Avraham Tory (born Avraham Golub) was born in Lazdijai, Lithuania in 1909. He was the youngest of six children born to Zorach and Sarah Leah (nee Prusak) Golub. He attended Hebrew High School Marijampole and upon graduation went to America to study law at the University of Pittsburgh. Following his father's death, he returned to Lithuania and continued his law studies in Kaunas. As a young attorney, Golub was active in Zionist politics. He served on the central committee of the Maccabi Sports Association, as deputy chairman of Hanoar Hazioni Zionist youth movement, as a member of central committee of General Zionists right-wing, and as a delegate to the 21st Zionist Congress in Geneva. Following the Soviet annexation of Lithuania, he worked for a government construction company but ran into political difficulty for his Zionist activities. He was questioned by the NKVD and was put on a deportation list to Siberia. Tory fled to Vilna, but after the Germans invaded Lithuania, he attempted to flee again. Unable to do so, he returned to Kaunas and became imprisoned in the Kovno ghetto.
Golub became secretary of the Jewish Council following the arrest of the Council's first secretary for establishing a mail connection between the Kovno and Vilna ghettos. As secretary, Golub kept a diary that served as an account of the Jewish Council. He recorded German laws and regulations, Council deliberations and conversations between Dr. Elkes and German officials. His diary is among the most comprehensive surviving official Holocaust diaries. Working with other members of the Council and artists, he collected official and clandestine reports, German orders, and artwork which he buried along with his diary in five wooden crates beneath the Block C apartment house. Golub hoped these documents could provide evidence against the Nazis when the war ended. He left instructions with a Lithuanian priest that in the event that no Jews survived the war, the crates should be unearthed and forwarded to the World Zionist Organization. Golub fled the ghetto in March 23, 1944 to a hiding place arranged by Father Bronius Paukstys. After the war, he successfully retrieved three of the crates. He married a young widow, Penina Sheinzon, and the two left Lithuania for Palestine as part of the Brichah movement. Brichah leaders instructed Golub to hand over his documents, fearing their discovery would endanger the escape. Golub arrived Palestine October 1947, changed his name to Tory, and eventually regained the dairy and documents. In keeping with its primary purpose, the diary was used in war-crime deportation hearings against Kazys Palciauskas, mayor of Kaunas and SS Master Sergeant Helmut Rauca, who directed the Great Action.
