Abe Resnick (1924–1998) was born Abraham Resnickowitz in Rokiškis, Lithuania. Around the age of 12 or 13, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Kovno so that he could attend a Hebrew secondary school there. Soon after the Germans occupied the city, Abe and his family were forced into the Kovno ghetto. He lived in one room with his uncle, aunt, young cousin, and grandmother. In the Kovno ghetto, Abe was forced to join a labor brigade. He was assigned work building and maintaining an airfield for the German army. To fight hunger, Abe and others traded their belongings for food on the black market. Abe escaped the ghetto in 1944. He was eventually liberated by Soviet troops. After liberation, he immigrated to Cuba in 1947 and later made his way to the United States.
First of all they had to repair to fix the airport. So everybody was compelled to go out in the morning, five o’clock in the morning had to be in the reunion place, and then they used to come and, with guards, and walk to the, to the airport. So I remember they used to give us 200 grams of bread, and I used to put it in the pocket, and by the time I came to the to the airport, and when they used to give us some soup, which was made of water, and well, with some, some vegetables, some kind of this [indecipherable] vegetables, you know. And they used to boil that, and by that time I didn’t have really bread, because walking, I – I used to chew off the portion of bread. So the situation of – the food situation became very –the ration was very, very meager. And we had to trade sometimes, certain objects with the, with Lithuanians. So, in the beginning, they used to let the – we were able to do that, but there were some, some people who didn’t have a heart, from the Lithuanian side, you know. For instance, used to trade a suit for a kilo of butter. So after you – you have to do that fast, you know, because they – you had to do that when the guard was with his back to – to you, you know. So, in the desperation you found out sometimes that instead of butter, what you had is a big stone, on that – I mean, with – with a – with a little bit – with a little bit of butter on – on the sides, you know. And it was disaster, and you – you were unable to do anything, you know.
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