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Oral history interview with Shalom Eilati

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.351 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0351

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    Oral history interview with Shalom Eilati

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Shalom Eilati, born in 1933 in Kaunas, Lithuania, discusses being the eldest of two children; attending a Hebrew school; holiday visits to his grandfather, a rabbi in Viduklė; Soviet occupation; transfer to a Yiddish school; German invasion in June 1941; staying in a bunker for three days; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization in August; his father's appointment to the Aeltestenrat, which saved many Jews, as ghetto historian; attending school; a large round-up in fall 1941 from which they were freed; the next morning hearing and seeing mass shootings in the distance at the Ninth Fort and corpses at the round-up area; his father's deportation to Riga, Latvia in February 1942; receiving letters from him through Lithuanian and Latvian friends; his mother smuggling food into the ghetto from her workplace; joining a Zionist group guarding community gardens; public hanging of a friend for smuggling; singing in a choir; his mother's involvement in the ghetto underground, through which he met its leader, Chaim Yellin; his mother taking his sister to hide with Lithuanians; attending an ORT school; hiding during the round-up of children; his mother arranging for him to be smuggled out of the ghetto and hidden with a Lithuanian family in April 1944; being moved to a farm in Liepynai in June; the farmer sending him to hide in the forest; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Marijampolė; returning to Kaunas with help from a Soviet officer; living with a Jewish couple for a year; finding personal belongings in the ashes of the ghetto; living in an orphanage for six months; hearing from his father; leaving to join him with a Beriḥah group; capture by Soviets in Vilnius; interrogation by the NKVD; escaping; the Jewish community hiding him, then arranging his travel to join his father in Munich, Germany in March 1946; immigration to Palestine two weeks later; joining his aunt; celebrating his bar mitzvah three weeks after his arrival; nightmares resulting from his experiences; his father's reluctance to share his experiences; difficulty confirming his mother's and sister's deaths; and writing his memoir over the last twenty-three years. (He shows photographs and sings ghetto songs.)
    Interviewee
    Shalom Eilati
    Date
    interview:  1999 February 14
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Genre/Form
    Music.
    Extent
    15 videocasettes (Betacam SP) : 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

    Topical Term
    Bar mitzvah. Devintasis Fortas Massacre, Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941 (October 29) Escapes. Forced labor. Hanging. Holocaust survivors--Family relationships. Holocaust survivors--Israel--Interviews. Holocaust survivors' writings. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Songs and music. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Songs and music. Human smuggling. Jewish children in the Holocaust. Jewish councils. Jewish ghettos. Jews--Lithuania--Kaunas. Mass murder--Lithuania--Kaunas. Massacres--Lithuania--Kaunas. Orphanages. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities. World War, 1939-1945--Children. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Lithuania. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Jewish. World War, 1939-1945--Songs and music. Zionists. Men--Personal narratives.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Shalom Eilati in Israel on February 14, 1999. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview on June 10, 1999, as an accretion to the original collection of Israel Documentation Project interviews received by transfer in February 1995.
    Funding Note
    The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:16:21
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn503317

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