Today marks the National Memorial Day for the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews. On September 23rd, 1943 after two years of existence, the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto began.
The following account comes from Vilna Ghetto survivor Lily Margules in her USHMM interview, and describes her final moments in the ghetto on the day of liquidation:
“The morning when the liquidation came, there was just such an eerie feeling in the air. You could smell death. You could smell despair. You could smell helplessness. There is nothing we could do. On the streets were pandemonium. The families started to be separated. The men were put in one column, the women were put in another column. The children were separated from their parents and there was such an intimidation that you just…you just had to look down. You couldn’t even look up like a person after. My aunt was in the middle and my sister was from one side and I was from the other side. As we were passing through the gates of ghetto, we turned around and this was the last time that I saw my town.
And this was the last time that I actually saw the streets of my childhood, so this was the end of my childhood. From this time, I became an adult. As we were passing the gates – my aunt had a beautiful voice, and I don’t know…she walked like in a trance. And all of a sudden she started to sing this – not loud, but sing, and we heard what she was singing, this song Vilna…”
Life in the Vilna Ghetto was uncertain, and death never felt far away. But for many survivors like Mrs. Margules, it was the last time they felt the comfort and security of having their families around them.
When listening to my grandmother’s stories from the Vilna Ghetto, it is difficult to comprehend that she would never see her father, aunt, uncle, cousins, or grandmother ever again. The next chapter of her life was built from scratch in a world very different from her own. The memories of a Lithuania that no longer existed would remain her only connection to the life she was forced to leave behind.
This is what war does.
Photo courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum oral history testimony of Lily Margules.
