Vilna Ghetto

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The Vilna Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the modern country of Lithuania, at the time part of the Nazi-administered Reichskommissariat Ostland. During the approximately two years of its existence, starvation, disease, street executions, maltreatment, and deportations to concentration and extermination camps reduced the ghetto's population from an estimated 40,000. Only several hundred of the city's pre-war Jewish population managed to survive the war, mostly by hiding in the forests surrounding the city, by joining Soviet partisans, or by sheltering with sympathetic locals.

Before the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, Wilno (Vilna in Yiddish) was the capital of the Wilno Voivodship in the Second Polish Republic. The predominant languages of the city were Polish and, to a lesser extent, Yiddish. The Lithuanian-speaking population at the time was a small minority, at about 6% of the city's population according to contemporary Lithuanian sources. By 1931, the city had 195,000 inhabitants. According to the census of 1938 there was a slight increase so that the urban population was registered at around 208, 000, making it the fifth largest city in Poland, with varied industries and new factories, as well as a well respected university.

Wilno was a predominantly Polish and Jewish city since the Polish-Lithuanian borders were delineated in 1922 by the League of Nations in the aftermath of Żeligowski's Mutiny. After the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, Joseph Stalin transferred Wilno to Lithuania in October, according to the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty. Some two years later, on 26 June 1941, the German Army entered Vilna, followed by the Einsatzkommando death squad Einsatzgruppe B. Local Lithuanian leaders advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Jews and Poles. Throughout the summer, German troops and their Lithuanian collaborators killed more than 21,000 Jews living in Vilnius, in a mass extermination program. [ citation needed ]

The Jewish population of Vilnius on the eve of the Holocaust was at least 60,000, some estimates say 80,000, including refugees from German-occupied Poland to the west, minus a small number who managed to flee onward to the Soviet Union. The kidnapping and mass murder of Jews in the city commenced before the ghetto was set up by the advancing German forces, resulting in an execution of approximately 21,000 victims prior to 6 September 1941. The Lithuanian kidnappers were known in Yiddish as hapunes, meaning grabbers or snatchers. [ citation needed ]

In order to pacify the predominantly poorer Jewish quarter in the Vilnius Old Town and force the rest of the more affluent Jewish residents into the new German-envisioned ghetto, the Nazis staged – as a pretext – the Great Provocation incident on 31 August 1941, led by SS Einsatzkommando 9 Oberscharführer Horst Schweinberger under orders from Gebietskommissar of the Vilnius municipality, Hans Christian Hingst, and Franz Murer, Hingst's deputy for Jewish affairs under "provisional directives" of Reichskommissar Hinrich Lohse. [ citation needed ]

Murer, Hingst, and Vilnius mayor Karolis Dabulevičius selected the site for the future ghetto and staged a distant sniping at German soldiers in front of a cinema. The charade was enacted from a window on the corner of Stiklių Street (Glezer, meaning Szklana in Polish) and Didžioji Street (Wielka, Great Street in Polish). Hence, the name 'Wielka' to describe the event that occurred on the streets. As part of the deception two Lithuanians in civilian clothes broke into an apartment belonging to Jews. The Lithuanians then fled the apartment. Then they returned with awaiting German soldiers that captured two Jews, accusing them of firing on the German soldiers. They beat them and then shot them on the spot. Stiklių and Mėsinių (Jatkowa) streets were ransacked by the local militia and the Lithuanian auxiliary police, while other Jews were beaten up.

At night, in "retaliation", all Jews were driven out of the neighborhood the Nazis had selected as the future ghetto territory, forcing the people out street by street. Over the next day they rounded up the women and children on the remaining streets while the men were seized at work. Men with specific trades and at privileged workplaces were also seized. Jews were taken to Lukiškės Prison, then to Paneriai, also known as Ponary (or Ponar), where they were murdered between 1 September and 3 September. 5,000 to 10,000 people were murdered, including ten members of the Judenrat. The objective was to clear an area for the establishment of a ghetto to imprison all the Jews of Vilnius and its suburbs.

The area designated for the ghetto was the old Jewish quarter in the center 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 Jewish quarters (the 'Large Ghetto' and the 'Small Ghetto'), with a non-ghetto corridor running down Deutschegasse (Niemiecka or Vokiečių Street).

On 6–7 September 1941, the Nazis herded the remaining 20,000 Jews into the two ghettos by evicting them from their homes, during which 3,700 were killed. The intention was to crowd the majority of the Jewish inhabitants into an area in which there had been space previously for only 4, 000 people. That meant intense overcrowding, the reduced area of living space and the general lack of hygiene and sanitation which led to the widespread outbreak of illness and diseases like typhus.

No Jewish person was spared from this measure of Ghettoization. Even Converts, " half-Jews ", and spouses of Jews were also forced into the ghetto. The move to the ghetto was extremely hurried, haphazard and difficult. Jews were not allowed to use transportation and had to take only what they were physically able to carry while being escorted by the Lithuanian auxilary police force (' Hilfspolizei '). Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page ).

The two-ghetto arrangement made it easier for the Nazis to control what the victims knew of their fate beforehand. The main administrative organ was the German 'Stadtkommissariat' under whose authority operated the local Lithuanian ' Hilfspolizei ' as well as a detachment of SS guards. There was also the aforementioned Jewish Ghetto administration (namely the ' Judenrat ') and an autonomous Jewish police force (' Ordnungsdienst ') that had to smooth the implementation of often hurried and drastic measures sometimes resulting in a grave loss of life. Through harbouring all the different agencies of administration and surveillance the Nazis were able to facilitate their goal of total extermination.

A two-ghetto model was also used in Warsaw. Like the other Jewish ghettos Nazi Germany set up during World War II, the Vilnius Ghetto was created both to dehumanise the people and to exploit its inmates as slave labor. A large portion of the Ghetto inhabitants was employed in the fur industry ('Pelzindustrie' in German or Yiddish ). There were places of work inside the Ghetto but also outside to where the workers had to be escorted. Some of the work places came under the jurisdiction of the German Army and the German civil administration in which German administrators and businessmen played their part. It's estimated that around 1,000 unfit labourers were shot on a weekly basis.

Towards the end of 1941 a part of the small ghetto ('kleines Ghetto') was ordered to be 'cleared' or in the German bureaucratic jargon of the time to become 'aufgelöst.' 1500 ihabitants of the 'kleines Ghetto' were shot. Around that time in October 1941 specialist workers in the fur or textile industries were temporarily exempt from harsh treatment or execution. Along with their family members they received the 'Gelbe Arbeitsschein.'

Willi Dreßen, a consultant for the Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus suggests a higher number of victims during the so-called 'Gelbe Schein Aktion.' He estimates that around 5000 to 8000 Jews without the 'Schein' ('permit') were separated from the majority of the Ghetto inhabitants and shot on 24 October 1941. In the following December, as the bitterness of winter intensified, the 'Gelbe Schein' could be exchanged for a rose-pink 'Schein.' Those who couldn't show any permit on demand were shot. 3000 people were executed in this way on 5 November 1941.

In the meantime conditions worsened. It was the intention of the different administrative agencies responsible for the Ghetto to make Life more difficult with families and individuals living precariously on a day to day basis. It was intended to make them extremely poor and susceptible to the widespread overcrowding, while subjecting the inhabitants to unsanitary conditions, disease, and a range of epidemics and illnesses.

Jewish Vilna was known for its distinguished medical tradition, which inmates of the ghetto managed to maintain to some degree during the Holocaust. As with most ghettos established by the Germans, a sign was put right outside in front stating: "Achtung! Seuchengefahr" ("Attention! Danger of Infection"). Mortality rates did, indeed, increase in the Vilna Ghetto as compared with before the war. However, due largely to the efforts of the ghetto's Health Department, the Vilna Ghetto had no major epidemics despite malnourishment, cold, and overcrowding. According to Dr. Lazar Epstein, head of Sanitary-Epidemiological Section of the ghetto's Health Department, the inmates of the ghetto, left to their own devices, could have lived a very long time, certainly to the end of the war, despite the numerous privations.

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 of 45,000 volumes, reading hall, archive, statistical bureau, room for scientific work, museum, book kiosk, post office, and sports ground. Groups, such as the Literary and Artistic Union and the Brit Ivrit Union, 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 in public lectures. Yitskhok Rudashevski (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 Paneriai. His diary was discovered in 1944 by his cousin.

The Vilna Ghetto was well known for its theatrical productions during World War II. Jacob Gens, the head of the Jewish police ('Ordnungsdienst') and the ruler of the Vilna Ghetto, was given the responsibility for the starting of this theatre. Performances included poetry readings by Jewish authors, dramatizations of short stories, and new work by the young people of the ghetto.

The Ghetto Theatre was a great source of revenue and had a calming effect on the public. A total of 111 performances had been given by January 10, 1943, with a total of 34,804 tickets sold. The theatre was renovated to accommodate a larger audience and to make the façade and interior better-looking to the public eye. The theatre permitted the inhabitants to display their power through plays and songs; for instance, one of the songs that was sung was called "Endurance".

The last theatrical production, Der Mabl ( The Flood ), was produced by the Swedish dramatist Henning Berger. Opening night was one summer's eve in 1943. The play brought in the crowds but the theatre was to experience the last week of its existence for the Ghetto itself was scheduled to be liquidated. The play, set in an American saloon during a flood, featured a group of people who banded together during a time of danger and need. Its metaphorical resonance must have reached out to the audience, especially the young theatre-goers who must have thought surely there had to be time for some organized resistance.