Event History
Approximately 10,000 children and youth below the age of 20 moved into the Kovno ghetto in August, 1941. Within a few months almost half of them (4,400) had perished in the "Great Action" of October 28, 1941. After the Germans issued a decree in July 1942 making pregnancy illegal and punishable by death, few children were born in the ghetto. During the fall of 1941 the community organized schools for children, but on August 25, 1942 educational instruction was formally banned. Limited elementary education continued clandestinely in private homes, and German authorities permitted the continuation of vocational schools for teenagers. In these schools Hebrew and Jewish history were taught in addition to crafts. Most children, however, did not go to school. They worked either in labor brigades or at home caring for younger siblings and keeping house. Originally, only children 16 and above were conscripted for slave labor. However, during the last year of the ghetto, all able-bodied teenagers over the age of 12 were registered for work. Those too young for forced labor often sold their services in order to bring in extra food for their families. These illegal workers were called "malokhim" or angels. In November 1943 fear for the safety of the remaining children in the ghetto mounted after word was received of a special "Children's Action" that had taken place in the nearby ghetto of Shavli (Siauliai). For the first time parents actively sought hiding places for their children outside the ghetto. The Kovno ghetto "Children's Action" took place on March 27-28, 1944. During the two-day action German troops and Ukrainian auxiliaries went from house to house and rounded-up the ghetto's remaining children who were below the age of 12. The 1300 victims of the "Children's Action" were either shot at the Ninth Fort or deported by train to an unknown locale, where they were killed.
See Also "Kauen Main Camp" in Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos Volume 1 Part A.
Biography
Shmuel Rozental was born in 1903 in Vilkvishkis. His father was killed during the WWI, and his mother died soon after. Shmuel Rozental completed teachers college in Kaunas in 1927 and taught in Yiddish schools n Lithuania from 1927 until the German occupation in June 1941. Rozental served as principal of the Yiddish Shalom Aleichem primary School from 1931 till 1941. Before the German occupation, he and his wife Rone lived in Kaunas. After the creation of the ghetto in late summer, 1941, both joined the underground resistance movement. Shmuel established and taught in a clandestine Yiddish school, which was located in a stable, and Rona helped save Jewish children. In July 1944 both Shmuel and Rona were deported to concentration camps. Rona perished in Stutthof; Shmuel survived deportation to Dachau. After his liberation by the Americans, Shmuel returned to Lithuania only to be accused by the Soviets of spying for America. He was interrogated but then released. He later gained a position in the Ministry of Education in Vilnius in charge of Jewish schools. In autumn 1949 all Jewish schools and organizations were closed, and he lost his position in the Ministry. He had to take other jobs with lower pay. In the sixties he became involved in the amateur Jewish theater, and he died in April 1984 in Vilnius.
