Jacob (Yankel) Verbovski (far right), a representative of the Altestenrat labor office, talks with a group of Jews near the Varniu Street entrance to the Kovno ghetto.
Overview
- Caption
- Jacob (Yankel) Verbovski (far right), a representative of the Altestenrat labor office, talks with a group of Jews near the Varniu Street entrance to the Kovno ghetto.
Verbovski was known as the ghetto's "count man". He was in charge of counting people coming and going into the ghetto. In that capacity he helped members of the resistance to escape from the ghetto, and he helped smuggle weapons and other illegal goods into the ghetto. Verbovski survived the war and immigrated to the United States. - Photographer
- George Kadish/Zvi Kadushin
- Date
-
1941 - 1944
- Locale
- Kaunas, Lithuania
- Variant Locale
- Kauen
Kovno
Kowno - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of George Kadish/Zvi Kadushin
- Event History
- In Kovno, as in other ghettos, slave labor was the justification for the ghetto's continued existence. Initially all male Jews between the ages of 17 and 60 and women between the ages of 17 and 47 were forced to work. Later these age limits were broadened. Shifts frequently lasted twelve hours and usually consisted of heavy, menial labor. Most Jews worked in labor brigades outside the borders of the ghetto. Other Jews found work within the ghetto in workshops for the manufacture and repair of products. Work shirking, though never eliminated, was punishable by prison sentence. Some paid underage workers known as "malachim" or angels to work in their stead. Every day thousands of Jews assembled at the ghetto's main gate, from which they were marched to a variety of worksites throughout the city. These included warehouses, depots, factories, meat-packing plants, farms, and military field hospitals and procurement offices. However, the largest brigade was sent to construct a military airport in the suburb of Aleksotas. Initially, one quarter of the ghetto and over half of the work force worked at the airfield, though this decreased with time. Workers walked to the airport in all types of weather without adequate clothing and footwear. There, they dug tunnels, hauled concrete, loaded and unloaded aircraft. The airfield brigade was not only the largest but also the least desirable work detail. A class system developed in the ghetto between those forced to work at the airfield and those who could find work elsewhere.
See https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005174.
See Also "Kauen Main Camp" in Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos Volume 1 Part A.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
USHMM (Restricted)
Copyright: Exclusively with provenanceProvenance: George Kadish/Zvi KadushinBeit Hatfutsot
Copyright: Exclusively with sourceProvenance: George Kadish/Zvi KadushinSource Record ID: AR 82-50-30-25 - Published Source
- Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Little, Brown and Company - p.54
Keywords & Subjects
- Record last modified:
- 2005-05-31 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1055960
