The
Vilna Ghetto,
Wilno Ghetto or
Vilnius Ghetto a Jewish ghetto established by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
in the city of
VilniusVilnius Vilnius Vilnius as of 2008. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the...
, during
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. During roughly two years of its existence,
starvationStarvation is a severe reduction in vitamin, nutrient, and energy intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage, and eventually death...
,
diseaseA disease or medical condition isan abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and signs...
, street executions, maltreatment and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps reduced the population of the ghetto from an estimated 40,000 to zero. Only several hundred people managed to survive, mostly by hiding in the forests surrounding the town, joining the
Soviet partisansThe Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during the Second World War....
or finding shelter among sympathetic locals.
Background
German troopsWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
entered Vilnius on 26 June 1941, followed by units of the
Einsatzgruppe A. Over the course of the summer, German troops and
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
n civilians and Lithuanian police killed more than 21,000 Jews living in Vilnius in a rapid extermination program. Vilna or Vilnius was a predominantly
PolishThe Polish people, or Poles , are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic...
and Jewish city until
Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
gave it back to Lithuania in October 1939 according to the
Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance TreatyThe Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty was a bilateral treaty signed between the Soviet Union and Lithuania on October 10, 1939. According to the treaty, Lithuania received about one fifth of the Vilnius Region, including its historical capital Vilnius, and in exchange allowed five Soviet...
. The Republic of Lithuania had claimed it as its capital and the dispute between
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Lithuania was a long-standing one at the
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members...
. The Republic of Lithuania, operating out of
the provisional capitalTemporary capital or Provisional/Interim capital was the official designation of the city of Kaunas in Lithuania during the interwar period.-Vilnius:...
KaunasKaunas Kaunas Kaunas and Vilnius-Klaipėda (A1)...
, sent in the Lithuanian Army to reclaim the city and embarked on a project to Lithuanianize the city. This included operations by the Lithuanian State Security agency, who seized on the opportunity for
ethnic cleansingEthnic cleansing is a term that has come to be used broadly to describe all forms of ethnically inspired violence, ranging from murder, rape, and torture to the forcible removal of populations...
offered by the arrival of the Third Reich and helped orchestrate the kidnapping and murder of Jews in the city before the ghetto was set up. The deportation from the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
of Aleksandras Lileikis to face (an ultimately unsuccessful) trial in Lithuania revolves around the role he played in the Lithuanian State Security apparatus in the murder of Jews. These kidnappers were known in
YiddishYiddish is a non-territorial High German language of Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world...
as
hapunes, meaning grabbers or snatchers. In the months that followed Poles were also targeted by Lithuanian and German authorities. Newspapers published by the Polish underground in Lithuania and Poland were virulently anti-Semitic early on and remained so until late into World War II. The Jewish population of Vilnius on the eve of the Holocaust was probably more than 60,000, including refugees from Poland and subtracting the small number who managed to flee onward to the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
.
Establishment
The Great Provocation refers to the incident the Nazis staged as a pretext for clearing the predominantly (poorer) Jewish quarter in the
Vilnius Old TownThe Old Town of Vilnius , one of the largest surviving medieval old towns in Northern Europe, has an area of 3.59 square kilometres . It encompasses 74 quarters, with 70 streets and lanes numbering 1487 buildings with a total floor area of 1,497,000 square meters...
in order to force the rest of the (predominantly more affluent) Jewish residents into the Nazi German-created ghetto. Specifically, the Great Provocation of 31 August 1941, was led by SS
Einsatzkommando 9Einsatzkommando refers to a sub-group of the five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads — 3,000 men — responsible for systematically killing Jews and Soviet political activists behind the Wehrmacht lines of Operation Barbarossa...
OberscharführerOberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...
Horst Schweinberger under orders from
Gebietskommissar of the Vilnius municipality Hans Christian Hingst and
Franz MurerFranz Murer , also known as the "Butcher from Vilnius", was an Austrian SS officer, who set up, organized, and ruled Vilna Ghetto.He joined the NSDAP in 1938. Murer was trained with Hitler Youth in Nuremberg. He was then transferred to Vilnius and was from 1941 to 1943 responsible for Jewish...
, Hingst’s deputy for Jewish affairs, under “provisional directives” of
ReichskommissarReichskommissar , in German history, was an official gubernatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and the Nazi Third Reich....
Hinrich LohseHinrich Lohse was a Nazi German politician.- Early life :...
. Murer, Hingst and Vilnius Lithuanian mayor Karolis Dabulevičius selected the site for the future ghetto and staged a sniping at German soldiers in front of a cinema from a window on the corner Stiklių (Glezer, also known as Szklana in Polish) and Didžioji (Wielka, meaning in Polish Great Street, hence the name for the event) streets by two Lithuanians in civilian clothes who had broken into an apartment belonging to Jews. The Lithuanians fled the apartment, then returned with waiting German soldiers, seized two Jews, accused them of firing on the German soldiers, beat them and then shot them on the spot. Stiklių and Mėsinių (Jatkowa) streets were ransacked by the local
militiaThe term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
and Jews were beaten up. At night, in “retaliation,” all Jews were driven out of the neighbourhood the Nazis had selected as the future ghetto territory, street by street, and the next day the women and children on remaining streets were seized while the men were at work. Men at workplaces were also seized. Jews were taken to
Lukiškės PrisonLukiškės Prison is a prison in the center of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, near the Lukiškės Square. It houses approximately 1,000 prisoners and employs around 250 prison guards...
, then to Paneriai, also known as Ponar or Ponary, where they were murdered between 1 September and 3 September. Five to ten thousand people were murdered, including ten members of the
JudenratJudenräte were administrative bodies that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union...
. The objective was to clear a territory for the establishment of a ghetto to imprison all the Jews of Vilnius and suburbs.
On 6 September and 7 September 1941, the Nazis herded the remaining 20,000 Jews into the parameters of two ghettos by evicting them from their homes during which 3,700 were killed. Converts, "half-Jews" and spouses of Jews were also forced into the ghetto. The move to the ghetto was extremely hurried and difficult and Jews were not allowed to use transportation. They could only take what they were physically able to carry.
The area designated for the ghetto was the old Jewish quarter in the centre of the city. While Vilna never had a ghetto
per se except for some very limited restrictions on the movement and settlement of Jews during the Middle Ages, the area chosen by the Nazis for their ghetto was predominantly and historically inhabited by Jews. The Nazis split the area into two ghettos with a non-ghetto corridor running down Deutschegasse (Niemiecka or Vokiečių Street). This made it easier for the Nazis to control what the victims knew of their fate beforehand, facilitating the Nazis' goal of total extermination. Like the other Jewish ghettos Nazi Germany set up during World War II, the Vilnius Ghetto was created both to dehumanize the people and to exploit its inmates as
slave labourUse of forced labour in Nazi Germany during World War II occurred on a large scale. It was an important part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories; it also contributed to the extermination of populations of German–occupied Europe...
. Conditions were extremely poor and crowded, and the victims were surrounded by unsanitary conditions, disease and daily death.
Liquidation
By the end of October 1941, the Nazis had murdered all the inhabitants of the smaller second ghetto. They declared from that point on only 12,000 Jews would remain in the larger ghetto to serve the needs of the German military and economy. In reality, 20,000 remained all together. The Germans systematically carried out
Aktionen, or massive killing sprees, to reduce the number of sick and elderly and to meet quotas on the total of the population allowed. These
Aktionen were conducted on a regular basis from the creation of the ghetto until January 1942. The period between January 1942 and March 1943 was known as the time of ghetto stabilization when German murder in the ghetto decreased. From 6 August to 5 September 1943, however, 7,130 Jews were deported to
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russian Federation...
by order of
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
. Under the supervision of Oberscharführer Bruno Kittel the ghetto was "liquidated" between 23 and 24 September 1943 and the majority of the Jewish population were sent to Nazi camps in Estonia, killed in the forest of Paneriai or sent to the death camps in German-occupied Poland.
A small remnant of Jews remained after the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto, primarily at the Kailis slave labour camp and at the
HKP slave labour campHKP 562, located on Subocz Street in Vilnius, Lithuania, was the site of an unusual labour camp during the Holocaust. The camp was officially owned and administered by the SS, but run on a day to day basis by a Wehrmacht engineering unit, HKP 562 stationed in Vilna...
. The HKP camp (short for
Heereskraftpark and an outfit involved in repairing German military automobiles) was commanded by Wehrmacht
MajorIn many European languages, the term Major is a military rank, implying seniority at one of usually various levels of rank. For example:*"General-Major" or "Major-General", denoting a senior ranking general officer....
Karl PlaggeMajor Karl Plagge was a German officer and Nazi Party member who during World War II employed some 1,240 Jews—500 men, the others women and children— for forced labor, thus giving them a better chance to survive the nearly total annihilation of Lithuania’s Jews that took place between 1941–1943.-...
, who, with the help of some of his men, managed to shield many of his workers from the murderous goal of the SS. Two-hundred and fifty Jews at HKP survived the war. They represent the single largest group of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Vilnius.
Resistance
The United Partisan Organization (Fareinikte Partisaner Organizatzie or FPO) was formed on 21 January 1942 in the Vilna Ghetto. It took for its motto "We will not go like sheep to the slaughter," a phrase resurrected by
Abba KovnerAbba Kovner was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew poet, writer, and partisan leader. He became one of the great poets of modern Israel...
. This was one of the first resistance organizations established in the Nazi ghettos during World War II. Unlike in other ghettos, the resistance movement in the Vilna Ghetto was not run by ghetto officials. Jacob Gens, appointed head of the ghetto by the Nazis but originally chief of police, ostensibly cooperated with German officials in stopping armed struggle. The FPO represented the full spectrum of political persuasions and parties in Jewish life. It was headed by Yitzhak Wittenberg, Josef Glazman, and Abba Kovner. The goals of the FPO were to establish a means for the self-defence of the ghetto population, to sabotage German industrial and military activities and to join the partisan and Red Army’s fight against the Nazis. Poet Hirsh Glik, a Vilna ghetto inmate who later died after having been deported to Estonia, penned the words for what became the famous Partisan Hymn,
Zog nit keynmol, az du geyst dem letstn veg.
In early 1943, the Germans caught a member of the Communist underground who revealed some contacts under torture and the
JudenratJudenräte were administrative bodies that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union...
, in response to German threats, tried to turn Yitzhak Wittenberg, the head of the FPO, over to the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
. The FPO was able to rescue him after he was seized in the apartment of Jacob Gens in a fight with Jewish ghetto police. Gens brought in heavies, the leaders of the work brigades, and effectively turned the majority of the population against the resistance members, claiming they were provoking the Nazis and asking rhetorically whether it was worth sacrificing tens of thousands for the sake of one man. Ghetto prisoners assembled and demanded the FPO give Wittenberg up. Ultimately Wittenberg himself made the decision to submit to the Nazi demands. He was taken to Gestapo headquarters in Vilnius and was reportedly found dead in his cell the next morning. Most people believed he had committed suicide. The rumour had it that Gens had slipped him a
cyanide pillCyanide poisoning occurs when a living organism is exposed to cyanide. The cyanide ion, if used as poison, is generally delivered in the form of gaseous hydrogen cyanide or in the form of potassium cyanide or sodium cyanide.-Acute poisoning:...
in their final meeting.
The FPO was thoroughly demoralized by the chain of events and began to pursue a policy of sending young people out to the forest to join the
Jewish partisansJewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II....
. This was controversial as well because the Nazis attempted to kill all family members of people who had joined the partisans. In the Vilna ghetto a "family" often included non-relations who registered as a member of a family in order to receive housing and a pitiful food ration.
When the Nazis came to liquidate the ghetto in 1943, members of the FPO went on alert. Gens took control of the liquidation in order to keep the Nazi forces out of the ghetto and away from a partisan ambush, but helped fill the quota of Jews with those who could fight but were not necessarily part of the resistance. The FPO fled to the forest and fought with the partisans.
Cultural life
The Vilna Ghetto was called "Yerushalayim of the Ghettos" because it was known for its intellectual and cultural spirit. Before the war, Vilnius had been known as "Yerushalayim d'Lita" (Yiddish: Jerusalem of Lithuania) for the same reason. The center of cultural life in the ghetto was the Mefitze Haskole Library which was called the "House of Culture". It contained a library, reading hall, archive, statistical bureau, room for scientific work, museum, book kiosk, post office, and the sports ground. Groups were set up, such as the Literary and Artistic Union and the Brit Ivrit Union, that organized events commemorating Yiddish and Hebrew authors and put on plays in these languages. The popular Yiddish magazine
Folksgezunt was continued in the ghetto and its essays were presented to the public in the form of lectures.
Yitskhok RudashevskiYitskhok Rudashevski was a young Jewish teenager who lived in the Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania during the 1940s. He wrote a diary from June 1941 to April 1943 which detailed his life and struggles living in the ghetto. He was most likely murdered in the liquidation of September 1943. His diary was...
(1927–1943), a young teen who wrote a diary of his life in the ghetto during 1941 to 1943, mentions a number of these events and his participation in them. He was murdered in the liquidation of 1943, probably at
PaneriaiPaneriai is a suburb of Vilnius, situated about 10 kilometres away from the city center. It is the largest elderate in the Vilnius city municipality. It is located on low forested hills, on the Vilnius-Warsaw road...
. His diary was discovered in 1944 by his cousin.
A scientific institution called the "Ghetto University" was established to study
mathematicsMathematics is the science and study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns, formulate new conjectures, and establish truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions....
,
physicsPhysics is a natural science; it is the study of matter and its motion through spacetime and all that derives from these, such as energy and force...
,
chemistryChemistry is the science concerned with the composition, behavior, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions...
,
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
and other
social sciencesThe social sciences are the fields of scientific knowledge and academic scholarship that study social groups and, more generally, human society. The social sciences initially were constituted of five fields: Jurisprudence and Amendment of the Law; Education; Health; Economy and Trade; Art...
. Its intellectuals wrote many scholarly papers, hoping to publish them after the war. Many works of poetry and literature were also created by the Jews in the ghetto. Performances and concerts featuring the
Symphony OrchestraAn orchestra is an instrumental ensemble, usually fairly large with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well. The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
and the two ghetto
choirA choir, chorale, or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together is called a choir or chorus...
s were put on in the ghetto. Initially, this matter was controversial because many Jews were offended by the idea of artistic performances in a place where thousands of Jews had been murdered. Gens, who had originated the idea, pushed through on the initiative and it was successful in raising the morale of the people. Art was seen as a source of stimulation and hope to the people. During 1942, over 120 performances were presented in the ghetto.
See also
- Karl Plagge
Major Karl Plagge was a German officer and Nazi Party member who during World War II employed some 1,240 Jews—500 men, the others women and children— for forced labor, thus giving them a better chance to survive the nearly total annihilation of Lithuania’s Jews that took place between 1941–1943.-...
- HKP 562 Slave Labor Camp
HKP 562, located on Subocz Street in Vilnius, Lithuania, was the site of an unusual labour camp during the Holocaust. The camp was officially owned and administered by the SS, but run on a day to day basis by a Wehrmacht engineering unit, HKP 562 stationed in Vilna...
- Lithuanian collaboration during World War II
Prior to the Nazi invasion, some leaders in Lithuania and in exile believed Germany would grant the country autonomy along the lines of the status of the Slovakia protectorate. German intelligence Abwehr believed it had control of the Lithuanian Activist Front, a pro-German organization based in...
Primary documents consulted
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Gens3.html - Gens in response to resistance
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Gens2.html - Gens in response to the concert
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Vilna3.html - partisans on their program
External links