Strauss 1

COMMUNITY IN KOVNO: A LOOK INTO RESISTANCE IN LITHUANIAN GHETTOS

Josephine R. K. Strauss

HSTCMP 250: Jewish Cultural History

Prof. Devin Naar

18 March, 2013
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Through an analysis of history, the transformation of cultures, religions, civilizations, and

much more can be observed and understood. The Holocaust in Lithuania was one such event that

society can reflect on now and observe the cultural changes in Lithuanian Jewry. On the eve of

the German invasion of Lithuania, the country had a Jewish population of about 250,000 people,

which amounted to 10% of the total Lithuanian population.1 Prior to this, the Jewish population

had been resting at 160,000, but due to the German invasion of Poland, an influx of Jewish

refugees entered Lithuania.2 The Holocaust in Lithuania was one of the most tragic in all of

Europe. By the time of the Nazis withdrawal in 1944, 90% of the Lithuanian Jews had been

systematically killed, the highest of any victim rate in Europe.3 Lithuanian Jewish life and

culture were altered during the events of the Holocaust due to restricted freedoms, resulting from

the closure of Jewish institutions and forced ghetto life. Yet, Jewish life and culture was able to

survive as resistance, in the form of saving Jewish lives and defying Nazi rule, and creating a

sense of community that held the dwindling population together in times of terror. Ghettoization

during the Nazi occupation in Lithuania fed Jewish resistance within this community, as close

contact in a concentrated place allowed the Jews to unify themselves and fight the Nazis to

protect their neighbors while they resided in the ghetto.

Before occupation by the Soviets and ultimately the Nazis, Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, was

known as the Jerusalem of the North, as it housed the thriving intellectual institutions of

Judaism during that time.4 Vilna held significance within the world-wide Jewish community: for

instance, Lithuanian Jewry was unique from other Jewish communities as it maintained the

Hebrew educational systembetween the two World Wars, unlike many other communities in

1 Lithuania, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005444
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Leonard Schroeter, The Last Exodus (New York: Universe Books, 1974), 131.
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Europe.5 The comparison to the Holy Land displays the massive cultural richness that Lithuania

held for Jews. Lithuania, while not the most population-dense country, also held ancestral

importance for many as there are few [other] Jewish communities anywhere in the West or

Israel where some Jewshad relatives, exemplifying the important community and familial ties

that brought the Jews of Lithuania, especially those in Vilna and then the Kovno ghetto, together

during the tragedy of the Holocaust.6 The personal connection many families can make to these

individuals makes the tragedy of Lithuanian Jews even more painful.

During the period of the Soviet occupation (1940-1941), Jews saw the Red Armyas

salvation and liberation from the terror, ghettos, and oppressions Nazi authority would bring.7

Even during this early period, rumors of the horrors committed by the Nazis were traveling

through the Jewish communities of Europe. With tensions already high between Christian

Lithuanians and the Jewish Lithuanians, Soviet occupation only brought about more internal

conflict. Confiscations, arrests, and the elimination of free institutions, such as higher education,

by the Soviets were all blamed on Jews in circling anti-Semitic literature in Kovno.8 These early

conflicts lay the grounds for the greater role that Lithuanians had in the extermination of their

fellow countrymen. Jews in Lithuania, were blamed for any and all economic imbalance, thus the

threat of communism and the creation of nationally verse privately owned property would be

attributed to the actions of the Jews, especially by landowners or famers who made an income

through privately owned land. This racial divide bred contempt for the Jews, which caused many

5 Dov Levin, Fighting Back: Lithuanian Jewrys Armed Resistance To The Nazis, 1941-1945
(New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1985), 8.
6 Schroeter, 131.
7 Alfonso Eidintas, Jews, Lithuanians, and The Holocaust (Vilnius: Versus Aureus, 2002), 135.
8 Kovno, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005174
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non-Jewish Lithuanians to participate in the mobile killing units that symbolized the start of the

Holocaust in Lithuania.

The beginning of the Nazi occupation in July 1941 brought terrors that many Jews in other parts

of Europe were already facing; most prevalent to the Lithuanians was the creation of ghettos and

the threat of concentration camps. Within six months of the start of Nazi occupation, the

Einsatzgruppe and Lithuanian Auxiliaries exterminated half of the Jewish population through

systematic killing.9 The horrors of the Holocaust had arrived and, unlike other places in Europe,

non-Jewish Lithuanians committed much of the early killings of their neighboring Jews through

the use of mobile killing units. The tragedy that followed can be seen in the memoirs of people

such as Abba Kovner and William Mishell, and the later exploration by Ellen Cassedy as she

traveled through Lithuania, retracing the steps her of family members who were alive during the

Holocaust.

The turning point of the cultural impact on the Jews, and the resulting resistance, started with the

forced relocation of the Jews to the ghettos in Vilna, Shavli, and Kovno. According to records

kept by Abba Kovner, a ghetto resident, by September 7, 1941, the Jewish population of Vilna

had been confined intoFirst Ghetto[and] Second Ghetto, with 40,000 occupants between

the two.10 The Jewish community within the ghettos was only a small collection of what had

once been the Jewish population. Months of forest massacres had left many distraught with grief

and the loss of religious and cultural practices prohibited within the ghetto was almost too much

to bear for many who had grown up in the rich Jewish culture of Vilna. The ghettos of Kovno

and Vilna are where many Lithuanian Jews spent the majority of the Holocaust, working forced

labor for the Germans; it is also where Jewish resistance thrived.

9 Ibid.
10 Dina Porat, The Fall of a Sparrow: The Life and Times of Abba Kovner (California: Stanford
University Press, 2000), 57.
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The events that occurred in the ghetto spurred fear and anger in many ghetto residents. One

survivor recalls the mood in the ghetto after German officers had rounded up and marched

2,000 Jews from the small ghetto to the Ninth Fort for extermination as one of despair.11

Jewish laborers returning from a long days work were forced to watch loved ones be marched

off for extermination, never to be seen again. The inability to control ones own fate, and to

watch thousands of others forcefully taken away for slaughter is a devastating concept. The

thought of people herding their fellow humans down a road like cattle for slaughter is almost

unbelievable, yet, the forests of Lithuania are littered with mass gravesites where thousands upon

thousands of Jews were shot and tossed into pits. Very few people escaped these death marches,

and ghetto residents who were fortunate enough not to be selected for marches to the Ninth Fort,

desperately pleaded with German officers and their co-conspirators to try and free those who

were. Ghetto resident William Mishell describes how he and several others tried to plead with

German officers, explaining these people [those headed to the Ninth Fort] were some of the best

craftsmen in war-related trades.12 This scene illustrates a common form of resistance that can be

seen across ghettos and concentration camps throughout Europe. In this instance, Mishell did not

hesitate to confront the German guard to try to save lives. This is resistance in one of its highest

forms as it displays a community member defying authority in order to free and save some of his

fellow Jews. Mishell and Dr. Elkes, instead of accepting these round-ups as the norm, attempted

to save as many of their neighbors as possible, despite whether or not they were their friends,

enemies, family, or strangersthey tried to fight the tragedy unrolling before them, in order to

keep the community together. Ghettoization of Jews at Kovno essentially made the community

stronger. No longer were families spread out across the city, but forced together. The Jews in

11 William W. Mishell, Kaddish For Kovno (Illinois: Chicago Review Press), 84-86.
12 Mishell, 92.
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both Kovno ghettos now faced a common fear that transcended their diverse backgrounds: the

fear of a common enemy made the Jewish community of Kovno stronger rather than tearing

them apart. This is evident in Mishells description of the events following the Big Action, of

families and neighbors coming together to console those who had lost their loved ones.13 Mishell

displays the resistance of a community unwilling to let tragedy destroy their humanity towards

one another.

It was around this time in the Kovno ghetto that people began to create organized resistance. The

first attempt to create these resistance organizations was by Jewish Police officers Greenberg and

Padison, who trained young ghetto residents in armed resistance for uprisings against attempted

massacres of ghetto residents.14 The Actions, mass shootings and massacres of Jews, left

fragments of families watching from windows as loved ones were led off in columns to the Ninth

Fort to be executed. This initial resistance to oppose these massacres was an effort by the

community to end the atrocities. It displays a communitys willingness to come together and

fight for a common cause. Kovno ghetto contained upwards of 28,000 residents.15 These

individuals did not necessarily grow up with each other or know each other. However, the

Lithuanian Jews who grouped together in order to protect one another is evidence of their

strength against oppression. As a community they refused to back down from their beliefs and

sacrifice their neighbors. Though their actions failed to save the majority of Lithuanian Jews,

they nevertheless delayed the inevitable long enough to arrange escapes for a select few. This is

the ultimate display of resistance, one that came about in a dire time of struggle that the

Holocaust imposed upon millions of individuals. Another leader of the Resistance within Kovno

was Chaim Yelin, a Yiddish poet and writer who used his talents as a charismatic leader and

13 Ibid.
14 Levin, 116.
15 Kovno
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organizer and helped to forge Communist and Zionist units into a united resistance

organization.16 The creation of the ghetto for Jewish residents of Lithuania, rather than a

concentration camp, made organized resistance easier for Jewish leaders as they could keep

closer contact with their fellow members of the resistance. Due to fewer securities in the ghettos

(most likely due to the fact that day laborers left and returned to the ghetto a minimum of twice a

day, leaving escape routes mores accessible and well-known to resistance organizers),

individuals such as Yelin were able to escape and return unnoticed. Yelins partnerships with

external resistance groups are entirely a result of the ability to leave and re-enter the ghetto

unnoticed.

Early resistance organizations in the Kovno ghetto aimed to help by publishing warnings

of imminent danger; giving succor to the needy, and seeking employment.17 Nazis during the

war were very focused on productivity. By focusing on helping the community be productive and

be a valuable asset, leaders in the Kovno ghetto could better argue to keep their workers, even

those participating in the most menial labor, away from the Germans, their collaborators and the

Ninth Fort. This was another form of resistance as leaders displayed the strength and resilience in

members of the Jewish community who would have been sent to the Ninth Fort early on if not

for ghetto employment. In late December 1941, smaller resistance movements in the Kovno

ghetto united under a common cause, regardless of their political attitudes or affiliations.18 The

ghetto functioned as a unifying structure. While it symbolized the doom of the Lithuanian Jewish

population, it also unified those within the community who were willing to fight their oppressors

16 Resistance in the Kovno Ghetto, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
http://www.ushmm.org/research/the-center-for-advanced-holocaust-studies/miles-lerman-center-
for-the-study-of-jewish-resistance/medals-of-resistance-award/resistance-in-the-kovno-ghetto
17 Levin, 117.
18 Alex Faitelson, The Truth and Nothing But the Truth: Jewish Resistance in Lithuania
(Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2006), 99.
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and attempt to end the genocide occurring across the country in the forests. Resistance leader

Yelin stated that the aim of the Resistance movement was to not abandon the ghetto. Andopen

struggle against the Nazis within partisan ranks and that we are partisans, referring to the

collective resistance and opposition groups within the ghetto.19 Ghettoization was only a small

aspect of the Hitlers Final Solution, yet in Lithuania, it drew the community closer together to

unite to fight for a common cause. In this sense, the demoralization by the Nazis was reduced, as

people were able to place hope in something, instead of merely waiting around to be sent off to

the Ninth Fort.

The resistance movement was entirely focused on the protection of ghetto residents. Resistance

leaders where extremely cautious about who to accept into their ranks as there was fear that the

existence of an underground organization in the ghetto might prematurely endanger all the

inhabitants within the ghetto.20 This display of caution regarding armed resistance illustrates

how desperately ghetto leaders were trying to protect and preserve their community. Rather than

actively recruit every able-bodied youth within the ghetto, leaders attempted to keep as many

people in the dark so should their plans ever be betrayed or flawed, the entire community would

not be in danger. Researcher Dov Levin, discusses how the resistance movements across all three

major ghettos in Lithuania (Kovno, Vilna, Shavli), reveal that each group had the similar aims of

self defense, combat, and rescue.21 Each of these highlights the concepts of saving Jewish lives,

and defying German rule. Ghetto leaders were ready to take any measure possible to defend the

ghetto at large. Abba Kovner, a resident of the Vilna ghetto, recalls, [wanting] to commit

suicide when he fully comprehended the fate of Jews, but decided suicide was out of the

19 Ibid.
20 Levin, 133.
21 Levin, 137.
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question, and remaining alive meant fighting [the Germans].22 Abba Kovner and many others

made a huge impact in the resistance during the ghetto days. Ghetto life separated the Jews from

their Lithuanian neighbors, but it also created a sense of unity between the Jews. Kovner, for

instance, made the conscious decision to fight the Germans for his fellow Jews rather than take

an out and leave them to the mercy of the Nazis and their collaborators. The strength and

resistance of the human soul is displayed in events such as these.

Leaders of the ghettos had selflessly put their names on a list of those to be executed,

rather than hand over others to the Nazi command, and see their loved ones march off to

slaughter.23 This illustrates the dedication these people had to survival and to treating each other

with respect. In this sense, these actions are an unrecognized resistance. They displayed

humanity and loyalty in the face of obliteration and refused to let fear consume them. In essence,

resisting reacting to the terror of the Nazis. Jewish people in these ghettos did not let brutal

treatment and threats of death alter their allegiance to one another. From the beginning of their

segregation in the ghettos, they devised plans to fight back from their oppressors.

These fights were not always armed or militarized in nature. Many individuals displayed

their defiance through daily activities. In Kovno, George Kadish took clandestine photos of daily

life, defying the law that prevented Jews from owning cameras within the Ghetto.24 Kadishs

photos reveal the daily lives of those living in the ghetto. The Nazis were avid recorders of all

their atrocities, but Kadish utilizes photography to show the resistance and the strength of the

human soul. His photos depict children, in spite of the horrors surrounding them, smiling for the

22 Porat, 63.
23 Ellen Cassedy, We Are Here Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust (University of Nebraska:
University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln & London, 2012), 256.
24 Spiritual Resistance During the Holocaust: Maintaining a Normal Way of Life in an
Abnormal World, Yad Vashem,
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/lesson_plans/spiritual_resistance.asp
 Strauss 10

camera. Kadish returns some pride to the Jews. Rather than just depicting them as weak and

withering prisoners, he displays them as survivors who are living through the horrors of the

Holocaust. While the ghetto was used to house Jews for forced labor, it ended up strengthening

the community.

Another form of resistance was education. Education within the Kovno ghetto was

banned in 1942, however, an underground school was nevertheless created, and during its

existence educated nearly all the children in the Kovno ghetto.25 Sadly, the school was dispersed

when the Kinder Aktion (march of the children to the Ninth Fort for execution) took place on the

days of March 27-28 of 1944.26 The proximity of the Jewish families to each other in the ghetto

allowed for them to create an education system for their children. The physical space of the

ghetto facilitated resistance in this instance that allowed for members of the Jewish community

to communicate with one another in order to accomplish this goal. This is yet another instance in

which the Jewish community united to defy the Nazi regulations.

The Nazis, rather unintentionally, made possible the resistance that opposed them

throughout their time in Lithuania. Their seclusion of the Jews from the rest of Lithuanian

society had in fact created a new society. While Lithuania, particularly Kovno and Vilna, had

maintained strong Jewish communities and cultural centers in the past, the ghetto seems to have

strengthened this community. The ghetto was a symbol of one group united against a common

front. Unlike in other instances across Europe, such as the Vel dhiv in France, Jews in Lithuania

were not plucked from their homes and deported to concentration camps in a matter of days. On

the contrary, they were forced to inhabit tight quarters within the city of Kaunas. While the fears

25 Kaunas Ghetto (1941-1944) An entire urban district turned into a merciless death
camp,VilNews: The Voice of International Lithuania, http://vilnews.com/2012-12-18271
(accessed Mar. 2, 2007).
26 Ibid.
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of Actions and the Ninth Fort lingered in the air, the time in the ghetto allowed for the Jews to

build a resistance against Nazi treatment. The inhabitants of the Kovno ghetto, as well as those in

the Vilna and Shavli ghetto made a good effort in their resistance against the Nazis, and were

able to organize escapes for many babies and young children along with older members who

joined partisan groups in the forests.27 Unfortunately, for the majority of those forced to live in

the ghetto, their rescuers arrived too late.

As the war neared its end, the Nazis took further action to eradicate the Lithuanian Jewish

population. When 1943 came to a close, SS officers took control of the ghetto and converted it

into the Kauen concentration camp, dooming the inhabitants.28 Lithuanian ghettos were slowly

being converted to the death camps that had sealed the fates of many other Jews across the

continent. These changes led to a severe reduction in power of the Jewish Council, and thus

fewer abilities to prevent the inevitable tragedy that was about to unfold. Soon after the

conversion of Kovno into a concentration camp, Nazi officers dispersed more than 3,500 Jews

to subcamps, which were strictly controlled by German officers, and on October 26, 1943, the

SS deported more that 2,700 people form the main camp.29 The Jewish community within the

ghetto was disintegrating. Organized resistance of any kind would be futile in the new subcamps.

Families were starting to be torn apart again, as those deemed fit for work were sent to labor

camps in Estonia, while the children and the elderly were sent to Auschwitz.30 The liquidation of

the ghettos and the subsequent deportation of Jews to concentration and work camps across

Europe ended the resistance Kovno inmates had been fighting with to stay alive. The

27 The Kinder Aktion in the Kovno Ghetto, World War II TodayFollow the War as it
Happened, http://ww2today.com/27-march-2014-the-kinder-aktion-in-the-kovno-ghetto
(accessed Feb 3, 2015).
28 Kovno
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
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underground school for children fell apart with the execution of the majority of the children and

the deportation of the rest to Auschwitz. In the final days of Nazi occupation of Lithuania, the

remaining Jews were deported to Dachau and Stutthof concentration camps, and the three weeks

before Soviet liberation, Kovno was entirely destroyed killing 2,000 people in the process.31 The

end result of the Lithuanian Jews long battle in resistance was not successful in terms of saving

the majority of their fellow ghetto residents. However, their time in the ghetto showed how a

community could come together in the face of disaster and work to create the best under horrible

circumstances.

Ghettoization allowed for Jews to create resistance groups and participate in resistance

activities as their vicinity to one another allowed for more communication and a sense of unity

for a common cause. Members of Lithuanian ghettos created communities within their ghettos,

allowing for leadership and organizations, such as schools, to form. However, the tragedy of the

Holocaust left its mark on Jewish Lithuania, with Nazi systematic killing leaving only 10% of

the Lithuanian Jewish population intact, the highest victim rate of any in Europe.32 The concept

of a community, both in terms of physical proximity and social similarity among individuals,

played a key role in the process of the events of ghetto life in Lithuania. It created a group of

people who were bound by the fact they were the entire Jewish population of the once thriving

Jerusalem of the North that experienced atrocities together that cannot be compared. Rather than

immediately separated across concentration camps, these strangers became neighbors, friends,

co-workers, and allies during a time of uncertainty and fear. The ghetto, while its original

purpose was an insult to humanity, worked to save many Jewish-Lithuanian lives as it bred

resistance within the ghetto and created plans that were able to help a handful of lucky

31 Ibid.
32 Lithuania
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individuals escape before ghetto liquidation took place. This opportunity of unification was rare

among Jews during this period as many were not forced into ghettos, but rather immediately

brought to concentration camps where the Nazis Final Solution was in full swing. Through the

stories of people like Abba Kovner, William Mishell, and the pictures left behind by George

Kadish, it is clear that the Lithuanian Jews defied German control. The fought hard, to not only

keep cultural values, such as education, but to fight for freedom and the right to life, even if only

for a select few.

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Bibliography

Cassedy, Ellen. We Are Here Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust. University of Nebraska:

University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln & London, 2012.

Eidintas, Alfonso. Jews, Lithuanians, and The Holocaust. Vilnius: Versus Aureus, 2002.

Faitelson, Alex. The Truth and Nothing But the Truth: Jewish Resistance in Lithuania.

Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2006.

Kaunas Ghetto (1941-1944) An entire urban district turned into a merciless death

camp.VilNews: The Voice of International Lithuania. http://vilnews.com/2012-12-18271

(accessed Mar. 2, 2007).

Kovno, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005174 (accessed Feb 28, 2015)

Levin, Dov. Fighting Back: Lithuanian Jewrys Armed Resistance To The Nazis, 1941-1945.

New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1985.

Lithuania. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005444 (accessed Feb 27, 2015)

Mishell, William W. Kaddish For Kovno. Illinois: Chicago Review Press, 1999.

Porat, Dina. The Fall of a Sparrow: The Life and Times of Abba Kovner. California: Stanford

University Press, 2000.

Resistance in the Kovno Ghetto. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Schroeter, Leonard. The Last Exodus. New York: Universe Books, 1974.
 Strauss 15

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http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/lesson_plans/spiritual_resistance.asp

(accessed Feb. 28, 2015).

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(accessed Feb 3, 2015).