I remember that we were still standing around noon.
- Nothing had-- nobody had moved from our group.
- Nobody had passed in review before Rauca,
- but we could see what he was doing.
- He was assigning family units to the left and to the right,
- and already it was very obvious that the people who
- had been assigned to the right where
- the healthy and the able-bodied and the younger looking ones.
- And certainly no children among that group.
- And the families with children, perhaps their elderly parents
- or older people or sick people had been motioned to the left.
- And the three of us were just standing there, cold, stunned--
- Mark 15.
- Marker 5.
- So you and your parents were standing there,
- waiting and petrified.
- That's where we're picking up.
- Perhaps I should not say that the able-bodied were assigned
- to the right side because there are times when I'm not sure
- as to which the good side was, but what
- was happening before our eyes was the human tragedy that
- was unfolding.
- Families that were torn apart, were--
- perhaps the elderly parents were separated from their younger
- adult children, or sometimes even the mothers with children
- were separated from their husbands.
- And the crying and the despair, it was--
- it was just devastating.
- Of course our worry was how to get by,
- get past the inspection table.
- How would we get my mother through?
- I don't know if it was the hand of God,
- but we passed the table and Rauca must have-- perhaps
- was looking the other way.
- I know at one time he was eating his sandwich for lunch,
- and calmly eating his sandwich, holding it in one hand,
- and with the other hand directing people
- to life or to death.
- And it may have been that during one of those moments while he
- was not looking, the three of us were
- able to slip past the reviewing stand.
- And once we were on the other side, we were so relieved.
- We knew it wasn't over yet, but at least we
- had reached a safety point, a safe haven for whatever period
- would be allotted to us.
- And how did you find out what happened to the people who
- went to the bad side?
- Probably the next day.
- They were all taken.
- Let me also add that 10,000 people were taken away
- on that day.
- They were led away, and--
- pardon me for backtracking, but we came home,
- we had to take account who was still in the house
- and who had been taken away.
- So in our house everybody except the old pharmacist and his wife
- returned.
- We went back to the square the next morning
- and found Mr. [? Mesahovich ?] slumped over
- on a camp stool, which his wife had brought along
- for him to rest, because she knew it was
- going to be a long day for him.
- He must have suffered a heart attack,
- and he was just left behind slumped over.
- His wife must have been led away.
- Shall I confess at this point that the two of them
- had tried to remain close to us and form a family unit with us?
- And that I certainly was trying to get away from them because I
- knew that our chances--
- our chances were slim to begin with,
- and I was afraid that if there was an elderly couple with us
- our chances would be even slimmer.
- So they did not return.
- Instead we found an old woman whom nobody knew.
- She was sitting in a chair in the kitchen
- when we came back, exhausted of course.
- Completely drained of all emotion.
- And we asked her--
- and the Jewish word for old woman is [? alt-- ?] or we
- called her {?_{?_[YIDDISH]_?}_?} little old woman.
- What are you doing here?
- Where did you come from?
- And she said she just got too tired walking to the square,
- she was all by herself, so she walked into the first open door
- and waited.
- OK.
- And within a few days everyone in the ghetto
- knew what had happened?
- Yes.
- I'm sure we heard the shooting coming from the Ninth Fort.
- And oh, at first there were all sorts of rumors
- that the people who had been separated from the rest
- would be assigned new workplaces outside of the ghetto,
- but at that point nobody believed these rumors.
- And then we could hear the shooting.
- And we had the proof that they were gone.
- And then gradually life became--
- Yes.
- Life returned to ghetto normalcy.
- Let me see what happened to us after that.
- I was assigned a work place, so I had a work card.
- And I can tell you about that.
- Tell me about your work.
- Because I was very fortunate in getting this assignment.
- It was in a greenhouse.
- I worked in a greenhouse along with perhaps a small group
- of 20 people.
- And there were several pluses to this work site.
- First, it was inside the ghetto.
- I didn't have far to walk.
- I didn't have to walk one or two hours every day
- to the airfield, as most other people did,
- who were doing really backbreaking labor there.
- I just had this short walk to the nursery
- where we grew out-of-season vegetables for the SS
- hierarchy.
- And the best part of all, we had a Jewish supervisor,
- horticulturist by the name of Mr [? Kapit. ?]
- He was the brother of a former math professor.
- A very decent man.
- We still had to do our work, but it certainly
- was not backbreaking.
- We planted seedlings and transport--
- I mean, we planted seeds, transplanted the seedlings,
- and grew them to the point where we could harvest
- all sorts of vegetables, cucumbers, radishes, carrots,
- asparagus, green onions.
- We not allowed to take anything home.
- It was a great treat to be allowed
- to take a few tips of green onion home
- and have it with our microscopic ration of bread.
- It was a great treat.
- And like I said, the Jewish supervisor
- was certainly the exact opposite of a German guard
- who could have hovered over us with a gun or threats
- or taunts.
- Who was the food for?
- It was grown exclusively for the use of German officers.
- Is that what you asked me?
- Did you smuggle?
- I personally never got involved in smuggle,
- but as far as the producer was concerned, no.
- Nothing was taken out.
- It would have been too dangerous to endanger the other people
- in the group, as well as our good--
- If I've never been in the ghetto I and I
- haven't even heard of the ghetto can you just sort of describe
- to me in general what a ghetto is like
- or what that ghetto was like?
- Were there schools?
- Was there a culture?
- In the beginning there were some makeshift schools
- for the children.
- In the beginning there were books.
- In the beginning there was a hospital
- that had been established on ghetto grounds.
- But as time went on, children were taken away.
- There were no more schools necessary.
- The hospital was burned to the ground
- with patients and doctors burned alive.
- The books were burned.
- And it was just a very, very gray existence of hardship.
- It was so cold.
- There was no--
- In the winters where temperatures dropped
- to 30 and 40 degrees below zero and people
- have no firewood to heat the premises.
- I remember that when we went to bed
- we covered ourselves with every feather quilt, every coat
- that we still owned before we had to turn in our fur coats
- to the Germans.
- But the existence was, it was almost on a subhuman level.
- Microscopic rations.
- I don't know what the official rations were.
- I think some working people had some food supplements.
- There was a curfew at night, maybe 6 o'clock
- unless some workers returned from their night shift
- and then they were exempt from the curfew.
- It was just a bare existence with a lot of hunger pangs,
- cold, and exhaustion.
- Plus hopelessness.
- Actually, I never felt hopeless.
- Of course, I had the luxury of not feeling hopeless because I
- was only in my mid teens.
- Yes, young people still were able to see,
- had the energy or interest in seeing their school
- friends on the only day they didn't have to work.
- I think Sunday there was a day to regroup, wash up
- and so it really was a very harsh existence.
- Not only that, and then the either Ukrainian guards
- or Lithuanian partisans, whoever was assigned to guard duty,
- would barge in and the German soldiers or SS
- would barge in for no reason at all
- and just terrorize the people they found in the home.
- Mostly hunger prevailed.
- People froze to death too.
- All of sudden, they disappeared.
- They weren't seen, they weren't heard from.
- They may have died from hunger and nobody
- knew because we certainly didn't have telephones.
- We were not allowed to bring in the newspaper.
- We were not allowed to have cameras or radios.
- All electrical appliances had to be turned in early on.
- I don't remember whether we had electricity or not.
- I know some homes did but I forgot whether we
- had to use candles or not.
- Certainly there was no sanitation.
- There was an outhouse in our case, in our first place,
- in our attic space that was our first residence.
- There was an outhouse that the men took turns cleaning.
- And the water was brought in from the well.
- In the winter the well froze and one had to chop real hard
- to get to the water.
- All of us had access to the shared kitchen
- where occasionally I would take a bath in a tin tub.
- And the way to ensure privacy was to put up a sheet
- and tell everybody not to walk through the kitchen.
- So that was a very minor inconvenience
- compared to the other dangers.
- What about the administration the ghetto police?
- Our ghetto administration was composed
- of very honorable men we were very fortunate in that respect.
- Our ghetto elder was a highly respected surgeon whose wife
- we knew from way back.
- And he delegated authority and made decisions
- with the rest of his council to the best of his ability.
- Not easy decisions.
- Police?
- I just know that we had ghetto police.
- I may have known some of them personally,
- and often they had to perform very hard assignments
- like rounding up, like making up lists
- or rounding up people for relocation
- from lists that were provided to them,
- and that must have been very difficult.
- I know nothing really good or bad about the ghetto police.
- But you weren't afraid.
- No.
- Oh, I also know they had a very decent--
- The chief of police was one of the most decent men
- in the ghetto.
- I forget his name.
- The day of the Kinder Aktion, which was much later in 1944,
- tell me what you saw.
- I happened to be home on that day.
- I didn't report to work because I was suffering from what
- I thought was a bad cold.
- I was running a fever, and because I
- had a Jewish supervisor I thought
- I would stay home and just get better and make up all the work
- that I missed the next day.
- I knew that no reprisals would be taken against me.
- Well, I was not prepared for that day.
- When was it?
- I think it was in March, in March of 1944.
- And it may have been the last week in March also.
- My mother had died several years before.
- She died a natural death, but she
- died as a result of starvation and the consequences
- of the pneumonia.
- She just didn't have the resistance to fight it.
- But by God's grace she died a natural death.
- She was not taken away from us.
- Did you have a ceremony?
- We had a ceremony at the cemetery.
- It was a very sad funeral procession.
- An emaciated horse was pulling some sort of a makeshift wagon.
- My mother's body was wrapped in a shroud in the orthodox manner
- of burying the dead and a righteous man had kept vigil.
- Worker.
- So you were telling me about the Kinderaktion.
- Yes.
- I stayed home because of the bad cold.
- And had I worked anyplace else, I
- would certainly have reported to work,
- because it was unforgivable to miss work.
- It could have had harsh consequences.
- The young couple who shared the room with my father and me,
- because we had already been relocated
- to another place as the ghetto had been made smaller a year
- or so predating this date.
- So the only people in this one room
- that I was sharing with, like I said,
- other people, other families, was also
- occupied by an elderly couple who
- didn't work outside the ghetto.
- Who were the guardians of a young granddaughter
- who may have been three, four or five years old.
- A very good child.
- I never saw her during the day.
- But I didn't-- nobody even knew there was a child in the room.
- She was so quiet.
- The people left that morning were the elderly couple,
- the little girl, and I. The three of us were all dressed.
- The little girl I don't remember.
- Whatever time it was, but it was early in the morning, maybe 8
- o'clock, I look out the window.
- And I see buses lining up down the street, trucks, buses.
- And Germans jumping out with dogs.
- And one of those trucks--
- I don't remember whether it had a cover on the back or not.
- Anyway, one of those trucks stops before our house.
- Out jump the Germans in their shiny boots, grim faces.
- And momentarily, they barge into the kitchen,
- a very small kitchen.
- They barge in there and barge into the bedroom.
- And they survey the room and say--
- tell the three of us, because the child was already hidden,
- the three adults, to stand and explain why we're not at work.
- The elderly couple, to the best of my recollection,
- did not have a steady workplace.
- I think they earned their bread, their meager bread, by doing--
- they were sawing wood for other people who needed--
- who brought home logs.
- Maybe had smuggled out some logs from the workplace.
- And the elderly man had a good saw, which
- he sharpened all the time.
- And they went around doing this intermittent work.
- And always took the little girl along.
- Well, they must have realized that these trucks bode no good.
- I mean, especially for the little girl,
- because at that time, there were very few children
- left in the ghetto.
- Frantically, the grandmother had put the little girl
- into the bed that was shared by all three,
- and had heaped all the blankets and quilts.
- Well, actually, she had made it so it would look
- that it was just a made-up bed.
- So first of all, one of the soldiers or officers
- confronts me and wants to know why I'm not at my workplace.
- Fortunately, I was dressed.
- I showed him my work permit.
- But what I said to him, I do not--
- I don't know.
- I was stunned, petrified, and my heart was racing.
- I am sure it could be seen through what I was wearing.
- I think at one time it actually stopped beating.
- He left me alone.
- He gave the grandparents a stern look.
- Perhaps he admonished me to not stay home anymore,
- that this could carry grave consequences,
- but I really don't remember.
- But he spoke to me sternly then shoved me away or out
- of the way.
- The grandparents, he left--
- said something in a harsh language to them,
- left them alone, then started tearing up the room.
- I think all three did that.
- They tore up the room.
- And it didn't take them any time to tear apart
- the bed clothes to come upon the little girl
- and dragged her out.
- When they made sure there is nobody
- else hiding and nothing else was to be found,
- they dragged her out towards this truck.
- And the grandmother ran after them, fell down--
- fell on her knees.
- Begged, pleaded, cried, wailed, followed them out to the truck
- to the curb.
- And one of the soldiers either used his gun or a club
- and hit her.
- And she fell to the ground.
- She fell down in the street.
- The truck took off, and she was left behind.
- They took the little girl.
- There were other children on the truck.
- I could see that from the window.
- After I had seen that, I didn't want to see anymore.
- I know the grandmother came back in.
- And it was probably the greatest human tragedy
- that I have seen before my eyes.
- And so three weeks later, you?
- Three weeks later, shortly thereafter the kinder Aktion,
- my father decided that there was no hope for anybody
- to stay alive in the ghetto.
- And it would be--
- it was time for me to make arrangements to escape.
- Do you want to hear about that?
- Oh, that was easier said than done.
- It was very hard to find a family, a Lithuanian family,
- who would provide shelter.
- For good reason.
- They would put their own lives into grave danger.
- Harboring a Jew was almost a--
- what is it?
- Well, a death sentence.
- And so there was one hurdle, to find a place,
- to find a person willing to provide shelter.
- The other hurdle was to get out of the ghetto.
- All gates were guarded.
- It was difficult to slip through the fence.
- There are guard towers that are manned at all times.
- And there were ways to slip out with a work group,
- or work brigade, as they were called,
- that worked outside of the ghetto.
- And with the knowledge--
- it was usually best that with the knowledge of the group
- leader one could slip away either
- to do some trading, bartering, get food.
- Eight Mark.
- So you could get out with the work brigade.
- Yes.
- So the preliminary plans that had to be made
- were to establish contact with a former bookkeeper who
- had worked for my dad in my hometown.
- Perhaps it's somewhat reminiscent of the Frank
- family's bookkeeper.
- This was a very devoted former employee
- who had known me since--
- practically since I was born, and had always
- allowed me to have the run of the office, and type on--
- and play on every typewriter that I could find.
- She had married a Lithuanian.
- She was herself a German of Russian German descent
- who had married a Lithuanian and had
- moved to Kovno after her marriage,
- after Memel had been retaken by the Germans in 1939.
- And my dad had found out that her husband occasionally came
- to the ghetto on some business.
- I'm not quite sure what it was.
- But there were some work--
- what is it?
- I can think of the German word.
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]
- Workshops.
- Yes, workshops, exactly, where German uniforms were repaired.
- And perhaps other repair work was done.
- And the bookkeeper's husband, [? Maita's ?] husband,
- occasionally came to the ghetto.
- My father could not contact him personally,
- because my father did not work inside the ghetto.
- He worked at the airfield.
- But I believe that he passed on written messages
- to be delivered to [? Maita's ?] husband asking him
- if there was a way--
- if they knew of anybody who would take me in.
- And the reply came back a short while later
- that if I could find a way out-- a safe way out of the ghetto,
- that I could stay with [? Maita ?] and her husband
- in Kaunas in their very own apartment.
- At least for a while.
- Maybe later, they would find a safer place for me
- in the country, perhaps.
- But that happened April or May.
- I think it was in April.
- So very hasty arrangements were made.
- None by me.
- All done by my father, to whom I really owe my life.
- He found a work brigade that worked outside the ghetto.
- The group leader was willing to let me join
- his group on a certain day.
- His group was guarded by several German guards, some of whom
- had shown a shred of humanity in the past
- and had let people not connected with the group
- either leave the group before they got to their workplace.
- And so I left with--
- I went to the place of assembly.
- It was a small group.
- Unfortunately, I don't remember the group's leader's name.
- But I do know that they had to cross
- a small river from the ghetto to get to their workplace.
- So all of us--
- it must have been the river Neris.
- The group, 10 or 15 people at the most,
- all sat down in a row boat.
- And the boat crossed the river.
- I don't know if the guard had been bribed or not.
- I don't know that.
- Some guards would take a bribe and would look the other way.
- Some would take a bribe and would not look the other way.
- I also had to have somebody help me to take off the yellow star.
- Both of them, front and back, had been pinned on.
- I could certainly handle the one in the front, needed somebody
- to help me with the star in the back.
- And I didn't know that, but a dear friend
- was in that work group.
- And she sat behind me.
- So I asked her, would she remove the pins from the star.
- She did.
- She wished me good luck, embraced me.
- She survived.
- She was in Israel.
- I don't know if she's still alive.
- Her name was [? Shainale ?] [? Suvolsky. ?] She had been
- one of my mother's nurses.
- Well, we reached the other side of the river at the--
- yes.
- Everybody got out and regrouped.
- And I stayed behind and hid behind some bushes, waited
- until everybody had left.
- And our meeting place had been previously
- discussed and designated.
- It was on the major highway just a few feet
- from the small river where [? Maita ?] would
- be waiting in a carriage.
- And as soon as we saw each other,
- we had to just get on with our journey.
- There was I guess a coachman who--
- that was the only transportation available.
- Very few civilian cars were available in the city.
- So she was sitting there waiting for me.
- I jumped in.
- We didn't say a word.
- Both of us must have been very, very tense and very,
- very scared.
- And she signaled that we were ready to get
- to her destination.
- And not one word was exchanged during the whole trip
- until we got to her place.
- And incidentally, she had a very, very nice place.
- And once we got there, we regrouped.
- And she gave me some coffee and revived my spirits.
- I think both of us were trembling
- when we made it up the stairs.
- And many things happened in that apartment also.
- Ostensibly, I was going to be the maid there.
- I had my own room.
- And I certainly was not treated like a maid.
- But for anybody who visited, I had to play the role of a maid.
- And for the most part, I did that well.
- I found out late--
- yes, she told me that because the apartment was so large--
- it really was a luxury apartment on the main street in Kaunas--
- they had to give up one room to an SS woman who worked
- in the civilian administration.
- And of course she told me to be very careful
- and not to let on that I understood
- a syllable of German.
- That I was there as the newly hired Lithuanian maid.
- I think she gave me a kerchief to tie around
- my head and apron.
- And some coarse clothes, because I certainly
- didn't bring any clothes.
- I didn't have any clothes.
- So yes, I had to be very careful around this very
- arrogant I think SS woman.
- And I helped in the kitchen.
- I was very pleasant.
- I stayed out of sight when somebody
- visited, went to my room.
- Until one day, [? Maita ?] had a visitor.
- A trusted friend.
- A German woman.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Brigitte Altman
- Interviewer
- Sandra Bradley
- Date
-
interview:
1997 May 27
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
4 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Brigitte Altman on May 27, 1997 in preparation for the exhibition "Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto," which opened in November 1997. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a copy of the interview on July 11, 1998.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:41:40
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn511020
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto collection
Contains oral history interviews with sixteen Holocaust survivors recorded in preparation for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibition, "Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto," which opened in Nov. 1997. Collection includes interviews with: Brigitte Altman, Miriam Gershwin, Eta Hecht, Henry Kellen, Tamar Lazerson, David Levine, Jacob Lewin, Esther Lurie, Ted Pais, Avraham Pnina, Abraham Rodstein, Ivar Segalowitz, Avraham Tory, Helen Yermus, Celia Yewlow, and Berel Zisman. The interviewees discuss their experiences of living in the ghetto in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, during the Holocaust
Date: 1997 May-1997 July
Oral history interview with David Levine
Oral History
Oral history interview with Celia Yewlow
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ivar Segalowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eta Hecht
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Kellen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Abraham Rodstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Miriam Gershwin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ted Pais
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jacob Lewin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Berel Zisman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helen Yermus
Oral History
Oral history interview with Avraham Tory
Oral History
Avraham Tory (né Golub), born in 1910 in the small town of Lazdijai, Lithuania, discusses hiding in Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) when the war broke out on June 22, 1941; keeping a diary for three years; life in the Kovno ghetto and life in hiding for four and a half months; leaving Kovno to go to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania); escaping in February 1945 and going to Lublin, Poland; his escape route through Bucharest, Romania as well as Czechoslovakia and Hungary; crossing the Austrian border and subsequently going to Italy, where he became active in the illegal immigration movement; arriving in Tel Aviv on October 17, 1947; his early years in Palestine; and the sequence of events that led to the publication of the “Surviving the Holocaust: the Kovno Ghetto diary” (see https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib2956).
Oral history interview with Pnina Tory
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther Lurie
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tamar Lazerson
Oral History