Oral history interview with Masha Rolnikaite

Masha Rolnikaite papers

Document

The Masha Rolnikaite collection consists of correspondence, documents, manuscript texts, news clippings, and other related materials, concerning the life and literary career of Rolnikaite (1927-2016), the Lithuanian-born chronicler of the Holocaust, whose best known work was her account of her time spent in the Vilnius ghetto, titled “Ia dolzhna rasskazat’” (I Must Tell). The correspondence series includes various letters written by and sent to Masha Rolnikaite. These include Boris Galperin son of Dmitry Galperin and survivor of the Kovno ghetto; Mira, Masha’s older sister and survivor of the Vilna ghetto; and Yaakov Bunka, a Jewish Lithuanian sculptor who lived and worked in Plunge, Lithuania, and includes Masha Rolnikaite’s review of the book of Yaakov Bunka Plunge: Pages of the History; as well as readers, publishers, and various institutions. The correspondence of Ilya Ehrenburg and Masha Rolnikaite include articles and speeches written by Ilya Ehrenburg; Rolnikaite’s recollection about her first meeting with Ilya Ehrenburg in 1961; the introduction written by Ilya Ehrenburg to the French edition of I Must Tell; memoirs about Ilya Ehrenburg written by Arthur Khavkin, 1970; memoirs about a meeting with Ljuba Michailowna Kosinzewa (Ehrenburg’s widow) and Irina Erburg (Ehrenburg’s adopted daughter) written by Arthur Khavkin, 1967- 1970; a translation of Arthur Khavkin memoirs in Yiddish; a translation of the response written by Irina Ehrenburg and published in the Yiddish newspaper Naye Presse regarding the transfer of the Ilya Ehrenburg archives to Yad Vashem Museum’s archives, 1988; fragments of memoirs of meeting meeting with Ilya Ehrenburg and Lyubov Kozintseva (Liubov Kozintsova) in 1940 with translation, 1989; newspaper clippings and articles about Ilya Ehrenburg published literary journals; and two photographs of Ilya Ehrenburg. The Holocaust testimonies and articles include Zverstva w Ponarakh ( Crimes in Ponary) amd My ne sdavalis (We did not surrender) by Yuliy Farber; “Kak Vam Zhivetsya”(How do you do) by Kszisztof Konkolewski about Maximilian Kolbe; “Plen” (Captivity) by Sonya Anvaer, Soviet POW; Table of contents of a Soviet publication of the selected testimonies about the Holocaust, including an excerpt from Rolnikaite’s article; “Testimony about life in Fascist Captivity,” by Lev Ruzhetsky, 1944, a 7th grade student in Odessa; Margarite Aliger – Ilya Ehrenburg poetry; “Babiy Yar” poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and poetic responses by Aleksey Markov “Moy Otvet (My response), response poem by A. Yakovlev and Samuil Marshak to Markov; “Shtetale Belz” poem in Russian by unidentified author; a “I was 15” from the Shmerke Kaczerginski collection in Yad Vashem which contains excerpts from the diaries of children from the Vilna ghetto (Yitskhok Rudashevski, Gabik Hellere, Masha Rolnikaite); a letter from David Fishman, an American Jewish historian, with a manuscript; “Songs from Camps and Ghettos” Shmerke Kaczerginski” with the dedication to Masha Rolnikaite written by Nechama Lifshitzaite, a Lithuanian Jewish vocalist and a translation of the song into Russian. Also included are articles by Christine M. Pabst and Manfred Wieninger regarding Anton Schmid, a rescuer of Jews from the Vilna ghetto; correspondence between Pabst, Wieninger, and Rolnikaite; “Stena Placha,” a poem by I. Kushkin (student at school #180 in St. Petersburg); “unpublished facts” and other notes for various publications, corrections, clarifications, preparatory and research materials, and translations of newspaper articles.