alone.’ And so I waited.
It was only after the war that I discovered what had prompted my mission, why those three men in the candle-lit cellar sent me away that night. My mission was a response to something that had happened three days earlier.
Some Jews working outside the ghetto had seen a young girl, barely clothed, her eyes wild and staring. She was covered in dirt and smeared with blood; she could say nothing and her face twitched and shook like a mad woman's. They brought her back to the ghetto and once she had been dressed, and had managed to eat and drink a little, she eventually began to speak, though the words came slowly.
She had been one of those pushed to the right at Demokratu Square, along with my sisters. The selection had gone on all day, past nightfall, Rauca on the mound, smoking his cigarette or eating hissandwiches, all the while judging the column of people that shuffled before him, ignoring their cries and blocking out their pleas. Eventually there were ten thousand of them, pushed through a hole in the fence into an area known as the ‘small ghetto’. Some had felt relieved, concluding that this had been nothing more than an elaborate exercise in rehousing. Apparently, people began to argue over who would get which apartment; committees talked through the night, planning for their new lives.
But at dawn the next morning, they realized their mistake. Lithuanian militiamen burst in and began beating and pushing the Jews out of their new homes, herding them into a column and ordering them to march. They were to make the four-kilometre trek to the Ninth Fort, the old encampment built in Tsarist times and designed to keep the Germans out.
It was an uphill walk and it took hours; the aged and the sick falling by the wayside, sometimes helped to their deaths by the rifle-butt of one of the militiamen. The route was lined, from beginning to end, with local Lithuanians, curious to see these strange creatures emerging from the ghetto – just as they had been curious to see us all led inside.
The Nazis had a name for this route. They called it:
Der Weg zur Himmelfahrt.
The Way to the Heavenly Journey.
They did not arrive till noon and once they had there was no respite. The Lithuanian thugs were quick to grab any jewellery, pulling off earringsand bracelets, and then ordering the Jews to strip naked. Only then did they lead them to the pits.
These were vast craters dug into the earth. Some said they were one hundred metres long, three metres wide and perhaps two metres deep. Others said they were not as long, but twice as deep. Each one was surrounded on three sides by small mountains of earth, freshly dug. On the fourth side, there was a raised wooden platform. And it was here that the SS men stood with their guns.
Those who had survived the march now began to scream; they understood where this heavenly journey had led them. Some tried to escape but they were shot instantly. And so the killing began.
First the Nazis tossed the children into the pit; then the machine gunners, in position for precisely this purpose, opened fire. The women were lined up at the edge of the crater and shot there, in the back, so that they would fall in on top of the children. The men were last.
They killed them in batches of three hundred, with no guarantee that one batch was finished when work began on the next. They had to work fast. Besides, ammunition was rationed so that the Nazis could not afford more than one bullet to the back per victim. And most of the gunmen were drunk.
The result was that many Jews were not dead when they fell; they were buried alive. This was the fate, especially, of the children. But not only them. Those who saw it told of how the pit moved for three days, how it breathed.
This is the event they call the ‘great action’ of October 28 1941, when ten thousand Jews were driven out of the Kovno ghetto and put to death.
And this is how my sisters were killed.
The girl who had found her
It was only after the war that I discovered what had prompted my mission, why those three men in the candle-lit cellar sent me away that night. My mission was a response to something that had happened three days earlier.
Some Jews working outside the ghetto had seen a young girl, barely clothed, her eyes wild and staring. She was covered in dirt and smeared with blood; she could say nothing and her face twitched and shook like a mad woman's. They brought her back to the ghetto and once she had been dressed, and had managed to eat and drink a little, she eventually began to speak, though the words came slowly.
She had been one of those pushed to the right at Demokratu Square, along with my sisters. The selection had gone on all day, past nightfall, Rauca on the mound, smoking his cigarette or eating hissandwiches, all the while judging the column of people that shuffled before him, ignoring their cries and blocking out their pleas. Eventually there were ten thousand of them, pushed through a hole in the fence into an area known as the ‘small ghetto’. Some had felt relieved, concluding that this had been nothing more than an elaborate exercise in rehousing. Apparently, people began to argue over who would get which apartment; committees talked through the night, planning for their new lives.
But at dawn the next morning, they realized their mistake. Lithuanian militiamen burst in and began beating and pushing the Jews out of their new homes, herding them into a column and ordering them to march. They were to make the four-kilometre trek to the Ninth Fort, the old encampment built in Tsarist times and designed to keep the Germans out.
It was an uphill walk and it took hours; the aged and the sick falling by the wayside, sometimes helped to their deaths by the rifle-butt of one of the militiamen. The route was lined, from beginning to end, with local Lithuanians, curious to see these strange creatures emerging from the ghetto – just as they had been curious to see us all led inside.
The Nazis had a name for this route. They called it:
Der Weg zur Himmelfahrt.
The Way to the Heavenly Journey.
They did not arrive till noon and once they had there was no respite. The Lithuanian thugs were quick to grab any jewellery, pulling off earringsand bracelets, and then ordering the Jews to strip naked. Only then did they lead them to the pits.
These were vast craters dug into the earth. Some said they were one hundred metres long, three metres wide and perhaps two metres deep. Others said they were not as long, but twice as deep. Each one was surrounded on three sides by small mountains of earth, freshly dug. On the fourth side, there was a raised wooden platform. And it was here that the SS men stood with their guns.
Those who had survived the march now began to scream; they understood where this heavenly journey had led them. Some tried to escape but they were shot instantly. And so the killing began.
First the Nazis tossed the children into the pit; then the machine gunners, in position for precisely this purpose, opened fire. The women were lined up at the edge of the crater and shot there, in the back, so that they would fall in on top of the children. The men were last.
They killed them in batches of three hundred, with no guarantee that one batch was finished when work began on the next. They had to work fast. Besides, ammunition was rationed so that the Nazis could not afford more than one bullet to the back per victim. And most of the gunmen were drunk.
The result was that many Jews were not dead when they fell; they were buried alive. This was the fate, especially, of the children. But not only them. Those who saw it told of how the pit moved for three days, how it breathed.
This is the event they call the ‘great action’ of October 28 1941, when ten thousand Jews were driven out of the Kovno ghetto and put to death.
And this is how my sisters were killed.
The girl who had found her
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