Trudy Gold
Abba Kovner and Din
Trudy Gold | Abba Kovner and Din | 05.31.21
- Well, lots of challenges and loads of challenges.
I know, it’s one of the strangest times we’ve ever been to.
Very.
But in my cognizant lifetime. Yeah. Lots of challenges for humanity and for the Jews in particular, and humanity in general. It’s very worrying.
And also there’s going to be a new president as well. So many changes. Well, okay. True. I want to just say, I hope everybody’s had a wonderful bank holiday weekend. And I’m happy that you’ve been enjoying good weather in Europe. Can’t say the same for New York, but the good thing about the weather changes, the sun eventually arrives. So now over to you. Today, I think, is Abba Kovner and Din. Is that correct?
That’s right, Wendy.
Okay.
Very thank you, Jud.
Well, good afternoon everyone from sunny London, at least it seems that the weather has broken. And today, I’m dealing with a very complex and controversial subject. And of course, that is the story of Abba Kovner and an organisation called Din. And I want to also take us back to the town that Abba Kovner spent much of his life in. And that of course, is Vilnius. Vilnius which had been known as the Jerusalem of the North Jew. It was the home of some, many of the great town Wood sages, including the Vilna Gaon. It was a place of great scholarship. It was a hugely important Jewish city. And by the time you get to the set the period in the interwar period, what had happened was that Vilnius was no longer in Lithuania. Kaunas becomes the capital of Lithuania, and Vilnius is part of Poland.
Now between 1920 and 1939, Vilna under Polish rule, the city was a population of about 200,000, about 55,000 were Jews. So it’s still a large Jewish population. And I want you to remember that it was also the centre of the Bund. The Bund had been created in by a man called Medem. Those of you who have been online a long time will remember this. And I know many of you know this from your reading. The Bund was a fascinating Jewish labour organisation that had been responsible for a huge upswing in Yiddish, in Yiddish theatre, in Yiddish language, in Yiddish literature. And in fact, it was the home of YIVO. YIVO was created in Vilna. Thank goodness it was transferred to New York later on with so many of that precious work. So it’s a great Jewish centre, but it’s in obeyance because Vilnius is now part of Poland.
It’s becoming more and more of a backwater. And of course, tragically, the Jews are now going to be the subjects of some of the most appalling events in history. Now the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and I’m going to be talking about Russia tomorrow because Ribbentrop, if you think about it, the German foreign minister does a deal with Litvinov, the Russian foreign minister. He had been replaced. He had replaced a man who was Jewish. Fascinating. And I’m going to talk more about that tomorrow. So what you have is a pact between Russia and Poland, the non-aggression pact in August 1939, that basically, the Germans are going to come in from the west, the Russians are going to come in from the East. And on September the 19th, the Soviets enter Vilna. And a few weeks later, they handed over to the Lithuanians. And it’s going to stay that way for quite a long time.
Now, for a while, the Jews in the main, they welcomed both Lithuanian and Soviet rule because they felt at least it would be better than under the Nazis. And the Jewish population was swollen by the fact that about 15,000 Jews had fled from the Polish occupied territories, occupied by the Nazis to Lithuania. They came to Lithuania. And on July, 1940, Lithuania was incorporated into the Soviet Republic. So Lithuania, Vilnius is now part of the Soviet world. And of course, this is where the problems start. Because on one level, the Jews are seen as, if you think about from a Nazi point of view, Jews are seen as the great enemy. And of course, all Jews are communists. But from a Soviet point of view, Jewish capitalists, inverted commerce are under threat. And you cannot be a Jew and live properly under Soviet rule anymore than you could be a Christian.
So what happens is, or the Jewish organisations most bigger- Pardon, most of the Jewish organisations are outlawed. So Jewish political parties are outlawed, schools and cultural associations that teach religion, that teach in Yiddish, they are tandid over. And of course, Hebrew is a completely banned subject. And I should point out that one of the most important Zionist organisations in Vilnius was Hashomer Hatzair, left-Wing Zionism. No, I think it’s very important that we remember that if you go back to Eastern Europe, turn of the century, right up until this period. The majority of politically active Jews, they had been either Bundist or Zionist. And by this period, the bulk of the Zionists coming to Palestine were socialist Zionists. Important to remember this. So in a way, they’re fighting for the souls of the same people.
The problem was, once the Soviets begin to nationalise, because it’s not just squashing Jewish education, they took over the businesses, inverted commerce of capitalists. And these people were made absolutely penniless. Many refugees tried to get out. And in fact, 6,500 did manage to leave Vilnius. Many of them were given Visas by an extraordinary Japanese character called Sugihara. He was the Japanese console. And he gave out Visas to Jews, transit Visas. And many of them, of course, made their way to Shanghai. Shanghai, I think I’ve already mentioned this to you, was divided up into four sections. There was an international city where you didn’t need a Visa. So consequently, many Jews fleeing Vilna, made their way to Shanghai. That’s another story, another time.
And it’s the Soviet transit Visas that Sugihara was issuing that allowed them to go to the east. Now on June the 24th, 1941, 2 days after invading the Soviet Union, the Germans occupy Vilna. Now about 3000 managed to make it into the Soviet interior before the Germans took possession. And also some Jewish capitalist in inverted commerce had been marched into the Soviet Union as well. Ironically, these characters are going to have a very hard time. Many of them are put into gulags, but nevertheless, most of them actually survive the war. So ironically, the fact that they are frog marched into the Soviet Union as undesirables, as capitalists, that’s going to save many of their lives. So by the time the Germans take possession of the city, the population actually stands at 57,000. Can we please see a picture of pre-war Vilnius? If you don’t mind, that is a picture of Abba Kovner. There you are.
There’s pre-war Vilnius. I’ve been to Vilnius many times. And it’s a fascinating city. Vilnius, by the way, the sign of the city is the sign of the wolf. It was one of the last areas of Europe to be Christianized. And it’s very much a home of all sorts of legends, much paganism. It’s a fascinating place to visit. Of course, the church is imposed over it. But if you scratch that, I remember going to a museum in the outskirts of Vilnius, which were fugues of the Virgin Mary, and many of them were straw goddesses. So it’s also outside the cities, quite a primitive place. And I think that was very much mentioned to you when we had those lectures, of course, on what’s going on today in Lithuania. So, I should mention that the Jews living even before the Germans came in that time, before the Soviets came in, there’d been a terrible anti-Jewish pogrom. So basically, what is going to happen under the Germans?
And now can we turn to an extraordinary character, Abba Kovner. He was born Abba Kovner. His dates are 1918 to 1987. He’s going to become one of the most important poets in Israel. He is also going to give evidence at the Eichmann trial. And he was a very sensitive interesting man. And one of the reasons I wanted to look at Din with you today, is because Dennis and David have already been looking at the Nuremberg War crimes trials. So into this, is going to come the story of justice. And here you see a picture of a partisan brigade. And of course, he’s going to be absolutely central to the partisan brigade. And you’ll notice in it, you was notice in it a young woman. And that in fact was the woman, Vitka, who became his wife. But I’ll be showing you more pictures of that in a minute. So let’s talk a little bit about Abba Kovner. He was born about 50Ks outside of Vilnius, in what was then Belarus.
Honestly, having travelled so much in that part of the world. Even today, it’s very primitive. And I’ve said this to people before, it’s fascinating how the two worlds coincided. And I just wonder how much contact there really was in the main with the Lithuanian population, the Belarus population, and the Jewish population. The place he came from, is mentioned in the legends of the Teutonic Knights. So take yourselves back to the period when the Teutonic Knight are fighting the Pagan Lithuanians. This is the myths and legends. And he was born in a town called, Oszmiana. I hope I pronounced it properly. And it’s mentioned in the legends of the Teutonic Knights. Did he know about that? Probably not.
So the family moved to Vilnius when he’s nine years old. In 1927, it’s under Polish rule. He’s educated at a secondary school, the Hebrew secondary school. Then he goes to art school. He is very talented. He becomes a very active member of Hashomer Hatzair. He’s a cousin, by the way of the Israeli communist leader, Meir Vilner, who was born Bar Kovner. He in fact, made it to Palestine. He left for Palestine in 1938 and was the youngest signatory to the Declaration of Independence. He became very disillusioned of what he thought were the dreams of Hashomer Hatzair. And he became a communist. He believed he had to bleed with everybody else, but he made it to Palestine in 1938 to where he was very active in the Communist Party. So 22nd of June, 1941, the Nazis capture Vilnius and this- Now this is when whole groups of young Jews flee Eastwood, but many of them remain. And on June the 27th, as early as June the 27th, Jewish males, the Nazis are in town. Can we have a look at the next slide, if you don’t mind, Judi? Yeah.
Can you just imagine the horror of that? Here you have the Nazis and they’re going to set up a Ghetto. Remember, how early it is, the invasion. This is Operation by Barbarossa. I’ve spent a lot of time with you talking about knowledge of the Shoah. Remember, the decision has been made following the German army into Eastern Europe, into Russia, were the Einsatzgruppen. But who knew? So basically, because in those years when there was a pact, there was no anti-Nazi propaganda coming out of Russia. So nobody knew what was going on. So can you just imagine the terror now of the Nazis invading?
Now the first shootings, the first mass shootings begin by the 4th of July, 1941. And this is after the military administration is replaced by a civil administration. That same day, the Germans create a Judenrat. This is one of the YIVO ways to quote the great Hugo Gryn. They overturned the 10 Commandments. They took a Jewish leadership and made that leadership obey their orders. Once they set up the Ghetto, they want it controlled by the Jews, they want Jewish police, they want the Jews themselves to look after work, health, if you can call it health services. And what the Judenrats tended to believe, remember how early this is, that if they did what everybody would say, what the Germans said, that at least they could keep the young alive for labour.
The story of what happened in Vilnius, is one of the darkest chapters in the Shoah. There is a suburb of Vilnius called Ponary. And that is where the bulk of the Jews were murdered into the pits. Now the problem was the murderers, the bulk of the murderers were actually Lithuanian under the command. Who are they under the command of? They are under the command of the Einsatzgruppen. But there’s a regiment of 80 Lithuanian volunteers who are responsible for the mass shootings and the horror story. I’ve been to Ponary, it’s the end of the world. And the horror story of Ponary is, believe it or not, half a dozen women managed to escape from the pits. And they came back and they made it back to the Ghetto. And were they actually believed.
Now, by the end of 1941, the majority of Jews have been taken away. There were 15,000 left alive on January, 1942. Remember, the Wannsee conference was in January 42, because they needed to find a better method of killing. And by that, I’m using the word, better, because some members of the SS were actually going crazy and getting drunk. So anyway, Abba Kovner and his comrades, they very quickly were aware of what was going on, and a whole group of them were hidden in a Dominican convent, headed by a nun called Anna Borkowska, her dates a 1900 to 1988. So even in horror, there were amazing people. Now, she’d been a graduate of Krakow University, and when she heard about the murders of Ponary, she was aware.
You see, they begin on the 1st of July, and they’re going to actually go on right through 41. There’s a slight lull in 42, and they’re actually going to go on through 43. And she inquired, how is she going to help Jews? And what she did was, she inquired of whom. She’s a nun, remember. She is a nun. And she therefore gets in touch with the religious authorities in Vilna. And she asks them, what should she do? Can she help? And they decide, they’re not going to do anything to aid Jews because they are terrified that the Nazis will turn on the Catholic population. Now, she was so angry with it that she decided that she’s going to do something about it. And I should mention that it wasn’t just the Jews who were murdered at Ponary, the bulk of them were Jewish. 70,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles were murdered.
Remember, the Nazis wanted to get rid of the Polish intelligentsia, 8,000 Russian prisoners of war. The Russians, when we think about the Second World War. In the main, the Nazis kept the Geneva conventions with the British and the Americans. There were some incidents, but when you think of the bestiality of Nazism, but with the Russians, if you look at the Commissar Orders, they were totally expendable and they were to be shot. And so 8,000 Russian prisoners of war died in the picks of Ponary. Now having been rebuffed by the church authorities, she decides that she herself is going to go into the ghetto to help. And she goes into the ghetto and she provides supplies, food.
Now, there’s another important man who is hiding in the convert. His name was Abraham Sutzkever. I want to give you these names because we have to remember them. His dates are 1913 to 2010. He later on became a great Yiddish poet. When he died the New York Times, in his obituary, the greatest poet of the Holocaust. In Vilna, before the war, he and Kovner and many of their friends, they were part of an intellectual group called Young Vilna. And in the ghetto, he actually had in his possession a diary of Theodor Herzl. He had some of Chagall’s drawings. He managed to hide them. So later on, he is going to escape and join a partisan unit. His narrative poem, which is called Kol Nidre.
In fact, reached Stalin’s anti-fascist committee, which I’m going to talk about tomorrow. And ironically, he was rescued. He was rescued by the Soviets. In March 44 with his wife, they were flown to Moscow. His son and his mother died in the Vilma Ghetto. But his mother, he has a child by his wife and he survives in Israel. And he was a witness at Nuremberg. He testified against a man called Franz Murer, and I’m going to talk about him in a minute. Who had murdered his mother. And he was the first Yiddish poet to win the Israel prizes. That’s quite important because what is the language? What is the language of the Jewish state?
Now, the nun, she had the name Mother Bertranda, and she took in all these activists. But then they said to her, what we don’t want you to do is to risk your life in the ghetto. What I want you to do is to organise supplies for us. Because what Kovner was about, more than anything else, what he wants to do, is for Jews to actually take destiny into their own hands and to fight. And Judi, could you please go on if you don’t mind to the- Yes. Now, this is the first ever proclamation. This is the youth group. Now remember, they could have stayed in the monastery, they could have gone into the woods, but they come back into the ghetto. And this is where they ask for resistance. And this is very famous. A lot of people think it was written by Kovner, but later on, it could have been written by someone else, but doesn’t matter.
This was very much the ideas of these young people. So let me read it with you. Jewish youth, do not be led astray. Of the 80,000 Jews in the Jerusalem of Lithuania, only 20,000 remain. Before our eyes have told our torn for our parents, our brothers and sisters. Where are the hundreds of men who were taken away for work by the Lithuanian Snatchers? You see, if you went on work detail, the point was, who is really attacking the Jews, the Lithuanians? Where are the naked women and children who were taken from us in the night of terror and the provaccia? Where are the Jews who were taken away on the day of atonement? I’ve discussed this with you before, they went for the Jewish holidays. Remember who their boss was? Adolf Hitler.
All those who were taken away from the ghetto never came back. All the roads of the Gestapo leaked to Ponary. And Ponary is death. Doubters, cast off your illusions. Your children, your husbands, and your wives are no longer alive. Ponary is not a camp. All is shot there. Hitler aims to destroy all the Jews of Europe. The Jews of Lithuania are fated to be the first in line. Let us not go as sheep to the slaughter. This became a very, very dangerous line, by the way. And of course, in the first few years of the state, don’t forget, a quarter of the immigrants into Palestine were Holocaust survivors. And again, it’s the Bar Kokhba, Ben Zakkai debate.
I can say to you until I’m blue in the face, there was an incredible amount of Jewish resistance. But it happened when they knew they were going to die. And I think psychologically, if you live in a family group, when are you really going to stick your neck out? But it says, it is true that we are weak and defenceless, but resistance is the only reply to the enemy. Brothers, it’s better to fall as free fighters than to live by the grace of the murderers. Resist to the last breath. January the first, 1942, Vilna Ghetto. This is very much the children of the Maccabees. This is very much Bar Kovner. And this is going to have a profound impact on the state of Israel.
As I said, they didn’t go like sheep to the slaughter. I remember having a conversation with the great Yehuda Bauer. And even he, he found it incredibly, incredibly painful. And this is why, one of the reasons, and I think, I don’t usually speak politically, and this isn’t politics. To me, this is part of the whole notion of what happened to the Jews in the 20th century. I think that is why Israel is so zealous in her protection of the Jewish people. It’s to do with this period. And so, that is the incredible pronouncement of a group, probably the words of Abba Kovner, which really led, if you like, to a whole stream of thought. And as I said, he became, if you like, who did he become? He became Israel’s major poet.
So this kind of notion, and can you imagine, these are very young people. They are partisans and they are going to fight. Now, Kovner has returned to the ghetto with his friends, and he’s created a resistant fighting force. Can we have a look at some of the people who were involved in that fighting force? If you don’t mind. That’s Vitka Kempner, who he later married. She became a psychologist in Israel. They had two daughters. She was in the partisans and can we see her friend, Rozka Korczak? Yes, that’s Rozka Korczak. She was also one of the partisans. She made it to Israel. And the women were fighting alongside men. They were an incredible group of people. Now the problem was, they came up against the ghetto authorities and there was another man very involved. Can we see please a picture of- That is, of course- No, not yet. Can I have Yitzak Wittenberg first?
Yes, Yitzak Wittenberg. He was one of the leaders of the group, and he’s very important in the story. His dates in 1907 to 1943. He was also a member of the illegal Communist Party. He was the commander of the group until he was killed when Abba Kovner took over. And what they were going to do is to create an uprising for the final. When the ghetto was finally liquidated, they knew it was coming. They wanted to fight. And what happened was, Wittenberg was captured by the Gestapo. He was rescued by members of the partisan group. And it’s at this stage that the part that the Germans threatened, terrible reprisals and the head of the ghetto, Jacob Gens, who I’m going to talk about in a minute. He tells Wittenberg to give himself up and Wittenberg does give himself up to stop terrible reprisals against the rest of the group.
And there are two stories. One of the stories is that he took poison that was given to him by the head of the ghetto, Jacobs Gens. And the other, is that he was tortured to death. So that is Yitzak Wittenberg. I wanted you to see his face. What a beautiful face. And tragically, died very young. A real hero, Jacob Wittenberg. So can we now go on to the far more complicated character of Jacob Gens, another incredibly good looking man. And Jacob Gens is going to become Head of the Jewish Police and later, Head of the Judenrat. Now I want you to take your mind into, if you like, the most appalling moral dilemmas that these characters are going to have to face. Now his dates are 1903 to 1943. He was the eldest of four children, four sons. He was born to a relatively wealthy merchant. He went to a Russian language school. He was very, very bright. He was fluent in many languages. He had Lithuanian, Russian, German, Yiddish. He also had some English and some Polish. So he’s quite a character.
1919, he actually enlists when Lithuania becomes a sovereign state team. He enlists in the Lithuanian army. He goes to an officer school. This is an acculturating Jew in Lithuania. And he becomes a junior left tenant, which for a Jew in Lithuania is quite something. According to a colleague, he had huge personal charm. He was an incredibly strong person. And he also had great charisma and huge leadership qualities. I’m quoting from a non-Jewish source, a colleague of his at office school. He participated on the Lithuanian side in the Polish Lithuanian war, 1924. After the war, he becomes part of the Army Reserve. And so he has to get a job. And he teaches physical education at a Lithuanian Jewish school, a primary school. He marries a non-Jewish woman by a Lithuanian woman by whom he has a child. And he wants to transfer to the Lithuania Air Force. But cause he’s married, he can’t. And he moves to Kaunas. Why does he move to Kaunas? Because Vilnius is under Polish rule.
He moves to Kaunas where he goes to the universities. As I said, he is very bright. He takes degrees in both law and economics. And he has a position as a lawyer. He’s called back into the Army in 1939 where he was promoted to the rank of captain. He came from a different kind of Zionism. He was a revisionist. He was a follower of Jabotinsky. He belonged to an interesting organisation. And I wonder if any of you online, this will apply to any of your relatives, just as I’m sure online, we have people who are the relatives of some of the young Hashomer Hatzair. He belonged to something called Brith Hahayal. It was a Jabotinsky type organisation for military reservists. It been established in 1933 in Poland, a huge meeting attended by Jabotinsky. 150 delegates attended from over 700 branches.
By 1939, it had 25,000 members. Now, what these young people were doing is they were being involved in military training, often with the help of the Polish government. The anti-Semitic Polish government wanted Jews in out of Poland to Palestine. And Jabotinsky’s people were actually training under the noses of the Polish government with their tacit approval. So basically, he is involved in that organisation. The commander was a man called Jeremiah Halpern. His dates in 1901 to 1962. I want to give these people back their names. He’d been an aide de camp to Jabotinsky, when Jabotinsky had been Head of Jerusalem Haganah in the 20s, he’d been his aide to come. He had come from a rabbinic family.
Anyway, after the Soviet invasion, Gens was no longer allowed to live in Kaunas. So he went to live with his brother, Solomon in Vilnius. And he was on the list to be as a revisionist, to be sent to a Soviet labour camp but he goes onto the radar. Because he has many Lithuanian friends, an old military colleague gets him a job in the Vilnius Health Department. He’s under the radar. And during June, 1941, when thousand of the Lithuanian elites were sent by the Soviets to Siberia, he remains in hiding and wasn’t deported. I’ve already mentioned, many of those elites were Jews and that saved their lives. So on the 24th of June, when the Nazis take Vilnius, Gens is put in charge of the Jewish hospital, which is in the Ghetto. So the authorities order the creation of the Judenrat.
But by the end, within a couple of months, they’ve murdered most of them. So the community is rudderless. And during this time, they build the big ghetto and the little ghetto. And when the ghetto was formed, the hospital was in the large ghetto. Now in September 41, Gens, who’s a brilliant, remember he’s a linguist and he’s a great organiser. He is named commander of the Jewish Police. He has 200 men under him, mainly revisionists. There’s a lot of conflict in the ghetto. What is fascinating, and I think about the Jewish people, and I am going to make a personal comment. My observation of us, if only we didn’t fight amongst ourselves. And of course, this is the most unbelievable time of extremists, but it seems that we always fight amongst ourselves because what we can achieve when we are not is quite extraordinary. Anyway, who are they fighting with, mainly with the Bund.
Now Gens believes, and in one level, Gens- You see, it’s only 1941. Gens believes because the Germans have created a labour force in the ghetto, remember. What you need is a labour permit. And he believed, he knew about Ponary. But he believed, he compete the young and the fit alive if he did what the Germans wanted. So he saw it as part of his job to uncover resistant cells. Some of you will remember the great clay ghetto by Joshua Sobel, when it takes the character of Jacob Gens. As I said, he’s an incredibly complicated man. He’s authoritarian. He’s charismatic. He surrounds himself with colleagues from the revisionist because he’s a revisionist. He is against the resistance movement in the main. You see, this, Hannah Arendt later on said that she gave a great deal of weight to blaming the Judenrat for what happened. And I think, again, this is all about Jewish powerlessness. It’s the Nazis and their Lithuanian cohorts are pulling the strings. We have knowledge. We now know what happened. Do we really blame characters like this? Oh, look, I don’t know the answer. I’m just putting these thoughts into your mind. I’m sure many of you have spent a lot of time thinking about all of this.
So, he believed it was in the interest to keep the majority of those young people alive by making sure that the resistance is not very active. What he did do, he did persuade the Nazis to allow the Jewish police to conduct the roundups themselves. He believed if he did that they would be less harsh. He also had to make the decision as to who would be resettled. He tried as hard as he could to get as many work permits as possible. Work permits went meant life. He did individually save quite a few children. However, by the 21st of December, this is 1941, there were about 12, between 12 and a half thousand to 17,000 people alike. Why don’t we know? Because a lot of people had gone underground in hiding and a lot of them had illegal work permits. So there are at least 3000 illegals in the ghetto as well.
Now, as I said, he’s aware of Ponary, but he also believes I can keep the workforce alive. And you did have this period of calm through 1942 to early 43. There was huge, a huge power struggle in the Ghetto as head of the police. Gens actually had the power to arrest and even to execute. So the power, do you see the YIVO here? The Nazis give the power to many of the Lithuanians. And the power is given inverted commerce to the head of the Judenrat. He was allowed, actually, he didn’t have to wear a huge yellow star. He was allowed to wear a discreet armband. And his wife and child lived outside the Ghetto. And he was allowed to go home. He held a political club in his home where they had many discussions.
Remember, he is a very clever man. They had discussions on Jewish history, Jewish events, and recent history, and Jewish destiny. There was a terrible story in July, 1942, he was ordered to give up 500 children and old people. By late July, by incredible persuasion and a certain amount of bribery. And ironically, Franz Murer, who I’ll talk about in a minute, he was quite fascinated by Gens. He was allowed to reduce the number. And they abandoned the idea of taking the children. And they managed to reduce the number from 500 to a hundred. And in the end, he handed over 84 elderly people, mostly terminally ill or disabled. This is in a nightmare.
This is what I’ve mentioned to you before, what Primo Levi caused the grey zone. And this is Gens story. And under his leadership, he was employing over 1,500 people, which kept them alive, mainly intellectuals. So he tries to negotiate, negotiate. He had a very strange relationship after Wittenberg deaths. He had a very strange relationship with Abba Kovner. Although, quite often he turned a blind eye. He did allow escapes, but he opposed resistance in general because he believed it threatened the ghetto. Under his direction, remember, he was running the Jewish hospital. There was less disease than any other ghetto. He set up a network of children’s homes. He managed as much as possible to clothe people, to feed people. There was a theatre. He made everyone give up their books. He was very authoritarian. But he created a huge communal library. He had a publishing house. He had an orchestra in the ghetto.
And this is what he wrote. I wanted to give men the chance to be free of the ghetto for a few hours. And we did succeed in this. Our days here are harsh and grim. Our body is here in the ghetto, but they have not broken our spirit. Now, his wife begged him to escape. Remember, he’s got a lot of Lithuanian friends. But he said this, this is a letter he wrote to her. This is the first time in my life that I’ve had to engage in such duties. My heart is broken, but I shall always do what is necessary for the stake of the Jews in the ghetto. His mother and one of his brothers were in the Ghetto.
Another brother, Efraim, was Head of the Jewish police in another Ghetto. He in fact, is going to be the only one of the family to survive. Now, of course, his position gave him privileges and having after a lot of into night sign fighting in the Ghetto, he becomes Head of the Judenrat and many of the resistance, and people who thought, who hated his authoritarianism. They called him King Jacob, the first. So basically, how do you stand on a character like him? Now he was allowing, as I said, some arms to be sent to the resistance.
You have people like Mother Bertranda, the extraordinary nun, who by the way was later honoured by Yad Vashem. She was honoured in a ceremony where the medal was given to her by Abba Kovner. In the end, on the 13th of September, he was ordered to report to Gestapo headquarters. Again, he was urged to flee. But he said, if I flee, I know that there will be terrible reprisals. And he was executed by the new head of the Vilnius Gestapo, a man called Rudolf Neugebauer, who died in Hungary in 1944. He was commander of Einsatzgruppen 3. He was executed for providing money and aid to the partisans.
The final liquidation of the ghetto was on the 22nd to the 24th of September. The resistance, it could do nothing and the partisans actually fled to the forest. And more about them in a minute. Because what I want to talk about now, because we are in hell in a way, I’m going to talk about Franz Murer, who’s known as the butcher of Vilna. Can we see his face, please? To see his face, please Judi. That’s Franz Murer. He was the man who set up the Ghetto and he was the man that up until July 43, through the period of the worst deportations, he had the man who dealt with Gens. And after the war, when the Soviets took the city, they sentenced him to 25 years hard labour.
But there was an Austrian straight treaty in 1955. And he was actually sent back to Austria. And the Austrian ministry, he was an Austrian. The Austrian Ministry of Justice said that his case was closed because he’d already been tried in the Soviet Union. That was not enough for Simon Wiesenthal because just as when I talk about Abba Kovner and what he’s going to do after the war. Don’t forget Simon Wiesenthal who had lost 54 members of his own family. And he and his sister set up a bureau in Vienna, the heart of it, to try and bring Nazi war criminals to justice. David and Dennis are talking about Nuremberg, but it’s a terribly important issue this. Is there justice? Was there justice?
And in 1961, there was so much pressure that he was rearrested and he was in actually in charge with the murder of 17 people. Survivors testified, but he was acquitted. This is what the prosecutor said, we have to prove that the past is passed in Austria than anyone who kills, regardless of the race of the victim will be punished. This is what the prosecutor said. But he was acquitted. He died in 1994, having lived. He was in Graz. He lived a very middle class life. Two of his subordinates by the way, were through the work of Simon Wiesenthal were actually accused. And in West Germany, they were accused and sentenced to life imprisonment for being part of it all. I also want to talk about another man, before we go back to Abba Kovner. And that is Karl Jager. Let me see his picture, please, Judi, if you don’t mind. Yeah.
This is Karl Jager, 1888 to 1959. You notice the date, he was born in Switzerland. He moved with his father to Germany. He enlisted in the Imperial Army. Remember, this is in the first World War. He was awarded the Iron Cross first class. After the war, he became an orchestrion. That was a machine that was actually designed to sound like an orchestra. And he managed to find a managerial position. He was very bitter about the loss of the war. He joined the Nazi party in 1923. He founded a local chapter. He was one of the old fighters. Those who joined the Nazi party between before 1930 were given great status. And when the company went bankrupt, he was unemployed. He refused to take any benefits from the Weimar government. He despised them. And by 1934, he’d used 33. He’d used up all his savings. His wife had left him, his wife, his family that he’d formed a bits.
Anyway, in 1933, Rudolph Hess, who was the deputy furor, he decreed that all of the old comrades, paid jobs should be found for them. He had already joined the SS in 1932. He built up a hundred strong troop in his hometown. He attracted the attention of Himmler. Remember, he was a war hero. And Himmler had always wanted to be a fighter. He’d been too young for the first world war. He liked those kind of men. And he had him transferred and retrained at Berlin headquarters. And he becomes Head of the Gestapo in Munster. And during the invasion of Holland, he becomes head of Einsatzgruppen 3. He’s promoted to Colonel. He is commander of the Gestapo, part of the Einsatzgruppen in which is a subdivision. And he perpetrated the terrible massacres at the ninth fort, which was mere Kaunas. He had a nervous breakdown. He was one of the characters who had a total nervous breakdown. And he was reassigned back to Germany and he was precluded for any future promotion, quote unquote, because of lack of strength of nerve. He was the one who actually, is responsible for the infamous Jager report. Could we see it, please, Judi?
Now, this is the brilliant documents of 19. These are the documents of the Yad Vashem, book of documents. This is the report he sends back and he’s talking about Lithuania. We don’t need to go through it all. Look at the numbers. He’s talking about Shavli, 4,500, Kovno- He’s talking about murders. And can you go over the page please, Judi? Yeah. Let me just read you the part, the last part. I consider the action against the Jews to be virtually completed. The remaining working Jews and Jewesses is urgently needed. And I can imagine that this manpower will continue to be needed urgency after the winter has ended. That’s why Gens thought he could keep people alive. I’m of the opinion that the male working Jews should be sterilised immediately to prevent reproduction. Should any Jewesses has nevertheless become pregnant. She is to be liquidated. So this is what you’re talking about, total dehumanisation. Who has done the dehumanisation? Can you show the next page, please, of the actual report in German.
Now what I want you to look at, is at the end, it gives you, can you bring it up further on the screen if you don’t mind, Judi. Is it possible? Because at the end, yes, look at the numbers. Go a little further please, Judi. Can we go any further? The completed figures were 137,346 people murdered. This is the extermination of Lithuanian jury. And this is the man who sent the report. After the war, he escapes. He worked on a farm. Once the Jager report was discovered, the hunt was on to find him. He was arrested and he committed suicide in prison. But he had 14 years of freedom. Now can we turn back to Abba Kovner, please? If you don’t mind, Judi, I’m sorry to drive you crazy. Can we turn back to Abba Kovner’s picture? Yeah. I’d like to have him on the screen now.
Because what happened to Abba Kovner, is after the last fight in the Ghetto, he and his comrades escaped. And where did they go? They went to the Rudniki Forest where they became one of three Jewish parties and groups, and they fought under the command of the Soviets. And they were responsible for all sorts of missions against the Nazis and also against Lithuanian collaborators. You may remember that Efraim Zuroff brought this issue up, that some Lithuanians who today are seen as heroes in Lithuania, were actually executed by Abba Kovner’s group as traitors to the Jewish people. So he is in this partisan group.
Remember, his colleague, the great poet is airlifted. He later gave evidence at Nuremberg, because his wife, his mother and son had been murdered in the Ghetto. Abba Kovner, his then in the forests, when the liberation occurs. They are liberated by the Soviets. And this is when we come to an extraordinary episode in Jewish history. Abba Kovner, along with a group of comrades at the end of the war, you’ve got to remember as Europe collapsed, and I’m going to talk more about that in the next couple of weeks. There were 11 million people on the move because of Nazi forced labour, repatriation.
For example, one and a half million Germans were evicted from Poland and also from parts of what became Czechoslovakia, transfer of population. We’re talking about millions of people have been swept around now, Abba Kovner and his group, they believed that what they should take was the word Din. They set up an organisation called Nakam. There’s going to be about 50 members, and their dream was to avenge their murdered people. Joseph Harmatz who lived, he was born in 1925. He died in 2012. He was part of the group and he gave a lot of evidence. There are a couple of books written about Din.
He actually said, we must kill 6 million Germans, one for every Jew murdered. He and his group targeted a prisoner of war camp that was built on the old Nazi party rally ground. This is after the war. This is in 1945 after the liberation of Europe. It’s important to remember, Kovner and his group were liberated by the Soviets. Now what are these young people doing in the meantime? They’re going to be involved in something called Bricha, which means escape. That is going to be to get as many Holocaust survivors out of Europe as possible. Where to Palestine? Because one of the appalling catastrophes that occurred is once the war is over, it appears obviously that the first question that anyone who managed to come out of hell would ask, is who survived in my family? And when they gradually made their way home.
And of course, hundreds of survivors were murdered in Eastern Europe. And in Poland, even the leader of the man, the leader who created the uprising in Sobibor was murdered by Polish fascists. It culminates in the town of Kielcie. But the point is, in Slovakia, in Poland, Jews going home, was it about the venality of their property had been taken because who took the property? The really good stuff was taken by the German thieves. But think of the low grade stuff, ordinary homes. What do you think happened to the pots and the pans, and the bedding and the clothes? We know that Lithuanians were at the pits, taking the clothes.
So you are looking at a terrible, terrible situation. And Bricha was the movement to get the Jews into Palestine, which was still, you still had a quota. And that’s something else I’ll be lecturing on later in the course. Anyway, what they decide to do, is they decide they are going to, that there are two plants. Plan A was to merge. What they wanted to do was to poison the water supply of Germany. Kovner went to Palestine where he met up with various people and he did manage to, according to him, Weizmann gave the, okay, Bangorian didn’t, but there were two plans.
One was to poison the water supply of the whole of Germany. Another was to poison the bread that was being sent into this prisoner of war camp for SS on the old rally ground in Nuremberg. Abba Kovner was on his way back from Palestine when he was arrested with by the British. He threw the poison overboard. He’d managed to be given poison, he threw it overboard and he was imprisoned by the British. He later made his way to Palestine, where of course, he became involved in the creation of the ghetto survivors kibbutz. He was involved in all sorts of Holocaust museums, but much more, and gave evidence at Nuremberg. I beg your pardon at the Eichmann trial. More about him later on.
But meanwhile, members of the group, there are about 50 of them, they decide they’re going to go ahead and poison the bakery, which supplies the bread for the SS. And they managed to get one of their group into the bakery and they put cyanide on the loaves. And what it led to, hundreds were ill. No, thousands were ill, about 200 were hospitalised, was in the American zone, which was always the easiest zone to operate in. It was the least rigid. But no, there were no casualties. However, Din did remain behind in Europe and they decided, and they had all sorts of interesting people join the group. For example, a man called Berger who was in the French army. And he had lost his family and he came to them because what did they need? They need arms and they needed intelligence. And they were responsible for executing about a hundred SS officers that they discovered in Germany and in Austria.
As I said, there are two books that I know of. The first book was actually written by a journalist, a man- Let me just get you the title of the book. It’s an “Forged in Fury” by Michael Elkins. And it’s a complicated story. I just want you to put it to you. Because whilst we are looking at the Nuremberg War crimes trials, and by the way, there is absolutely no evidence that Weizmann gave his approval to plan B, plan A. There’s a possibility, he gave his approval to the poisoning of the SS. Anyway, is Din judgement or revenge? Because one of the issues that one has to face when you’re looking even at the Nuremberg War crimes trials, something like 10% of those guilty of crimes against humanity. And already David and Dennis have been talking about those categories and the notion of genocide in the work of Herschel Outback. And of course, Rafael Lemkin, only about 10% of those who were guilty were ever brought to justice.
And why is a very complicated question. The great phrase of Churchill, the Iron Curtain. One of the other issues I’m going to be talking about, is whether Himmler really did try and make him. We know that Himmler tried to do a deal with the British and the Americans to fight the Russians. But the point is, at the end of the war, think how many German scientists went to work for the Germans, the Russians or the British. Never forget Wernher von Braun who became head, who he was responsible for the V2 programme. Now think about Wernher von Braun, he becomes Head of the Space Programme. But the CIA, and as more and more documents are released under the various rules, and in Britain, we have the 30 years rule and the 60 years rule.
We know that many ex Nazis were, or were they ever ex Nazis were recruited by the CIAA in the fight against communism. Ironically in Russia, in the Russian Empire, particularly in East Germany, who do you think staffed the Stasi? Quite often, ex Gestapo. So because do states ever have the same morality of the private individual? So for many of these young people who lost so much in the war, what they wanted was justice. They even believed that Israel didn’t do enough. Why didn’t Israel hunt them all down? Now the point is, Israel did hunt many of them down. But the counter argument is that to this, is of course, Israel was occupied with creating a state in gathering all the Jews who were being kicked out or having to flee the Arab world, 800,000 of them.
Then Julius will be talking about that, dealing with the survivors of the Shoah who came to Palestine. The creation of Israel, the War of Independence and everything that went with it. But it is an issue. What do you do with crimes that are really, are they beyond punishment? So I think, I want to leave it there. We will be going back to Abba Kovner and his ideas. So I think I’ll leave it there and let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments
I’ve looked at a lot of controversy here. I’ve looked at the figure of Jacob Gens. I just think, you see, the way I’ve learned how to deal with it personally, and this is through lots of conversations I’ve had with survivors, and I’ve done an awful lot of reading on this. I find no problem in blaming perpetrators and collaborators. But when you come to people, the Jews themselves, the question is, where on earth did you draw the line? If Gens really believed he could save a percentage of the ghetto, was he wrong? Was Abba Kovner right to actually create Din? Is that the kind of world we want to live in? So there are so many moral issues here. And I suppose in a way, that’s one of the things that makes me proud of my Jewish background, because I think we are a people who does strive with these issues of morality. And isn’t it fascinating? And I’m not making a political statement, but I am going to say, when Israel is going to be lambasted by the UN, isn’t it interesting that so many people say, well, we expect a higher standard of care from the Jewish state. I’ve got to stop there. All right.
Oh, I’m going to- I’d like to thank, Judi brought me over these wonderful pens that were sent by a Canadian who’s on the programme. Thank you so much.
This is from Mayra, my grandmother’s family with the Ron Family, Publishers of Vilna Shastra.
This is from Joanna. Hi, Mayra. My grandparents were from Vilna. Her last name was Weimann, different relatives spell it differently. My grandfather took Ron Frey’s American last name. I don’t know his real last name. Oh, that’s interesting.
This is from Jeffrey. My father-in-law was, I can’t pronounce it, an immense sign, a suburb of Vilnius. We went there shortly after the fall of Berlin Wall and traced what happened to the family since only my father-in-law and one sister survived. The locals felt we only came to get our property back. Very sad, went to Ponary as well. Yeah. Ponary is the end of the world. Now, it’s interesting. We were on a trip with a group just after communism fell and we went to a small town that had been the home of a great rabbi. And whether people are religious or not, on these trips, particularly in Eastern Europe or the men were wearing yarmulkes. And as we came along, this person came out of a house screaming, the Jews have come to take my house away.
Now this is from Anna about Sugihara. He issued nearly 30,000 Visas to Jewish refugees. He was recorded by the Japanese government and lost his diplomatic credentials. Yes. There are many, many wonderful diplomats and we promise, I’m going to do a whole session on the diplomats who saved.
Rona, we have a street in Netanyahu- Beg your pardon, Netanya, to honour Sugihara.
This is from Arlene. My grandmother’s brilliant cousin studied in Vilnius and was saved by being sent to Shanghai. Yes. Yeah. You know, the Japanese had a very interesting attitude to the Jews. There was a plan called the Fuji Plan. Fuji is a puffer fish. And if it hits you, if you eat it in the wrong place, it poisons you. It kills you. Isn’t it interesting that that’s how they think? They think we are the greatest delicacy you can eat, but we can kill.
This is from Shani. My daughter interviewed Vitka Kovner as part of her research. Wonderful. Yes. Abba Kovner. Yes, that’s it. That’s what I read, Anna. Now the point is, did he actually write it?
And there’s a bit of- how to spell the nun’s name? She’s known as Mother Bertranda. You’ll get her that way. She was honoured in 1984.
How do you spell Ponary? You can spell it as you have, Margaret, or with an I.
Adam Sutzkever pronounced Sutzkever. Thank you. You’re getting used to the fact that I’m no good at languages. Thank you so much.
“The Book Smugglers” by Fishman tells the amazing story of saving books. Yes. These items made it to YIVO. Yes, that’s another great story.
And this is from Joanna. Wonderful documentary, Black Honey.
No, Kovner didn’t go to Israel. He wanted to, but he never went. He didn’t go until after the war.
Yeah. Then this is again the book Smugglers. You don’t have to see my hand now that I’ve got this wonderful pen. Thank you. I’ve only just got it because lockdown hasn’t enabled Judi to come to my house before.
Q: Catherine, was it not because Russia was not a signatory to the Geneva conventions that Nazi Germany saw no reasons to treat Russians of war with any humanity? A: Now let’s be careful, Catherine, the Russians that the Germans believed that the Russian Slavs were unto mentioned, it had nothing to do with Geneva Conventions. Never forget that the Russians lost more people, more men than anyone else in the war. The treatment of the Russian population was appalling. And let’s be very careful here, in many ways, I mean we’ve been brought up on American books and films. You should talk to William and get his view on why we won the war. It was Russia. It was Stalingrad that’s the turning point, so be careful.
Q: Was Giza Wittenberg a relative of Rabbi Wittenberg? A: I don’t think so, because Rabbi Wittenberg actually comes from Germany.
Q: What is the name of the German collaborator with? A: I don’t think Jacob Gens is a collaborator. Gens.
All right. Bit higher. Here you are. Thank you, Michael Block. I love it. You always answer things for me. Brit Hahayal was created by Jabotinsky and was sort of part of Beit hat. Thank you, Michael.
This is Sarah Won. Peretz Miransky was one of the poets who survived the Vilna Ghetto. He lived in Toronto and continue to write poetry until his death. My late husband, Irving Glick, set some of his poetry to music. His obituary was in the New York Times. He won the National Jewish Book Award in the United States. I had pleasure of many visits with him and his wife. Wonderful, Sarah. I’m very pleased that we’ve got these kind of, you are all on this Zoom. It’s wonderful.
Now, of course, Vilna was a great centre of Jewish intellectual life. And don’t forget that Gens was trying to save the intellectuals.
No, Mother Bertranda. Not Betranda, Bertranda.
Wagen’s wife and child. No, they were non-Jews. They escaped. They got out and they finished up in America.
My parents were in the Kovner Ghetto. The head of the Judenrat, Dr. Elkhanan Eikes was the most highly revered and held in much affection. Oh, you’ve just brought back a memory. Sarah Eikes used to write to me. He was a wonderful man. Yes, it’s so complex. He was a wonderful man.
Yes. After the war, Abba Kovner rejected the prospect of brewing Jewish life in Europe. Yeah. Many people have rejected that, haven’t they?
Yes. Oh, Anita, this is a very important point.
Q: Do you plan to talk about the brave Jews who were charged with the reviewing Jewish books? A: They decided which books were saved for Hitler’s Museum of a Destroyed Race in this is, of course, Prague was going to be the centre of the destroyed race. I wasn’t, because actually we’re moving away from the Shoah, but that doesn’t mean I won’t bring experts.
This is from Judi Shani Wilkins. I would love to read your daughter’s thesis. I had some psychological contact over clients with Victor Kovner when I worked. Yes, of course. She was a child psych. She was a psychologist, wasn’t she? So you two can get in touch with each other now.
Aviva Kempner, I previously mentioned, produced the films, “The Partisans of Vilna.” Upon amongst the Partisans was my mentor and dear friend, Zila Amit, who settled in Kibbutz, Givat Brenner. She was quiet spoken and sensitive human being. And it’s difficult to imagine her in the woods and the determination to killing necessary in order to survive. She wrote her memoir and it was hard to pair her with the woman who I love so well. Oh, lovely.
This is from Norma. My parents were come from Keel and my father missed the pogrom for three days. He had come back to Keel to find that he was the civil survivor of his family. There is an excellent movie by a Pole called “Bogdan’s Journey,” which graphically shows the brutal massacre, 47 men, women, and children and babies. And it was actually inspired by a bloodline or Norma, which makes it even more awful.
Q: What role did the AJC and WJC, having in and tried to hunt down Nazis or help rescue? A: Oh, they had a huge role in rescue, which I’ve already talked about. Hunting down Nazis, I would say that was probably classified information.
Memorable, Abba Kovner was the initiative and stimulus for the establishment of Beit Hatfutsot. Yes. That’s very important. He was involved in so many museums. He was a real fighter.
Q: Were the Kovners Jewish principles in the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet that existed under the Red Army? A: Yeah. You see, one of the problems, this is one of the issues, Robert. As you know, there was a disproportionate number of Jews in the- Yeah, of course, there were. About 50% in Poland after the war. About 50%. You know, they were never the majority, but much of the leadership was Jewish.
I’ve said what happened again, his wife and child, they got it. They got to America.
Morality says that we must have justice, especially against murderers like the Nazis and their collaborators. Right, right.
Eli Strauss. I went to Vienna and wanted to see my grandparents’ apartment was not allowed in. This was probably 50 years after the end of the war. Same thing happened in the small Hungarian town when my family was prominent. No one wanted to know our shoah.
Oi, thank you. Hashomer Hatzair. Thank you. Hatzair.
I had no knowledge of Kaufman. Thank you.
This is from Joanna Gilbert. I was honoured to make the presentation about my book, “Women of Valour Polish Jewish Resistance to the Third Reich” in the Vilna near Jewish library. I can feel the spirit of my murdered relatives cheering on for showing that Jews did not go silently like sheep to the slaughter. We’ve got to be very careful with that phrase though, Joanna. They didn’t. I mean, look, they blew up a crematorium in Auschwitz. But what I think, and I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with this, with talking to psychologists about it. Their mantra is that when you know your children are going to die, that’s when you fight. But whilst they’re still alive, you behave because you think, can you actually imagine someone hating you enough to think kill the things you love most? We are depth, we’re into the nightmare now.
Rona Kruger, have I read you also get it by that? Yes, I have. I’ve got it. Thank you.
This is from Judi June Backfry. My parents in Cogno were arrested by the Soviets after the Nazis for having been wealthy capitalists. Yes. If you lived in that part of the world, my goodness, did you have a terrible time? Oh yes, Joe, A great book by Rich Cohen called The Avengers about Abba Kovner. Yes, of course. And he also wrote a book called “Tough Jews” about the- He’s very interested in the Jewish mafia and in those who fights.
Q: Do we ever discuss the question of the Chi rites who in track you from where my father came? It was very close to Vilnius. Apparently, they cooperated with the Nazis. A: Be careful on cooperation. I don’t have enough knowledge, but I have a friend who does, and I remember him discussing it with me.
This is Jemelli, when I’ve visited Vance about 10 years ago, there was an incredible exhibit about the Kovner Ghetto in its end. Very well documented. So terrible. I think that’s all the questions.
So shall we say, good evening now or certainly, good evening in London.
[Judi] Thank you, Bushy.
I wish you all well. So I’ll see you tomorrow when I’m talking about the Soviet Union. I’m going to talk a little about Jews under the Soviets. I’m going to talk about the war, and then I’m going to talk a little bit about the Slansky trial. I’m trying to kind of keep us in a chronological order. And I’ve got to say that there are certain areas that we just don’t have to- No, it’s not that we don’t have time. We’ve made selections. As I explained, it’s important. Of course, the Shoah is absolutely incredibly important. But we made a decision not to teach a full course on the Shoah because we would be here for months and months and months.
So, because I also believe in a time, and I think we owe it. We owe it to those we lost as well to continue and go on, and et cetera, et cetera. We must remember them forever, of course. But all I’m trying to do is to present the arguments. And therefore, I wanted to present Abba Kovner, Jacob Gens. They’re such controversial characters. So I wish everybody well, and hopefully, I’ll see you tomorrow evening. And thank you, Judi.
[Judi] Thank you.
Thanks as ever.
[Judi] Thank you, Trudy. Yeah. Thank you to everybody who joined us and we’ll see everybody tomorrow. Thanks.
God bless.
[Judi] Good night everybody. Bye-bye.
Bye.