- 61, marker one.
- Mark.
- Helen, why don't you begin by telling me
- when and where you were born and the name you were born with?
- OK.
- I was born in Kovno, Lithuania in 1932, September 15.
- My maiden name was Verblunsky.
- And my family consisted of my father and mother
- and the younger brother.
- He was born in--
- my brother was born in 1937.
- And that was our family, our immediate family.
- Tell me a little bit about your childhood
- before the war started.
- My childhood was uneventful.
- My mother stayed home after-- she had a business.
- But after I was born, soon after, she gave up her business
- and stayed home with me-- and then with my brother, too,
- of course.
- My father was self-employed.
- He had a business where he was making
- heating ovens for heating houses,
- actually, with ceramic tiles.
- That's what they turned out to be.
- But they were roundish and straight.
- And you put the wood into the oven.
- And that's how the house was heated.
- And that was his business.
- I was a pretty bright kid, from what I was told.
- I used to sing a lot.
- I used to like to sing.
- I used to like--
- I learned the Yiddish alphabet at a very young age.
- And I went to kindergarten at the age of five and six.
- And then, at age seven, I went to school.
- It was first grade, age seven, which
- was Hebrew school, a private school.
- My parents were not very--
- they didn't have a lot of money, but they
- felt like they wanted me to get a very good education.
- It was just a girls' school.
- And I had one year of this school.
- And in September of '40, I started the school.
- And I went under the Russians.
- And then I learned Yiddish.
- So that was my formal education, as far as going to school
- is concerned.
- I used to always--
- I always read a lot.
- My father really actually instilled in me of the desire
- for knowledge, the curiosity.
- He would always-- he told me always about the world,
- about the United States.
- He even told me that the United States will probably
- turn out to be the place that will
- rescue the Jews from the Nazis.
- That was always his contention.
- That was always this belief, actually.
- And I believed that with him.
- And he told me about history and geography.
- And even when I was very young, five and six years old,
- he would take me to museums and to theater,
- because I was an only child for quite a while.
- And then, when my brother was born,
- he was even too young to be taken.
- So my father-- and my mother was not too much interested.
- So he took me as his companion.
- And we spent an awful lot of time together-- my mentor,
- really, my father.
- And how do you remember things changing?
- And what kinds of things did you see and hear
- when things changed?
- Interesting.
- Our house consisted of a kitchen.
- We rented.
- We didn't own a house.
- A kitchen that you went through, that was the first, and then
- a living room, a living room combination sort of.
- It was one room, but it was a sofa--
- and a dining room, and a table, and chairs, and a buffet.
- So that was the living room and combination dining room.
- And then, through this, you went into the bedroom.
- And in that bedroom, the four of us slept.
- Now, in 1938, we acquired a refugee border,
- a young man by the name of Herman,
- a Jewish young man who ran away from Germany and ended up
- in Lithuania, in Kaunas, in our home,
- as what we called in those days a [NON-ENGLISH],,
- which is a border.
- And I came to know first hand at a very young age, in the 1938--
- how old was I then?
- '32, '38, so I was six years old--
- six, seven, or whatever, because he
- stayed with us for about a couple of years, at least.
- And I was very--
- and I came face to face with a person like that.
- And also, as I said, my ears were always open.
- I knew what was going on.
- I heard about the No Man's Land.
- I go back.
- I heard about that when I was just a young child--
- between Poland and Germany, where the Jews were not their--
- Germany didn't want them.
- And Poland didn't let them in.
- And I remember we, children, we were asked also from school
- to get together clothing and things that people needed
- for daily use, and food, and for the refugees that have nowhere
- to go.
- They were sort of caught in the middle.
- So I really have a very vivid memory of that.
- It comes to my mind quite often, as a matter of fact.
- And what about the sounds of the war?
- Did you hear?
- Yes.
- Now, the sounds of the war--
- the war did not affect us directly, not until 1941.
- We knew what that things were happening.
- There was a war with Poland.
- We heard the news.
- We had a radio.
- And the newspapers wrote about it.
- And I knew how to read.
- And I was interested.
- But in 1941, when the Russians were attacked
- by the Germans, our windows--
- it was a Sunday morning at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning.
- And our windows were shaking like an earthquake, shattering.
- And that's also very vivid in my mind.
- And that's when it started for us, the war,
- that the war came to us finally started.
- How did you feel then?
- And what did you do?
- What did your parents--
- OK.
- As I said, almost immediately, there
- was no question whether should we, or shouldn't we.
- The very same day, my parents got together
- some belongings that were maybe some valuables that they had,
- and some things that we would need for our existence
- and on route or some kind, to subsist,
- on whatever, some food.
- And we packed us up, the two children,
- and amongst many thousands, and all the Jews
- that-- you would see those roads.
- They were black with people walking--
- there were no cars, there were no horse and buggy, nothing--
- by foot, trying to get away from the Nazis,
- trying to get to the Russian border to outrun the Nazis,
- the Germans.
- And that's what my parents did.
- And what happened?
- What happened?
- We were on route for two--
- we were on route.
- We walked and walked.
- We were every-- the tanks were--
- they overtook us.
- It was really-- if it wouldn't be
- so sad, it wouldn't be so tragic, it was very funny,
- because we were going nowhere, because the German military
- were just passing us.
- And they were singing songs.
- And they were making fun of us.
- And there was one that was going, [GERMAN],, going to Zion,
- aren't you?
- He's making fun of us, like the Jews are going
- to Zion, to whatever he meant.
- And we finally ended up in a small town--
- in a village, actually, a village--
- by the name of Zaim.
- Now, I don't know the Lithuanian name of the Zaim.
- I think this is the Jewish name, the Jewish way
- of pronouncing it.
- This is mark two.
- Mark.
- So you just arrived at the town.
- All right.
- We were taken in by a Jewish family who owned a farm.
- I think it was a small farm.
- I don't recall anything big.
- But I remember they had a couple of cows.
- I remember having drank milk straight--
- the milk, newly freshly milked from the cow,
- warm from the udders.
- And they took us in.
- And we stayed with them for two weeks, the four of us,
- plus two young men--
- two young Jewish boys, really.
- And we stayed with them for two weeks,
- like we would have been their family, that's how.
- And they were a small family, too.
- I remember a couple of children.
- And we realized-- I mean, when I say we, at that point,
- I was not even nine yet.
- So my parents talked it over with the people of the house,
- of that farm.
- And they decided that, no point in us hanging around.
- We have to go back to our homes, to our home, which they did.
- My parents made arrangements with--
- they hired a local person, a Lithuanian who owned a horse
- and then carriage for the six of us, the four of us
- and the two young boys that were with us,
- to take us back to our home town, to Kovno.
- We loaded up whatever--
- I mean, whatever we carried, we took back with us,
- and got on the buggy, and that carriage, whatever, the wagon.
- And we just got out of town.
- It was a little town.
- And we realized that we're being chased
- by a couple of young guys, barefooted.
- It was in June, or at the end of June, or beginning of July,
- around then--
- barefoot, with torn pants, peasant boys,
- peasant young men.
- And they motioned to stop, to stop.
- And the fellow, our driver stops the buggy.
- And we are ordered to get out.
- And we knew that nothing good is going to come of that.
- We were scared.
- But we knew enough as children, too.
- We children, we were scared.
- They started to search the men for weapons.
- And they found-- and in the--
- whatever.
- We had a [? stand, ?] the things--
- that bag, or whatever.
- And they found something.
- And it turned out to be the phylacteries,
- my father's, and the boys' too.
- So they realized-- OK, he says.
- Oh, you're not communists.
- OK, you go.
- And they let us go.
- But we did not get to go back on that carriage, on that wagon.
- And they took away all our things.
- So that was part of the experience
- we had with the local people.
- And it took time, of course, by foot.
- We walked back to our hometown.
- We slept in barns.
- The local peasants, they did let us.
- Sometimes, they didn't know.
- We made it back and came to our home.
- And we heard the very sad news that,
- between the time that the Russians left in such a hurry--
- when they were attacked, they left in a great hurry.
- And the Germans took a few days to get back,
- to coordinate to get in, into the city of Kaunas.
- There was a pogrom.
- And many were murdered-- elderly, children.
- And this was in Slobodka.
- I don't know if the Slobodka ever came up in your interviews
- or not.
- But that's where the ghetto ended up being established,
- in Slobodka.
- In Lithuanian, it was called Vilijampole,
- if that rings a bell.
- I don't know.
- It so happened that our home was within the perimeter
- of the ghetto.
- They're very close today to the gate, actually.
- But when we came back, there was no ghetto yet.
- But all edicts were, all kinds of edicts--
- not to walk on the sidewalk, and only
- to shop at certain times in particular stores,
- and of course right away to put on the yellow star
- on the front and back, that was immediate, and so on.
- And that same fall--
- now, I don't remember exactly when
- the ghetto was established.
- Was it in September, or August?
- In August.
- Mid-August, right?
- The 15th of August, I think.
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- And--
- But just back up a little bit.
- Yes, OK.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- Yes, OK.
- Tell me where the ghetto was established
- and that your house fell in it.
- Yes.
- The ghetto was established--
- we lived on what was called in Lithuanian Kriščiukaičio gatvė,
- or Kriščiukaičio Street.
- I know it's a tongue twister.
- It's Lithuanian.
- What Kriščiukaičio means, I don't know.
- It's probably a name after somebody.
- In Yiddish, it had a different name totally.
- It was called [PLACE NAME],, [PLACE NAME] street.
- Why it was so-called, I don't know, either.
- We lived number 29 Kriščiukaičio Street.
- Just a few numbers before that, there
- was a synagogue on the same street, which
- was converted into a jail.
- They called it the [? daboklė ?]..
- I don't know if that term ever came up, if you heard it
- from the other interviewees.
- And the ghetto gate was just at our street.
- But it was-- there was--
- the Lithuanian name of it was Ariogalos gatvė.
- And in Yiddish, it was called [PLACE NAME]..
- [YIDDISH] means the dead people, the dead street,
- where people died.
- Am I telling you something that you didn't hear before?
- Yeah, it seems very strange.
- You look-- I don't know, your look on your face.
- And that's where the main gate was.
- And we were surrounded by barbed wire, of course.
- And they established a ghetto, a big ghetto and a little ghetto.
- But let me retract myself right now.
- Now, prior to the ghetto, of course
- all the Jews from the surrounding areas
- and from the city proper of Kovno were all evacuated.
- They were not evacuated.
- They were told to take what they can carry, all the belongings
- that they can carry.
- They cannot take a truck and take their belongings, no way.
- But whatever they can carry in their hands,
- they should go to the ghetto, and leave everything
- else behind.
- And it so happened that my mother had an elderly aunt
- whose name was Esther.
- And their last name was Zalk.
- And she had a family, children.
- One daughter was named Leah.
- And one son was named Pinchas.
- And Pinchas had just married recently.
- And Pinchas, and Leah, and Pinchas' wife ran away.
- They never returned.
- They ran like we started to run away.
- We came back to the ghetto.
- They never made it back.
- So this elderly lady and her daughter, who was--
- in our day and age, this is what politically correct we call--
- she was mentally handicapped.
- And so these two women, because the father of the family--
- and I'm retracting even further.
- When the war broke out, the Lithuanians
- shot him dead on the--
- he was walking to shul, to synagogue, and they shot him.
- So the two ladies were left alone.
- So they moved in with us, in our home in the ghetto.
- And that's why I took all this back.
- It's important.
- So the ghetto was surrounded from the outside of--
- as I said before, from the small towns, and from the city.
- We're all gathered into the ghetto.
- And a bridge was built across a highway.
- It wasn't a highway.
- It was like-- they called it the [NON-ENGLISH],,
- which was highway, actually in--
- you'd call it highway.
- It was a main thoroughfare.
- The people who lived on the street were mostly Jewish.
- So they built the fence right in front of the homes
- where the big ghetto was on one side,
- built a bridge to go across, and fenced in the other side,
- and made a smaller part of the--
- they called it the [NON-ENGLISH] ghetto, the small ghetto.
- So that is how the ghetto started.
- We have to put another roll of film on.
- Start.
- Back on the road, when you were coming back.
- Do you remember that trek back?
- And did you walk?
- Did somebody carry your little brother?
- How old was he?
- My father carried my little brother.
- He was-- by then, in 1941, he was four years old.
- He was born in May.
- Do you remember that walk?
- I mean, this--
- Yes, I remember it.
- I remember.
- I remember certain points, like staying in a barn.
- Some kindness from some peasants, or farmers, rather.
- Some not so kind.
- I also remember, on the way to what was--
- we were hoping to get to Russia.
- Like we were shot at.
- But airplanes were sort of getting in on us.
- And we started to run away, like to lie down in the fields
- to try that.
- But mainly on the way back, it was a long--
- I remember certain points.
- Not vividly everything, no.
- But I remember certain kindnesses, yes.
- And in general, had your world turned upside--
- I mean were you now terrified, or were you
- protected pretty well by your family?
- No, well, we couldn't be protected.
- We were exposed.
- There was no way to be.
- The only way to be protected was to be out of it.
- We were smack in the middle of it.
- I remember-- one thing comes to my mind.
- And this is really on the way back.
- And we were already at the outskirts.
- And everything by foot.
- We were at the outskirts of our hometown of Vilijampole,
- or Slobodke, which was where the ghetto was.
- But the ghetto wasn't established at that time yet.
- I remember a young girl, a Lithuanian girl,
- was surrounded.
- There were soldiers.
- But they were having fun.
- And they saw us, and we were not the only ones coming back.
- There were loads of people coming.
- Because a lot of us came back.
- We had nowhere else to go.
- And we all happened to come in droves, as we left in droves.
- So she was pointing at us.
- And she said something like that effect
- that they won't be around for too long.
- And I remember our head going back and laughing
- with such glee, you know.
- That those little, like, that are
- inscribed in a child's mind.
- And when the ghetto was formed and people started moving in,
- even though you didn't have to move, did you see it?
- We did it, because we helped my aunt and my cousin.
- It was my mother's aunt.
- My mother's mother's sister-- my grandmother's sister
- and her daughter came to live with us.
- So we helped them.
- I carried.
- And there was a bridge from the city of Kaunas.
- Slobodka was actually a suburb, so to speak,
- which she was connected by a bridge across the river.
- And they lived in the city.
- And I was a very frequent visitor.
- This lady, my mother's aunt, was like a grandmother to me.
- Because my grandmother died when she was very young.
- And I was named after my grandmother.
- Both my grandmothers.
- I never knew my grandparents.
- So she was like a surrogate grandmother to me.
- And I used to love to come to her very often.
- And we said, we were very close with my auntie.
- And auntie Zalk.
- That was what we used to call her, auntie Zalk.
- Not by her first name, but by her last name out of respect.
- And I remember this lady, she was very highly diabetic.
- And she had ulcerated legs.
- And I remember her mostly--
- she was a beautiful woman, with white hair.
- White, like not gray, but white.
- And wore it in a bun in the back like this, smooth.
- And never a complaint out of her.
- Very poor people.
- And she would sit with the bandages.
- Every time I saw her, she would change dressing on her legs.
- So she had to walk from her home to our home.
- Quite a distance.
- Because there was no transportation.
- And we helped carry her in pails.
- We didn't have any baskets or anything, or plastic bags,
- as people would have today.
- So in pails, like in ordinary pails.
- With the load up whatever we could.
- And I would-- and I was very proud
- that I could carry two balancing together to cross the bridge.
- We helped them move, I was there.
- Were there a lot of people moving?
- Oh, yes.
- Describe this going on.
- Well, there were people constantly
- going, either through the place of their home,
- their former home, to get back more things
- that they could carry.
- And carrying to the ghetto area across the bridge.
- The streets are, I mean, they're in my--
- I can see them.
- I can see the name of--
- some of the names of the streets, I even remember.
- There was, in Yiddish, it was called [YIDDISH]..
- There was a town in Lithuania called Janovos.
- And the town-- the street was named after the town.
- And that town, that--
- excuse me, that street, that's where the bridge started,
- at Janovos Street.
- And it went across to Yurburgergas in Yiddish.
- Yurburgergas.
- Now, what it was called in Lithuanian, I'm not exactly--
- I don't want to kill it.
- Jurbarkas or something like that,
- I don't-- and that is the street that the bridge ended.
- And the street that we lived on, which was [LITHUANIAN] Street
- started at this Jurbarkas Street.
- So it was like you crossed the bridge, you got off the bridge,
- and you walked a few yards, not far, a few meters or whatever.
- And you made the right turn, and you came on the street
- where I lived.
- But further down.
- So how long did the moving go on?
- It took weeks, I think.
- A couple of weeks.
- They didn't give us too much notice or too much
- opportunity to move.
- Like I said, you couldn't move anything that wasn't--
- only way you could carry.
- And then there were some other decrees
- soon after the ghetto was closed off.
- Well, the other decrees--
- the most important one that comes to my mind,
- because there must have been other minor ones, which
- are about working and going--
- oh, yes, excuse me, I have to retract.
- I told like my--
- they grabbed people on the streets
- and took them to the Seventh Fort.
- Kaunas was surrounded by forts.
- From 1914, for the tsars, the Russian tsars
- built as fortresses around Kaunas or Kovno.
- And we children used to play there.
- And that's where the people later on,
- men, one of my childhood friends,
- neighbors, was grabbed with her father.
- To the Seventh Fort.
- There were many forts, I don't know.
- But the Seventh and the Ninth became very prominent,
- infamous.
- And her father and herself were grabbed and taken to this fort.
- That was before the ghetto was established.
- The father was killed in front of her right there.
- And she was let go then.
- So she was in the ghetto, too.
- So all these things were happening prior
- to the ghetto establishment.
- Why was he killed?
- Why was he killed?
- He was not the only one.
- There were many killed.
- Because he was a Jew, and they were just at random.
- Caught the people walking on the street.
- He had his yellow star.
- And he was grabbed and taken to this Seventh Fort and shot
- or whatever they did.
- Killed.
- Yes, shot I said.
- That was it.
- That's how it was.
- I wasn't there to see it.
- But it was a known, well-known fact.
- We're just about out of film.
- I think we have to reload.
- Mark.
- Speed.
- Let's talk about the Actions that happened.
- OK, yes.
- And that is what I was referring to, the decree.
- Yes.
- This here.
- The big Action that comes to my mind.
- It was in October, at the end of October.
- And there was this decree that the entire population
- of the ghetto, at the risk of being shot instantly
- if being found at home, by 6:00 the day,
- the entire population of the ghetto
- was supposed to gather at this square.
- The Demokrato.
- The Democratic Square, if you please.
- Very ironic, OK.
- It was a big, empty area.
- And you could see.
- I remember people being carried in beds.
- Because they couldn't walk.
- They were sick or they were elderly.
- And the whole-- from all sides of the streets of the ghetto
- were streaming towards this Democratic Plaza, or Place,
- or Square, or call it what you like.
- And we were also made aware that it's
- good to have [GERMAN],, which means to show that you're
- worthy of work, that you're employable,
- that you are employed.
- Not only are you employable, but you're employed.
- And that you have a [GERMAN],, or a paper of some kind to show
- that you are--
- you count, that you can contribute
- to the welfare of the German Empire, whatever that may mean.
- That you still were--
- they can use you.
- Simply, they can use you.
- My father had one of those.
- My father worked in the same profession that he was.
- It wasn't actually a profession, it was more a trade.
- But he worked outside the ghetto for the Gestapo, if you please.
- The green uniforms.
- And they gave him a paper of some sort.
- Whether it made a difference or not at that point,
- I don't know.
- I can't say.
- But when we were all gathered at that place,
- at that Democratic Plaza, and after what seemed hours,
- suddenly, there was a wall of uniforms.
- All I remember, really, were uniforms and boots.
- Black boots and green uniforms.
- And it did not take long for even a child.
- By then I was already nine.
- But even a child of nine knew that if you
- were sent to go to the left, you were to live.
- For the time being, anyway.
- If you were sent to the right, it didn't look good.
- Didn't know why it wasn't good.
- But we knew it wasn't good.
- And they didn't look at the papers, they didn't care.
- Yes, papers.
- And they broke up families.
- And they started to--
- people, here are my papers, and here are my papers.
- And they chased, and they just swiped you away
- like a piece of garbage.
- And you were sent to the right, and you
- were surrounded by guns.
- And Lithuanian Partisans, they were
- called [YIDDISH] in Yiddish.
- They were in uniforms with guns.
- And they were the ones who were guarding the ones who
- were sent to the right.
- The lucky ones turned out to be--
- and we were among those.
- We were not guarded.
- And that's how we knew that this is good and this is bad.
- We didn't know how bad.
- By the time the day was through, it
- was a long, long day in many ways.
- And by the time the day was through, it was dark
- but the time we got back to our places, to our homes.
- All my neighbors, all our neighbors
- surrounding our street.
- On our street, my next door neighbors,
- and then the same courtyard where we lived.
- The people who owned the place that we rented of our home.
- The children whom I played with for--
- because I lived on this street from age three, probably.
- And we grew up together.
- We wore each other mother's shoes.
- We pretended to be movie stars.
- We knew the names of Jeannette MacDonald, and Nelson Eddy,
- and of course, Shirley Temple.
- We didn't pronounce them as well as we should have.
- Shirley Temple was Shirleh Temple, not Shirley.
- But we knew.
- We went to the movies, too, before the war broke out.
- So all these people never returned.
- None of my friends came back from this here big Action.
- At that point there were, from what we heard, from I remember,
- we were told that there were 22,000 inhabitants
- of the ghetto at that time.
- After this big, the [GERMAN] Aktion, the Big Action,
- they took away 11 and 1/2 thousand people.
- That is what I heard.
- Whether it corresponds with what later came out, I don't know.
- And all the people whom I knew, they were gone.
- New people-- by then, it turned out that all the people that
- were guarded by the Lithuanian Partisans, they were put into--
- they were taken to this small ghetto across the bridge.
- And from there, they were marched to the Ninth Fort.
- One of the forts that I mentioned earlier.
- And systematically killed, those who made it.
- Now, I can not imagine my mother's aunt
- having been able to walk up mountains.
- It was up.
- She would never walk up.
- I'm sure that she never made it.
- I'm sure she was killed on the way towards that fort.
- And that's when they liquidated the small ghetto,
- they cleaned the ghetto and took off the bridge.
- And there was only the big ghetto remained.
- Also, and they condensed.
- Even the big ghetto was condensed at that point, too.
- Before you get to that, how do you
- know what happened to the people?
- Or how did you know that?
- How did we know?
- Because people-- now, that's a very hard question to answer.
- It so happened that later on, in our city of Toronto,
- where I'm from, there is a man who survived this very Action.
- He was there, he was left for dead.
- And there were witnesses.
- There were witnesses who knew this is what happened.
- And the people never, ever came back.
- We were surrounded by people, by children-- these people lived
- in those homes all their lives.
- They weren't just-- they just came and disappeared.
- That's where they lived, they were born there.
- And they lived there, they went to school there.
- There were older ones than I, there were younger ones than I.
- Nobody returned.
- They were killed as sure as--
- they were killed.
- There was no doubt that's what happened.
- They were killed.
- Describe to me again the beginning of the Big Action.
- It's hard.
- I remember us all streaming to that place,
- through that big square.
- I don't think it was even a square, because there were no--
- I remember, there was no--
- you cannot even compare it to a square that we know now
- as a square.
- A big-- Times Square, Red Square,
- any kind of square with buildings,
- and it's modern and civilized.
- Nothing like that.
- It was more like a field.
- But they called it Democratic Square.
- And people were carried in beds.
- People were-- like there wasn't old and young.
- Five.
- So we're at the big Action.
- We're at the big Action.
- We're all streaming to be sure to be on time for 6 o'clock.
- A song that I don't really remember,
- but a song was written.
- A ghetto song was written for this event.
- And I remember, there were-- now that I think,
- there were printed.
- They had printed posters.
- Small, but big enough to be for people to read in Yiddish.
- I don't have Lithuanian.
- German, of course.
- And about this decree.
- They didn't just-- they made sure
- that everybody got to know about this gathering
- to that Democratic Plaza, to that field, really.
- And we were called to come.
- We came to that Democratic Place, to that field.
- And there were already a lot of people there.
- And I'm trying to recapture, really,
- what I can see in my mind.
- But what mostly stands out in my mind
- is that we were sort of lined up.
- And there was-- we were moving towards the wall.
- As I mentioned before, now that I see it.
- We were moving towards that wall of uniforms.
- That is the only way I can describe it.
- Because I couldn't--
- I wouldn't look at the face.
- I couldn't.
- We were afraid to look at anybody's face.
- Were afraid to look to see what a person who
- plays God would look like.
- Uniforms, boots.
- And as we were inching towards our turn,
- our turn was coming closer and closer.
- And then our turn came.
- And my aunt and my cousin were not with us,
- because they were not allowed together
- with us, to stand beside us.
- Because we were designated which groups to be with whom, too.
- We were not-- we couldn't just be at random here or at random
- there.
- We had to be designated exactly with such and such a group.
- And they were a different group.
- And we never saw them again.
- And our turn came.
- And lo and behold, we were told to go to the left.
- And as I said before, didn't take long
- to know that the left was the living.
- For the time being, anyway, for whatever long that may be.
- And then after that, what was the mood in the ghetto?
- From what I remember, people moved
- in to the houses that were emptied
- by those that were taken away.
- There was a part of the ghetto where our street was.
- I don't know if I can take the time to sort of describe
- the layout of that.
- The way our ghetto was, that our street was partly one side
- was the ghetto and one side-- that was our street.
- And one side, part of it, was the Gentle side.
- And it extended quite far out.
- Now, this part, where it was the Jewish--
- the ghetto where it was on one side, that part was taken away.
- So the people who returned from that part
- and from the small ghetto, too, that were--
- the small ghetto was emptied to come to that Democratic Place,
- too.
- To go through the big Action.
- They never got back to their homes in the small ghetto.
- The small ghetto was eliminated.
- And the bridge was taken away.
- So all these people that remained
- moved in to the quarters that the previous inhabitants lived.
- So I acquired new friends.
- We acquired new neighbors.
- And life, so to speak, went on.
- It did.
- Every time, there was another happening, a minor,
- maybe not so major.
- Because the people that were taken out to work--
- every morning the people were ordered
- to gather at the gate to go to work.
- And some people had designated places where to go.
- They worked.
- Like my father worked for the Gestapo.
- In what capacity, I'm not even sure what he did.
- He was called in German an [GERMAN]..
- [GERMAN] like an oven.
- And they made ovens, for cooking or for whatever,
- or for heating.
- That was the trade.
- Whether he made the ovens for them or not,
- I really don't know.
- But they called him on his paper [GERMAN],,
- so I suppose that's what he did.
- But the big project for work was what they called the [GERMAN],,
- the airport.
- Numerous, numerous people were taken
- to build the airport in Kaunas, in Kovno.
- Which wasn't-- and also in a suburb called Aleksot.
- I don't know if anyone ever mentioned this,
- if you ever heard this word.
- I shouldn't.
- Anyway.
- And so this was most--
- where most of the people went to work there, at the airport,
- and returning every night back.
- Now, on the return, very often, people did not return.
- Because either in the morning, before they went to work,
- they were designated no, no, no, you're not going to work today.
- We need you someplace else.
- And they would just at random take a group
- and put them in the what used to be near us, the synagogue,
- and they made it into a jail.
- And that's where they put the people temporarily.
- And then they deported them somewhere.
- To a forced labor somewhere.
- That was the story.
- And it didn't matter whether they
- were-- it wasn't a young or old, it was at random.
- So those were the circumstances that we lived under.
- And we were close to it.
- Because we were-- we were number 29.
- And probably number 20 or whatever,
- that's where the synagogue was.
- It was-- the blocks were very small.
- It wasn't like a street, like you imagine the Washington
- or Toronto.
- It was a different time.
- And the houses looked a lot different.
- I couldn't believe it when I saw pictures
- of what it looked like.
- What did you do all day?
- What did I do?
- I looked after my brother.
- The two of us were left behind at home.
- Also, we had people move in with us, too.
- Because the ghetto got condensed every time.
- So people moved in.
- And a mother and a son joined us and slept
- on the sofa in our-- what was sort of, kind of living room.
- Wasn't really a living room, but it was
- the sofa in the dining room.
- The mother and a quite a grown son.
- But there was no other way.
- So they slept.
- Because the four of us, we slept in one bedroom, too.
- I slept in a crib--
- not in a crib--
- in a crib.
- What you would call a crib now for--
- not a cradle, but a crib till we moved out of this place.
- And I'll get to that a bit later.
- I slept in a crib.
- And my brother slept with my mother and father
- in the middle.
- So my father and mother went to work every day.
- And I stayed at home with my brother.
- And my mother used to also risk her life very often.
- And that's where--
- I don't want to jump the gun.
- She would cover her clothes, her coat, the yellow stars,
- with the Jew on it on both sides, cover up.
- And steal away and try to exchange something for food.
- By then, we did not have any valuables,
- because there was something, too.
- There was a decree that all the valuables
- must be brought to where that Judenrat, where
- that the Jewish committee, or the Komitet in Yiddish,
- it was called the Komitet.
- Into the premises of this building,
- all the belongings-- furs, wedding bands,
- any kind of-- anything that is valuable that you think
- is valuable.
- You must not keep.
- You must take it.
- Silver candlesticks.
- Anything, anything.
- So perhaps my mother didn't give everything.
- So she would exchange for food.
- And at the risk of her life.
- To try to smuggle--
- So just tell me again, how your mother would sneak out.
- She would sneak out, either from the work,
- from the place of work, or while walking
- towards the place of work.
- And she was not the only one who would do that.
- But it was at the risk of death.
- First, to get out then to get back in,
- and then to smuggle in, if she did get something,
- to the ghetto.
- Because sporadically, they were searched.
- You, you, you?
- Like that, you know.
- What have you got?
- Are you bringing?
- They always knew that somebody was bringing.
- It's like going through the customs, excuse me.
- You know, please.
- But sporadically.
- Yes.
- And she was never caught.
- And she managed to bring in food for us.
- And as in any other society, there were, even in the ghetto,
- there were people who had it better than others.
- They had better, maybe their place of work.
- Maybe they could work where they--
- they worked with food.
- Or maybe they worked with clothes.
- Or whatever it was.
- There were even songs on this matter about the nouveau riche,
- so to speak, of the ghetto, kind of.
- And they would probably buy something
- from that my mother smuggled in.
- Or I would stand on the corner in the ghetto on the street
- somewhere.
- That I would be put out to do the selling.
- And that was part of my--
- this was my duty
- So my mother could save some, perhaps, either money.
- I don't know whether they got money.
- Or some stamps, maybe for food, or to change, or something.
- I don't know what they changed for in the ghetto.
- I mean, I did the selling.
- And I did get money, I think.
- I don't recall, truly.
- I don't remember.
- But I remember standing on the corner
- not too far from my-- there was a special corner
- and I was not the only one.
- There were other kids.
- There were another people.
- And selling of goods that were brought,
- smuggled into the ghetto.
- What about other parts of life in the ghetto as life went on?
- What about--
- OK, now, previously, I mentioned that I loved--
- that I had a curious mind, that I love to read.
- And I did.
- Now, when I think back on those days.
- And books were-- they were among those things that
- were forbidden.
- We were not to have books, or schools, or anything like that.
- Nothing that would humanize us.
- Now, I really don't know.
- But that is unbelievable to me, even.
- I always had a book.
- Different kinds of books.
- I read, I found everywhere.
- I found books.
- I read in Yiddish, the Jewish classics
- and non-Jewish classics translated into Yiddish.
- Guy de Maupassant, I remember having read.
- Of course, Sholem Aleichem I knew, I read.
- I read the Jewish history by Graetz.
- I read in the ghetto.
- I was just 10, 11 years old then.
- I don't know how I got-- how those books came to me.
- And it's not like somebody provided them.
- Or maybe because the way I was going to people, like--
- and I'll get to that, to the photograph
- that is of me in the museum.
- There's the photograph of me.
- And I'll have to bring that up soon.
- Maybe that's how I-- because I would go to people's houses
- to sell things.
- And maybe I would notice a book.
- Or maybe I would ask for the book, if did they have books.
- Because I was pretty gutsy in those days.
- I was.
- Unfortunately, I'm not now.
- Quite timid as a person, but that's another story.
- But I was very, very outgoing and very gutsy.
- That's the word.
- So I always read and I always listened.
- I remember going to a concert in the ghetto.
- Now, it wasn't on a regular basis.
- But there was what you call a higher school
- of learning for the Talmud.
- They call it a yeshiva now.
- A yeshiva, a higher school for students of higher learning.
- And the Slabodka yeshiva was a very famous one in the world.
- There is even one in Israel now that carries
- the name of that yeshiva.
- But it's just only the name.
- It's not the same thing, of course.
- And within the walls of this yeshiva, which was still
- within the ghetto, there were people who got together
- who played instruments.
- And they played classical music.
- And I remember it being.
- And this was also very risky.
- But people took chances.
- Lithuanian Jews have a reputation
- of being very cultured, and learned, and very informative,
- and all of those things.
- And I think there was something to it.
- I think there were newspapers being printed in the ghetto.
- Of course, they were underground.
- There were all kinds of songs being written.
- I knew a lot of the songs.
- I still remember some of the songs.
- People's minds just wouldn't die because their bodies
- were dying.
- People made the best of what they
- could under the circumstances.
- The children-- they tried to educate the children.
- There were schools.
- I don't recall really attending one.
- I may have, because I remember knowing of it.
- But not on the regular.
- You couldn't do it on a regular basis.
- Life was not regular.
- You couldn't do it on a regular basis.
- But certainly, attempts were made.
- And sometimes, really, they worked.
- They worked well.
- What about celebrations?
- Good question.
- Because again, when I was talking about the concert,
- I remember--
- to the same yeshiva, we went.
- It was the holiday of Sukkot, which
- was actually the end of Sukkot, which is Simchat Torah.
- Now, Simchat Torah means the joy of the Torah.
- You celebrate the Torah, the finishing
- of reading it and the beginning of the reading it again.
- It's like a circle that never ends.
- And I remember going there, dancing with everybody.
- And it was crowded.
- It was crowded with people dancing
- because of the Simchat Torah, because
- of the joy of the Torah.
- So that was a celebration.
- What about religious-- wasn't religious practice?
- Well, religious practice-- our home was very traditional.
- Strictly kosher always.
- My father never worked on the Sabbath.
- And my father didn't go to the synagogue on a daily basis.
- He put on his phylacteries at home.
- And then he went to work.
- He had breakfast and went to work.
- I remember, on the Sabbath, we walked a lot.
- But I think I also remember that we took a bus.
- So we were not--
- I think, maybe not so much a bus.
- But my father, I remember, one time, took me on an excursion
- on a boat.
- Because the city of Kaunas was on two rivers.
- And two rivers went into the other.
- And the Viliya.
- I don't know how to pronounce it otherwise.
- That's how I knew it.
- And our street actually was right next to that Viliya.
- And then Neman, the very famous Lithuanian Neman,
- that this was the national river.
- That many, many Lithuanian songs were written on that.
- And I remember one or two of them vaguely.
- We have to put another roll.
- Seven.
- You were talking about--
- --about religion, right, yes.
- Now, as I said, we were traditional, more than--
- really, very, very observant, to a certain degree--
- to keep kosher?
- Yes, to the point where, once, as I said,
- my mother smuggled in foods, whatever she could,
- and she got some pork and what is called in German speck.
- I think that's it's what you make bacon off it.
- I'm not too sure.
- I'm not too familiar with-- but I
- think it's what you make bacon.
- And it wasn't the--
- but it was all white.
- I don't know how it's processed, how it's done.
- It was called speck.
- I didn't know what it was.
- I've never seen it in my life because I've never eaten it.
- But my mother and my father decided
- that the children need nourishment, need fat,
- so they lied to me.
- My mother fried it or whatever, and she told me
- that it was lamb so that I would eat it because I was brought up
- to eat kosher.
- As far as observing the religion as a rule, not to that extent.
- In the ghetto, it was difficult. There was really no synagogue
- that I remember.
- The people must have gone together
- to have a minyan, a quorum of 10, probably.
- I don't think my father was involved in that.
- What about marriages or holidays?
- All right, now, marriages-- as I mentioned
- before, I know of this couple who live in Toronto now,
- and they got married in the ghetto.
- And I know of children that were born in the ghetto.
- I heard of other people who got married, but I never met them.
- But this couple I know to this day.
- Observing holidays-- no, not in my experience.
- It wasn't a matter of not observing.
- It was a matter of not having the means.
- You couldn't get ready for the holiday.
- You couldn't prepare yourself for the holiday.
- There was no way to get the right food for the holiday,
- for the atmosphere, for the state of mind for the holiday.
- And you had to go to work on the holiday.
- It wasn't as if the holiday was a day of rest.
- It wasn't anymore, so there was no such thing as a day of rest.
- So you made of it as best you could, I suppose, from what I--
- I don't really remember that well.
- I don't recall celebrating to make it a point
- to celebrate the holidays.
- I remember fasting Yom Kippur later on, when I was--
- later on, yes.
- In the quiet period in the ghetto,
- do you remember having fun?
- Yes, there were-- yes, a matter of fact,
- there was such a time, a quiet time.
- As a matter of fact, I remember going to the beach
- because we lived--
- it's interesting that you should even--
- sometimes I think of it, and I think to myself,
- is it possible that there was such a time?
- But now that you mention it to me, yes, there was such a time.
- And our street was next to the river.
- There was a field of pasture.
- After that, people who lived on the side of the river--
- they had little gardens in the backyards, potatoes,
- and all kinds of vegetables.
- They grew all kinds of vegetables.
- And passed that, there was pasture for cattle,
- and beyond that there was a beautiful white, clean beach.
- People pay hundreds of dollars to go all over, to Nassau
- and wherever you go.
- We had it in our front yard, so to speak,
- and people had it in their backyard.
- And there was a time when we were allowed, the kids, to go.
- We were allowed to go to that beach, to go to the water.
- It was quiet.
- Tell me about the Kinder Aktion.
- OK.
- Life went on.
- Every time the ghetto got smaller, smaller, smaller,
- people were deported to Estonia, and people
- were deported to Latvia.
- And all of a sudden, we had to move from our quarters.
- All these years that we-- until the end of 1943,
- we stayed in that part.
- I think it was the end of 1943.
- That's when my photograph was taken, actually,
- now that-- because we still lived
- in that part of the ghetto, and we were required
- to find our own quarters.
- Nobody said to us, now this belongs to you,
- or you come here.
- You have to go and find your own quarters.
- And now I have to retract a little bit.
- When the Russians came in-- they were there with us for a year--
- they built far into the--
- where it turned out to be deep into the ghetto
- and turned out to be with the other gate.
- There was another ghetto gate.
- Then it turned out to be the main gate later on.
- They built three buildings, and they called them blocks.
- Like they are apartment buildings.
- They were supposed-- they were putting
- in running water, and sewers, and the toilets,
- indoor toilets, everything, beautiful.
- And they had to--
- our street was dug up because they put in the sewers,
- and eventually, we would have probably
- had running water in our house, too.
- But it was never to be.
- So there were the three blocks, A, B, C, A, B,
- C. We ended up in the block C, and we have to fight over it,
- over the quarters.
- We had to fight with other people.
- The block C was an unfinished building.
- The other two, the A and B, were finished, so to speak.
- I don't know if they had the running water,
- but the rooms were done.
- Here, nothing was done.
- I don't know if there was a roof.
- It was all open.
- There were stairs, but there were no guardrails or anything.
- It was in the middle of building it.
- And we ended up in that building,
- but the people who were there ahead of us or something
- wouldn't let us take a corner, and that's
- exactly what we wanted, just a corner,
- because there were no rooms there.
- People partitioned off their own corners,
- and that's what my father and mother wanted was one corner.
- It so happened that my mother had
- a friend who had an acquaintance who
- was in the Jewish police force, the militia in the ghetto.
- So she told me to please go to this man
- to ask him for his assistance, would intercede on our behalf
- so that we should be able to stay in that corner.
- And it worked.
- We stayed in block C, in the block.
- We stayed there.
- That was by the end of, as I said,
- I think by the end-- it was during the winter
- by the end of '43.
- Come March '44, the end of March.
- By some fluke, my mother stayed home that day.
- She didn't go to work.
- Whether she was allowed to--
- I really don't know.
- The point was, she stayed home.
- And we didn't know what was--
- now, how should I--
- I have to retract a--
- no, I'll retract after.
- We didn't know at first what-- we
- were hear rumors that they're taking children and elderly.
- Now, by then, I was 11.
- My brother-- in '44, he was seven.
- Sure enough, we hear steps, like running, and the military,
- and yelling, and running, and yelling.
- And we were sort of-- the three of us-- my father was at work,
- and the three of us--
- and here I have to go in the way our quarters,
- our accommodations were divided.
- We had a big-- there was a big room with corners,
- and we had the first coroner.
- But there was also a little alcove
- with a door to go into our partition.
- And through our partition, you had
- to go in through the next family, so everybody-- they
- had to go through our room.
- And there was a door, as I said, to go into us and the big door
- to go into everybody.
- So there were two doors.
- So the big door to go into everybody was open,
- and also, the door to go into us was also open.
- Mark.
- OK, so you're describing--
- I'm describing.
- I was sort of left on my own to make my own decision what
- to do with me.
- Now, I have to go back a little bit to the way our coroner
- that we had was--
- how it was situated, rather.
- There were two sofas, head to a sort of-- not head to head
- exactly but one this way and one that way.
- And there was a space in between.
- My mother didn't know what to do with my brother.
- The best thing she could do is put him
- behind one of the sofas, sort of hide him this way.
- And me-- where do I go?
- What do I do?
- Instinctively, I put myself behind that door that was--
- like this is the door, and there was
- a corner between the door and that little alcove.
- That's where I stood.
- Now, all those-- there were Ukrainians,
- Lithuanians who were really did the actual taking away
- the children, and they spoke in their--
- and how do I know it?
- Because they spoke to each other in their own tongue,
- and all one had to do is just inadvertently
- just look like that, look behind the door, and there I was.
- But nobody did.
- I saw them run by me just from behind the door through the--
- didn't see my brother.
- They just ran in and out, didn't take anybody.
- I didn't know at that point what happened to the children
- in the other--
- like there was a wall cornered off.
- The other family or families--
- and ran out, and here we are.
- We weren't taken away.
- Thank God.
- We are safe.
- For the time being, we're safe.
- Now what?
- Meanwhile, the day's gone.
- My father comes back from work, and bad news travels fast.
- He didn't know what he would find
- or who he wouldn't find anymore, if he would come back
- to empty walls there, whatever.
- Lo and behold, we were there still, but my parents knew--
- and everybody-- there was sort of a gathering of the people
- because we practically lived together
- in one compound with boarded-off walls.
- There weren't walls.
- There were partitions.
- And there were other kids, also, that remained,
- that weren't taken away, and somebody must have known--
- I don't know how it came about--
- that there was a hiding place within the walls of this block
- C. Now, what was the hiding place?
- There was a space between two walls, very narrow,
- and that night, all the children that were left behind that day
- were put to hide in between the two walls,
- including my brother and me.
- We spent the night, not a peep out of anybody.
- There was even a baby, probably a two-year-old, not a peep.
- And children just new.
- Children just knew not to cry.
- But the following morning--
- I don't know what time it was--
- the door was opened to that-- it wasn't really a door.
- We crawled in, and we crawled out.
- It was opened to that hiding place,
- and we were ordered to get out.
- And we were found out.
- We were found out.
- Now, how we were found out--
- later on, we learned how we were found out.
- The Jewish militia were taken to the Ninth Fort, and they were--
- that was what we were told, that they
- were taken to the Ninth Fort, that they were threatened.
- They and their families would be killed if they know of places
- and don't tell.
- Well, whatever reason that was, however it happened,
- we were found out, and we were taken out of the building.
- And this was March, and the building
- that we lived in for the few months until then--
- there was lots of mud and still traces of snow and lots of mud
- because it wasn't finished.
- As I said before, it wasn't a finished building,
- so there was lots of mud and ditches
- around that they were still digging for whatever reason.
- Maybe they were going to put up another building, too, yet.
- And we were chased out our doors in front of the building,
- and there were trucks standing around.
- There were soldiers with guns.
- There were dogs, German shepherds,
- around us, surrounding us.
- And we are ordered to get on the trucks.
- We need to stop recording the tape.
- Mark.
- Now, I must add that my mother was not
- with us, with my brother and me in this hiding place,
- and my mother had to go to work that day, too.
- So we were just left, the two of us,
- with the rest of the people, the children and some mothers
- who were hiding together with us.
- I don't remember how many there were.
- We were a group, and there was just myself and my brother,
- for me to look after my brother.
- Now, I stand there.
- We are told to go, And I don't know whether I'm told to go
- or not, so I don't budge.
- But what I remember--
- how my brother--
- I was holding him.
- He pressed with his back to me.
- I was holding him right in front of me, like this,
- and with my arms I was holding onto him.
- And I didn't move.
- And a dog jumped under--
- it was told by somebody, I supposed, to jump on me
- and jumped on my arm and bit me.
- And I let go of my brother, and before I knew it,
- he was taken away from me.
- And I was left standing there.
- And the last thing-- and to this day,
- I remember my brother's eyes looking at me
- and that I didn't go with him voluntarily.
- I stayed behind, and he just turned around.
- And he went off, and that was the last time I ever saw him.
- There is not a trace that he ever existed.
- There's not a photograph of him anywhere because my parents
- were lax in sending photographs to family from out
- of the country, to Canada--
- have had relatives here--
- not a trace that he ever existed.
- Once I die, nobody will ever know that he existed,
- and that is--
- and I was just there, and my hand was bleeding.
- And I didn't know whether I was in shock
- and what happened because I was bitten
- by this big-- this big dog jumped on me.
- And they were driven off, and we were left behind.
- Some mothers went with the children.
- Some mothers stayed behind and let
- the children go because maybe they had other children.
- I don't know.
- Who's to judge, and who is to say, and who's to guess?
- Well, when my parents came home, there was good news,
- and there was bad news, the good news that I was still here.
- And the bad news was that my brother was gone.
- We still stayed in the same quarters where we lived.
- That was the end of March 1944.
- To this day, until I saw the photograph of myself--
- again, I have to refer to the photograph--
- all my life I've wondered, I have questioned,
- I have thought, why--
- I know that they've taken away--
- I've heard who was taken away, youngsters whom I used to know,
- whom I knew.
- They were taken away with the children.
- I was left behind.
- Why was I left behind?
- Now, I look at this photograph, and I
- can see I looked, probably, 15, 16 years old.
- I don't know what I looked to them.
- I don't know what I looked like, but if I
- looked like on this photograph, then I look older.
- That's my answer.
- I cannot imagine what else that was that I was left to stay
- behind or maybe just to give testimony like I do now.
- Mark.
- 10
- Marker.
- So pretty soon, it was the end of the ghetto.
- Right.
- Tell me about that.
- Yes.
- Now, before that, there were two camps outside of the ghetto.
- But within the city are also suburbs of Kaunas, Sanc,
- Sanciai, Sanciai or Sancai, something Lithuanian
- is like that.
- And Aleksot.
- And there was also a forced labor camp
- where the airport was.
- Perhaps it still is there, for all I know.
- And just prior to the liquidation
- of the ghetto, which came about, I think, in June or July,
- you know.
- I have trouble.
- Was this June or July?
- Both, it went all through the summer.
- Both, it went along, right.
- Now, in June, if that's the case--
- either the end of May or June, so at the beginning of June,
- for a couple of weeks, my father was ordered with his family
- to go to this camp to Sanc.
- So we were taken out of the ghetto by then.
- And from then, that point on, we were separated.
- We were, up to then, until my brother was taken away,
- our little family was intact.
- Until '44, until the end of March.
- And then, towards the end of the ghetto,
- towards the starting of the liquidation of the ghetto,
- we were separated from my father, where
- we were in the same camp, but the women were in one barracks
- and the men were in a different barracks.
- So we could only get to see each other very, you know, briefly.
- In the evenings for a very-- like because
- we were working already.
- By then I had to work, too.
- And in the ghetto, too.
- They installed the workshops in the ghetto
- where I also worked to learn to sew.
- So that we would be useful citizens.
- So we would be able to show them that we are useful.
- And in this camp, too, we worked, the women and the men.
- But not together.
- And at night, briefly, we got to see my father.
- And soon after that, we were loaded into the boxcars
- and taken to Germany, wherever that was.
- We had no idea where we were being taken.
- But we were being deported.
- And as you were deported, did you see any
- of the burning of the ghetto?
- No.
- We were not within the ghetto then.
- I did not see that.
- And you didn't go back?
- We did not go back, no.
- OK I'm going to take you back and ask you a couple things.
- OK, sure.
- Mr. Rick has told you what happened
- to him just at the Ninth Fort.
- Yes.
- Tell me what he told you.
- He told me that bodies were piled up upon bodies.
- They shot them as a threat.
- Like they just-- there were ditches, there were graves.
- And they shot them.
- I don't remember whether I said whether they should undress
- or not.
- I don't recall them having told them to undress
- before they were shot.
- That I don't remember.
- But he was left for dead.
- Covered with bodies.
- And that's how he managed to get out from underneath
- and make himself back to the ghetto.
- And he testified to that in the court of law in Toronto.
- Had he been wounded or had?
- You know, I don't--
- I don't know.
- I don't think so.
- I don't think so.
- OK.
- Because had he been wounded, I don't know if he would have--
- Been able to get back.
- --to get back.
- To get out.
- And the photo of you in the ghetto, how did that happen?
- Yes, OK.
- My mother had a cousin, who became
- a doctor during the Russian occupation of Lithuania.
- He became a doctor in Italy.
- When he came back, he was designated
- to practice in a small town.
- And so when his parents, who happened to be fairly rich,
- were deported as bourgeois to Siberia by the Russians,
- just a week before the war broke out,
- he was not there to be deported with them.
- And he remained in Lithuania.
- The war broke out, he had friends, non-Jewish friends,
- who were willing to hide him.
- And they did.
- So he lived with the friends in the city of Kaunas.
- We didn't know what happened to him at that time.
- We didn't know that he lived that way until my mother was
- contacted by one of the officials
- of the committee of the ghetto, of the Jewish committee.
- And he came to talk to my mother,
- would she be willing to help out in hiding him and looking
- after him, because he must be in the ghetto, but also hidden.
- His whereabouts are not to be told to anybody.
- Because they could very well find him in the ghetto
- and take him away, too.
- Well, of course, my mother, she wasn't
- to tell a soul at that time, agreed.
- And she was told where he would be hidden.
- And the reason I knew about it was because she cooked food
- for him whenever she could.
- And I would take it to him.
- And he shared his quarters with a colleague of his,
- who was also a professional doctor, and a specialty
- gynecology.
- And by sheer coincidence, he was there when I was born.
- He was my mother's doctor.
- And this person, by the name of Dr. Nabriskin, said to me,
- I want to take your picture.
- It's for the archives.
- And I don't remember whether I came with a small milk can
- or he handed it to me.
- I don't remember how it happened.
- But I remember him taking the picture.
- And I remember him telling me for archives.
- By then I was 11.
- I knew what was going on.
- So I knew what archives meant.
- So he photographed me.
- But that was the last thing that ever
- occurred to me was to worry about this picture.
- I never thought of it.
- It never occurred to me that it would ever, ever
- survive and end up in Washington in the Holocaust Museum.
- I'm shocked now.
- What about some of the songs.
- Could you sing a song or two?
- Oh my goodness.
- Can I sing a song or two?
- Some of the songs were--
- but they were, the words were composed to old tunes.
- Borrowed tunes of other songs.
- Now, there was one song about the Jewish brigades that
- went out to work every morning and came back
- every day, every night from work.
- And it happens to be a Polish melody, I found later.
- I didn't know that it was even a Polish melody.
- Not only a Polish melody, but I think
- it's a very patriotic Polish melody.
- And it goes to that effect.
- Now, forgive me my voice, it's--
- it goes [YIDDISH].
- Now, in translation, it means that the Jewish brigades go day
- in and day out to work, to slave,
- and they are bearing their pain with great, with lots of mood,
- with good spirits.
- I don't know.
- I don't even know how to translate [YIDDISH],, because it
- means with gusto, with feeling.
- But maybe hope or something.
- I don't know.
- It says a lot.
- And there is this song that was also not--
- excuse me, that's a very important song.
- And it's about the Kinder Shack, it's about the children.
- And you may have heard of it.
- And it's about a mother who takes her child
- to be with non-Jews, and how he is not to tell.
- That you know, whenever I think of this song,
- even I get a lump in my throat.
- And it goes, let me think how it goes.
- Oh, my god, I don't--
- I have a mental block because I got mixed up
- with that other song.
- Oh, my goodness.
- [YIDDISH]
- OK.
- Do they have to change a tape?
- Yeah.
- OK.
- So maybe it'll come to me now.
- It will, yes.
- Marker.
- Now, as I was saying, there's a song
- about the children that were taken away,
- and about the mother who tries to anticipate
- this terrible event, and takes her child
- to a non-Jewish family.
- And it goes like this.
- [YIDDISH]
- Now, there is more.
- But this tells you what it is really all about.
- And that's the song.
- Now, how can I go on from here?
- What do I say?
- What else?
- Now, should I translate it?
- A little.
- OK.
- Some words.
- Some.
- OK, now, this is about a mother, as I
- said earlier, who takes her child to a non-Jewish family.
- The children look out the window.
- And there are children with blonde--
- the girls have blonde braids and the boys have flaxen hair.
- And together with them, there is this little child
- who has got dark eyes and curly, dark hair.
- And his mother brought him here.
- And she explained to him that she brings him here
- because his life is in danger.
- And from now on, he must not utter a single Yiddish word
- or anything to that effect.
- Because from now on, he's not Jewish anymore.
- And he better not forget that.
- He must always remember that he is not a Jew anymore.
- So this is the gist of it.
- Tell me any other things that I haven't asked you
- about that are vivid memories for you in the ghetto.
- You know, I've been worried a lot about lapses.
- I am going to be 65 this September.
- See, truly a senior citizen by all standards.
- Now, I remember having worked within the ghetto, too.
- This goes back, I think, to the era, to that time,
- to that quiet time, where they were
- planting fields of vegetables.
- And certain privileged people were allowed to work within.
- So they didn't have to go out the ghetto.
- So they were allowed, but they had to work.
- So they were allowed to work on this field, in these gardens.
- But the fields were where I said earlier,
- where the beaches were, too, further on.
- And somehow, my mother got me to work there.
- So I remember working there.
- I remember singing.
- Like I always like to sing.
- And I had an ear.
- I was like a sponge.
- I heard a tune and words, and it was--
- I got it.
- It was in me.
- So we did have the half-hour break, I would gather,
- and I would sing.
- But those times were very few and far in between.
- What other things do you tell the school kids about?
- You know, the thing is about the school kids is like this.
- My time is usually limited.
- It's within--
- No, I mean, just tell me any other things.
- OK.
- So what I tell them mostly are certain--
- I tell them, unfortunately, the bad things, all the bad things.
- I mean, there are no good things, really.
- How can you say that, good things?
- But the lighter times, if you can call them that,
- as you said.
- There was a lull, so to speak, for a while.
- I don't even remember how long it took.
- I don't know.
- I remember the lull, so to speak.
- Because our ghetto, actually lasted longer
- than most ghettos did.
- From '41 till '44.
- The Vilna ghetto-- people from the Vilna ghetto, I remember,
- were brought.
- When the Vilna ghetto was liquidated before the Kovno
- from the ghetto was, and they were brought to our ghetto.
- Those who were not deported anyplace else.
- And I remember that vividly.
- So bad times as well as not so bad times.
- They go.
- What about keeping warm in the winter?
- Do you remember?
- Keeping warm in the winter.
- We had our home, so to speak.
- We were not in barracks.
- We were in our own quarters, especially
- when we had our house from before the war.
- We lived there.
- There was always wood to heat.
- Because that was the way of heating
- the homes to begin with.
- You had like a fireplace.
- You heat a fireplace with wood.
- Our homes were heated with this kind of wood.
- That was my father's trade, actually, now,
- come to think of it.
- To build the places where you could put in,
- and then they would put in sort of units
- where you could either cook in them or put in wood into them.
- And it would heat.
- The homes were not large.
- Like the home that we had, like I said before,
- there were two rooms and a kitchen.
- And the oven that we had, it was--
- one part of it went into the bedroom.
- And the front-- the back was in the bedroom and the front
- was in the living room, dining room part.
- Let me ask you something else?
- Yes.
- Did you ever have--
- did you get interested in boys in the ghetto?
- Or did they get interested in you?
- Nice and interesting question.
- Probably.
- You know, not to that extent where
- it would really be memorable.
- I looked after my brother, mostly.
- I was with my brother all the time.
- Did you, and did you--
- I had friends.
- And you have fun with some of them.
- Yes, I had friends.
- The friends had-- one friend had a cat.
- As a matter of fact, then, we used to make fun of the cat.
- And of course, we all spoke Yiddish.
- And the cat-- and in those days, I loved animals.
- We were exposed an awful lot to animals.
- And this cat, I would hold it on my lap,
- and I would say to the cat, cat, do you have a father?
- In Yiddish.
- [YIDDISH] And the cat would-- and I'd blow in its ear.
- So the cat would go like this and shake its head.
- You know, we would think it's funny that we asked the cat,
- does she/he have a father?
- And the cat would shake its head and no.
- So that was-- things like that.
- And did you try to keep your brother out of sight, mostly?
- Not really, because until that time, when the children were
- specifically-- so the ghetto was surrounded,
- specifically take away children.
- Somehow there was not this threat.
- So we hung around the house.
- I cooked.
- I remember, I made dough out of water with flour
- that my mother brought in.
- The flour, obviously.
- And I learned how to roll out a very nice round,
- like you would call it a pizza.
- And then I would roll it up and slice it thin to make noodles.
- [YIDDISH]
- You know, and there was a potato.
- With this, it was a meal.
- So when my parents did come home,
- and when I didn't have to work, that's what I used to do.
- And like I said before, I used to go out to the corner
- and sell either a trade or sell.
- I don't even remember that too well.
- I remember doing it.
- Thank you very much.
- We're just about out.
- And I'm very grateful.
- Thank you very much.
- I know this was very hard.
- You're very welcome.
- There is, I tell you the way I got liberated.
- I know.
- But you can't-- I don't--
- I can't.
- I know.
- It's OK.
- It's OK.
- And then I'll wish I had you when
- I made the liberation film.
- Wait, we have--
- Oh, if you have the liberation.
- You mean, this is a different--
Overview
- Interviewee
- Helen Yermus
- Interviewer
- Sandra Bradley
- Date
-
interview:
1997 June 03
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
5 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
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
- Personal Name
- Yermus, Helen--Interviews.
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 Helen Yermus on June 3, 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 08:41:43
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn511030
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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
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Oral history interview with Brigitte Altman
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Oral history interview with Eta Hecht
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Oral history interview with Henry Kellen
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Oral history interview with Abraham Rodstein
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Oral history interview with Miriam Gershwin
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Oral history interview with Ted Pais
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Oral history interview with Jacob Lewin
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Oral history interview with Berel Zisman
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Oral history interview with Avraham Tory
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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
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Oral history interview with Esther Lurie
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Oral history interview with Tamar Lazerson
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