Judith Beker
Judith was one of three children born to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish family living on a farm near the Lithuanian town of Jonava. Judith's mother had an extensive Jewish education and taught her daughters at home. Her son, Abe, attended a Jewish religious school in Jonava. Judith's father worked in the logging industry.
1933-39: In the fall of 1938, six months after her father died, Judith and her mother moved to Kovno, the capital of Lithuania. She was 9 years old. Kovno at that time had a large Jewish community--approximately one third of the capital's total population. Her mother worked as a seamstress, and they moved to Kovno so that she could find work and so that they could be closer to Judith's older brother and sister who were already working there.
1940-45: The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940; Germany invaded a year later. In 1943, when Judith was 14, her family was deported to the Stutthof concentration camp. On arrival they were forced to stand at attention; a heavyset female guard walked by with a whip, saying, "No one leaves alive. You're all doomed." Then we were taken to be examined. A woman in line in front of Judith had some teeth ripped out and blood flowed from her mouth. When Judith's turn came a guard put her hand inside her crotch, searching for hidden valuables.
Judith and her sister escaped during a forced march out of Stutthof in the winter of 1944. Later, posing as Christians, they escaped to Denmark where they were liberated in 1945.
Item ViewHenny Fletcher Aronsen describes a roundup in the Kovno ghetto
Henny was born into an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Kovno, Lithuania. She and her brother attended private schools. In June 1940 the Soviets occupied Lithuania, but little seemed to change until the German invasion in June 1941. The Germans sealed off a ghetto in Kovno in August 1941. Henny and her family were forced to move into the ghetto. Henny married in the ghetto in November 1943; her dowry was a pound of sugar. She survived several roundups during which some of her friends and family were deported. Henny was herself deported to the Stutthof concentration camp in 1944, when the Germans liquidated the Kovno ghetto. She was placed in a forced-labor group. The Germans forced Henny and other prisoners on a death march as Soviet troops advanced. After Soviet troops liberated Henny in 1945, she eventually reunited with her husband and moved to the United States.
Item ViewDorotka (Dora) Goldstein Roth describes conditions in the Vilna ghetto
After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Dora's family fled to Vilna, Lithuania. When the Germans occupied Vilna, Dora's father was shot and the rest of the family was confined in the Vilna ghetto. Dora, her sister, and her mother were deported to the Kaiserwald camp in Latvia and then to the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig. Her mother and sister perished in Stutthof. Dora herself was shot immediately before liberation, but she survived.
Item ViewAbraham Malnik describes massacre in Kovno's Ninth Fort, near the Kovno ghetto
Abraham came from a wealthy family that was ordered into the Kovno ghetto after the Germans occupied Lithuania in 1941. Abraham's mother urged his father to flee, but he returned for them. Begging for mercy, he was able to save them from a massacre in the Ninth Fort, one of several forts around Kovno. Abraham and his father survived internment in five camps before they were finally liberated in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Abe's mother perished at the Stutthof camp.
Item ViewRachel Lea Galperin
Rachel, born Rachel Karpus, was born to a Jewish family in the northeastern Polish city of Vilna. At the age of 16, Rachel married Reuven Galperin, a typesetter for a Jewish newspaper in the city, and the couple subsequently had 16 children. Only nine of the children lived to the 1930s.
1933-39: In addition to caring for her children, Rachel also operated a small grocery on Nowigorod Street. In 1938 Rachel's husband died. One year later, on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and 17 days after that the Soviet Union invaded from the east, splitting Poland in two. Vilna lay within the Soviet zone, and in October the Soviets decided to cede the city to Lithuania.
1940-41: On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and within two days the Germans reached Vilna. Soon after, Rachel and numerous members of her immediate family were arrested and taken six miles southwest of Vilna to the resort area of Ponary. During the Soviet occupation, the Soviets had begun excavations for installing a fuel tank there. The Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators used the pits for a mass execution site. The victims were herded through a narrow circular passage, then shot and dumped in mass graves.
Rachel and many of her family members were murdered at Ponary. The exact date of her death is unknown.
Item ViewAlexander Bernstein
Alexander was one of six children born to a Jewish family in the Lithuanian village of Karchai. His father was a farmer. In nearby Janova, Alexander attended public school and also studied Hebrew and Jewish history in a religious school. In 1925 Alexander moved to Siauliai to attend secondary school. He lived there with his older sister.
1933-39: Alexander enrolled in university in Kovno, and entered the pharmacology department. After completing his degree, he returned to Siauliai and took a job in a pharmacy on Vilnius Street. In 1939 Alexander married Jocheved Todress. Later that same year, Germany invaded Poland. Lithuania, at the time, was still a free nation.
1940-44: In 1940 the Soviets annexed Lithuania. A year later German troops took Siauliai and moved the city's Jews, including Alexander and his wife, into ghettos. Alexander was one of the very few pharmacists in the ghetto. Alexander and his wife were placed on the last transport out of Siauliai in July 1944. They were deported to several camps, but managed to stay together. However, at Kaiserwald, near Riga, Alexander and Jocheved were separated and sent to different camps.
In the spring of 1945, Alexander died in the Brabag-Schwarzheide camp from sickness brought on by starvation; he was 34. His wife, Jocheved, was never heard from again.
Item ViewNesse Galperin
Nesse was born to an observant Jewish family in Siauliai, known in Yiddish as Shavl. Her parents owned a store that sold dairy products. The city was home to a vibrant Jewish community of almost 10,000 people. It had over a dozen synagogues and was renowned for its impressive cultural and social organizations.
1933–39: Nesse's family was very religious and observed all the Jewish laws. She attended Hebrew school and was raised in a loving household, where the values of community and caring always were stressed. After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, her family heard from relatives in Lodz that Jews there were being treated horribly. They could not believe it; how could your neighbors denounce you and not stand up to help you?
1940–44: On June 26, 1941, the Germans occupied Nesse's city, just four days after the invasion of the USSR. In the weeks that followed, SS killing units and Lithuanian collaborators shot about 1,000 Jews in the nearby Kuziai forest. In August, Nesse and her family were forced to move into a ghetto, where they lived in constant hunger and fear. There she witnessed many "selections," during which men, women, and children were taken to their deaths. Her father was among them. In 1944 as the Soviet army approached, the remaining Jews were deported to the Stutthof concentration camp. There she was given the number 54015.
From Stutthof, Nesse was transported to several camps, and was sent on a death march in January 1945. In the freezing cold winter weather and with little food, many of the prisoners died. On March 10, 1945, she was liberated by Soviet troops. In 1950 after spending five years in the displaced persons camp in Feldafing, Germany, Nesse immigrated to the United States.
Item ViewSara Galperin
Sara, born Sara Bernstein, was one of six children in a Jewish family in the Lithuanian village of Karchai. Her father was a farmer. Sara attended secondary school in Jonava and in 1920 she moved to Siauliai, where she met and married Pinchas Galperin. The couple owned and ran a dairy store, selling butter, milk and cheese. They had three children--two sons and a daughter.
1933-39: In addition to running the family store and rising early every morning to buy dairy products from the local farmers, Sara was also involved in several women's organizations that aided the sick and poor. They sent packages to the families of the sick and provided food to widows and orphans. In 1939 Germany invaded Poland. Lithuania, at the time, was still a free nation.
1940-44: In 1940 the Soviets annexed Lithuania, and a year later German troops took Siauliai and moved the city's Jews into a ghetto. On November 5, 1943, the Germans issued conflicting orders on reporting to work. Confusion reigned. The Jewish police warned people it would be safer to find a work brigade that day, telling Sara workers were needed at a nearby factory. But Sara did not have a Jewish star required to leave the ghetto. Pinchas gave her his saying, "I'm a strong, big man; they won't take me."
When Sara returned, Pinchas had been deported. In early 1945 Sara was liberated on the Baltic coast by Soviet troops. She learned Pinchas had been gassed at Auschwitz.
Item ViewChannah Mazansky-Zaidel
Channah was one of six children born to a Jewish family. In 1914, a year after her father died, the family fled during World War I to Russia. After the war they returned to Lithuania and settled in the village of Pampenai in a house owned by Channah's grandparents. When Channah's three oldest siblings moved to South Africa in the 1920s, Channah helped support the family by sewing.
1933-39: Channah was working as a seamstress in Pampenai when, in the mid 1930s, she met and married Channoch Zaidel. The couple, who continued to live in Pampenai, had one child. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. At the time, Lithuania was still a free nation.
1940-41: Within days of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, German troops had overrun the area around Pampenai. In late summer 1941, German troops approached the village, in an action that was part of a Nazi plan to eliminate Lithuania's Jews. Before the troops arrived, however, groups of armed Lithuanian collaborators herded Pampenai's Jews to a nearby forest and then forced them to dig trenches and strip naked. The Jews were then ordered to climb into the trenches and were machine-gunned.
Channah, Channoch, and their child were killed, along with Channa's mother, Sara Rachel, her twin brother, Moishe, and her younger brother, Chaim. Channah was 33.
Item ViewChaia Gurvitz
From a Jewish family, Chaia lived outside Kovno, a city with a large Jewish population that was renowned for its Hebrew school system. Chaia ran a grocery store with her husband, a retired shoemaker, and their daughter Yenta.
1933-39: Chaia is expecting her daughter Feiga, Feiga's husband, Josef, and her grandson, Abraham, for dinner. Feiga works so hard all week in her beauty shop, Chaia is glad she can help out by preparing the big Sunday meal. She has baked a special cake for Abe. Chaia hopes the family get-together isn't marred by talk of politics. There's been so much disturbing news on the radio about what's happening to Jews in Germany now that the Nazis are in power.
1940-44: The Germans have occupied Kovno. They've forced all the Jews to wear the Star of David and to relocate to a fenced-in ghetto. Every day the guards take people away, never to return. This morning--a cold, drizzly autumn day--everyone in the ghetto, including Chaia, has to report to Democracy Plaza for an inspection. They have to comply or risk being killed. Chaia wonders where they will take her and what will happen to everybody. They march to the Plaza over streets lightly dusted with snow--Yenta and Chaia, and Feiga, Josef, and Abe.
On October 28, 1941, Chaia was taken with 10,000 other Jews to the Ninth Fort, outside Kovno. There they were killed by Lithuanian guards acting under Nazi orders.
Item ViewFeiga Malnik
Raised in a Jewish family, Feiga lived with her husband, Josef, in Kovno, a city with a large Jewish community of 38,000. Kovno was situated at the confluence of two rivers, and with its opera company, chic stores and lively nightclubs, it was often called "Little Paris." Feiga was a beautician and Josef was a barber, and together they ran a shop in downtown Kovno.
1933-39: Every day Josef and Feiga walk to their shop, which is near their house. It's hard work, being a beautician--Feiga is on her feet most of the day and her fingers are swollen from the harsh chemicals she uses to give permanents. It'll all seem worth it to Feiga, though, if she can help her son, Abe, have a better life as a doctor or a lawyer. He's a good boy. He works hard at school and helps his parents out at the shop sometimes, sweeping the floor.
1940-44: The Nazis have occupied Kovno. They've forced all the Jews to wear a Star of David and to relocate to a fenced-in ghetto. Every day the guards take people away, never to return. This morning--a cold, drizzly autumn day--everyone in the ghetto has to report to Democracy Plaza for an inspection. They have to comply or risk being killed. Feiga wonders where they will be taken and what will happen to them. They march to the plaza over streets lightly dusted with snow--Josef, Abe and Feiga, her 66-year-old mother and Feiga's sister, Yenta.
That October 28, 1941, Lithuanian guards under Nazi orders killed 10,000 Jews. Feiga escaped. In 1944 she was deported to the Stutthof concentration camp, where she perished.
Item ViewNesse Galperin Godin describes the formation of the Siauliai ghetto
Nesse's family had a dairy business. The Germans occupied Lithuania in 1941 and established a ghetto in Siauliai. Nesse lived in the ghetto until 1943 when she was old enough to work. In 1944 Nesse, her mother, and a brother were deported to the Stutthof camp near Danzig. Nesse worked in several Stutthof subcamps until January 1945, when the inmates were put on a death march. She was liberated by the Soviets in March. Nesse, her mother, and two brothers survived, and she arrived in the United States in 1950.
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