Reassembling a History the Holocaust Tried to Erase
Alexander Phibbs is the founder of the Gens Family Project, a historical initiative devoted to restoring Jewish life, testimony, and civic history in Lithuania before, during, and after the Holocaust. What began as a family journey has grown into a sustained effort to reconnect fragments of history that Nazi genocide sought not only to destroy, but to silence.
Alexander is the grandson of Ada Gens-Ustjanauskas and the great-grandson of Jacob Gens, a figure whose role in the Vilna Ghetto remains among the most contested in Holocaust history. His work does not attempt to deliver verdicts. Instead, it asks a more fundamental question:
What happens to history when those closest to the events are not fully heard?
Jacob Gens and the Problem of Interpretation
Appointed by the Jewish Council (Judenrat) of Vilna, Jacob Gens served as Jewish Chief of Police of the Vilna Ghetto following the German invasion of Lithuania in 1941.
Prior to the war, he served as a Captain in the Lithuanian Army and worked as a teacher before completing his education in law and economics, later earning his living as an accountant. This combination of military service, education, and civilian administrative experience shaped both how he was perceived and the authority he carried under occupation, placing him at the center of enduring historical debate.
From the outset, Phibbs encountered not consensus, but division. Survivors of the Vilna Ghetto and later historians alike have long disagreed over how Jacob Gens should be understood. Accounts varied widely depending on perspective, proximity to events, and interpretive framework. Yet amid these disagreements, one absence stood out.
Nearly no one had seriously sought out the testimony of his daughter.
Ada Gens-Ustjanauskas was inside the ghetto with him. She knew his daily routines, his private concerns, and the limits of what he could reveal even to those closest to him. She understood the informal relationships, warnings, and negotiations that never appeared in official records. While survivors and historians debated his legacy across decades, the person with the most sustained and intimate access to Jacob Gens during the ghetto years was largely overlooked.
For Phibbs, this raised a question not of judgment, but of method:
How could such a contested historical figure be written about for decades without systematically incorporating the testimony of the person closest to him during the period in question?
Ada Gens-Ustjanauskas: Testimony as History
Ada’s life cannot be confined to the Holocaust years alone. Born in Lithuania in 1926, she came of age in a country that had only recently gained independence and where Jewish, Catholic, and secular communities lived alongside one another. As a teenager, she witnessed two totalitarian regimes dismantle that fragile democracy — first the Soviet occupation, then the Nazi invasion.
After surviving the Vilna Ghetto and losing most of her family, Ada rebuilt her life in the West. She worked with displaced persons in postwar Europe, later assisting immigrants and refugees in the United States. Fluent in seven languages, she became a bridge between worlds. In the 1990s, as Lithuania fought to reestablish its independence after decades of Soviet rule, Ada worked with Lithuanian and American institutions in support of democracy, engaging directly with political and civic leaders during a formative moment in the country’s rebirth.
Her testimony — particularly her United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview recorded in 2008 — is not only personal memory. It contains names, relationships, and mechanisms that illuminate unresolved questions in the history of the Vilna Ghetto. When paired with archival documentation and other survivor accounts, her recollections repeatedly align with, and often clarify, the historical record.
2016: The First Return to Lithuania
In the summer of 2016, Alexander Phibbs traveled to Lithuania with his family after his aunt, Irene Bernhard, helped arrange a research expedition with Dr. Richard Freund of the University of Hartford. The team — composed of archaeologists, scientists, and researchers — worked alongside a PBS NOVA documentary crew investigating three major Holocaust-era sites: the escape tunnel at Ponary, the remains of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius, and the approximate execution and burial area of Jacob Gens.
After the archaeological work concluded, Ada guided her family through the former Vilna Ghetto.
She pointed out the room where her father’s office had been, the main courtyard where the Judenrat operated, and the windows of the apartments where her family lived. She told stories tied to specific places — moments documented privately, without yet understanding their broader historical significance.
At the time, Phibbs did not see this trip as the beginning of a project.
It was a return — not a mission.
From Curiosity to Responsibility: 2024
In October–November 2024, Phibbs returned to Lithuania alone, initially by chance. Invited by a friend, he intended to learn the language, understand the culture, and see the country more deeply. He did not arrive with a research agenda.
While there, he discovered Holocaustatlas.lt, a publicly accessible, research-based digital map documenting the locations, dates, and circumstances of Nazi mass murder sites across Lithuania. Using the atlas as a guide, he began visiting Holocaust mass-grave sites throughout the country, renting cars and driving to forests, fields, and town outskirts where Jewish communities were murdered — often within days or weeks of the German invasion in June 1941. Many of these killings took place before ghettos were even established. Entire shtetls were eliminated almost immediately, erasing centuries of Jewish life in a matter of days.
At the same time, he began archival research at the Lithuanian Central State Archive in Vilnius, searching for any material related to his family on both sides. Only after returning home to Connecticut did the scope of the work become clear. The next day, he began intensive research — reading survivor testimonies, books, and documents, and contacting Jewish organizations worldwide. He reached out to survivors’ children and grandchildren, assembling fragments of memory to understand both his family and the ghetto more fully.
Below are photographs from several Holocaust mass graves throughout Lithuania. Please click each photo to learn more.
2025: Reassembling What Was Broken
When Phibbs returned to Lithuania in January 2025, the work had shifted from exploration to intention. In the months before traveling, he immersed himself in U.S. government archives related to his grandmother’s postwar career, identifying photographs, film footage, speeches, and correspondence from her work with American and Lithuanian officials during the independence movement.
In Lithuania, he worked closely with Regina Kopilevich, a tour guide, historian, and archivist whose deep familiarity with Lithuania’s archival landscape transformed the research into a kind of historical detective work. For several months, they moved methodically through archives in Vilnius and Kaunas, often spending nearly five days a week examining fragile files, cross-referencing names, addresses, and dates, and testing survivor testimony against official documentation. Family records, ghetto-era administrative files, school documents, and long-forgotten photographs slowly began to align.
Among the most significant discoveries was a photograph of Ada’s uncle Solomon — a face no one in the family had ever seen. Ada had last seen him in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943, shortly before the ghetto’s liquidation. He was deported to the Klooga concentration camp, where he was murdered. For the first time in eighty-two years, Ada could finally see her uncle’s face — not as a name in testimony or a line in a document, but as a person. The moment underscored what archival work can restore when records are patiently and carefully reassembled: not only historical clarity, but human presence.
Phibbs also met with Lithuanian political and civic leaders who had worked with Ada during the independence movement, including Vytautas Landsbergis, the principal political figure of Lithuania’s restoration of independence, and Emanuelis Zingeris, the first Jewish member of parliament in post-Soviet Lithuania and a leading advocate for historical memory and human rights. During these meetings, Phibbs arranged for both men to speak directly with Ada, and each was genuinely delighted to reconnect with her. Sharing documents and photographs from decades earlier, the encounters bridged personal memory and national history, reinforcing Ada’s role in Lithuania’s democratic rebirth.
Below are photographs from Alexander’s trips Lithuania. Please click each photo to learn more.
Standing Where No Families Remain
Parallel to his archival work on his second trip to Lithuania in 2025, Alexander continued traveling alone to Holocaust mass-grave sites across Lithuania. Over multiple trips, he documented 90 of Lithuania’s 229 known mass-grave sites, photographing inscriptions, recording dates, and capturing the surrounding geography.
Many victims left no surviving families. Standing at these sites — especially those rarely visited — was an act of recognition. For Phibbs, remembrance is not symbolic; it requires presence. Reading massacre dates carved into stone rather than encountering the Holocaust as abstract numbers transformed his understanding of genocide in Lithuania: survival was the exception, not the rule.
Theatre as Historical Memory: Ghetto
During this period, Phibbs was invited to attend Ghetto at the Kaunas National Drama Theatre, directed by Gintaras Varnas.
The play explores life inside the Vilna Ghetto through culture, music, and moral ambiguity. One of its central figures is Jacob Gens, portrayed as a deeply conflicted leader navigating impossible choices under terror. Performed in Lithuanian and grounded in local historical detail, the production confronted the audience with complexity rather than resolution.
After the performance, Alexander met with the cast and director onstage, discussing responsibility, memory, and representation. Lithuanian press later noted the rare convergence of history, family testimony, and cultural interpretation.
Alexander with the cast of Ghetto, standing alongside director Gintaras Varnas. Photo Credit: Patricija Gagaitė 
Alexander meeting with the cast of Ghetto at the Kaunas National Drama Theatre. Photo Credit: Patricija Gagaitė 
Alexander speaks with the cast of Ghetto at the Kaunas National Drama Theatre. Photo Credit: Patricija Gagaitė 
Alexander on the set of Ghetto at the Kaunas National Drama Theatre Photo Credit: Patricija Gagaitė
October 2025: Return, Continuity, and Public Memory
In October 2025, Phibbs returned to Lithuania with his mother Henrietta Ustjanauskas and cousin Dr. Amy Ustjanauskas, guiding them through the geographic heart of the Gens family story. The visit included Šiauliai, the family’s ancestral home, where they visited Holocaust sites and the destroyed Jewish cemetery in which their great-great-grandfather had been buried in 1935 before its eradication under Soviet rule. The journey also retraced earlier chapters of the family’s life, beginning in Kaunas, where Ada grew up, continuing to Smalininkai, where Ada was born, and Jurbarkas, where Jacob Gens once taught at a Jewish high school, before returning to Vilnius for the remainder of their trip. In Šiauliai, they also visited the home of the family who helped hide Ada and her mother Elvyra after their escape from Nazi-occupied Vilnius. While Ada was not hidden specifically in that house, the site—now preserved as the Vencaluskas Ausros Muziejus—commemorates the family whose assistance was instrumental in their survival.
They also visited Lost Shtetl Museum in Šeduva, a newly opened Jewish history museum that has quickly become one of the largest and most comprehensive institutions in the Baltic states dedicated to telling the story of Lithuania’s vanished shtetls and the communities that once lived within them; its immersive galleries trace everyday Jewish life, culture, and traditions alongside the devastating impact of the Holocaust, ensuring that the memory of these lost communities continues to be preserved and shared.
Alexander, Henrietta and Amy with staff of the Venclauskas Home Museum in Šiauliai. 
Alexander and Henrietta stand in front of the former Jewish High School in Jurbarkas, where Jacob Gens taught in the mid 1920’s. 
Jurbarkas Jewish High School picture. Photo Credit: Sefer HaZikaron LeKehilath Yurburg-Lita (Memorial book for the community of Yurburg, Lithuania) 
8th grade class at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jurbarkas. Jacob Gens seated on the right end of the middle row. Photo Credit: Sefer HaZikaron LeKehilath Yurburg-Lita (Memorial book for the community of Yurburg, Lithuania) 
Alexander and Amy in Smalininkai where Ada was born. To the right is Lithuania, to the left is Kaliningrad, Russia. 
Alexander and Amy next to the Jewish cemetery of Šiauliai. 
Alexander at the memorial for Šiauliai’s Jewish cemetery, which stood for over 260 years until the Soviets destroyed it in 1965. 
Entrance gate to the Jewish cemetery adjoining the Lost Shtetl Museum. 
Alexander and Amy with a staff member of the Lost Shtetl Museum. 
View from the Jewish cemetery towards the museum. 
The brand new Lost Shtetl Museum in Šeduva. 
Sign in the Lost Shtetl Museum.
During this trip, Alexander and Henrietta attended the 100th anniversary events of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, conducted a renewed archaeological search for Jacob Gens, and Alexander presented his documentary The Commandant’s Daughter at the Vilnius Jewish Library. The screening was followed by a public Q&A and a televised interview on Menora, the Jewish television program aired by Lithuania’s national broadcaster, LRT. This marked a significant moment of national engagement with both family history and historical accountability.
Alexander, Henrietta, and Amy also visited Ponary, the primary mass-murder site where approximately 70,000 Jews from Vilnius and the surrounding region were killed during the Holocaust. They were accompanied by historian Dr. Mantas Šikšnianas and Dr. Daniela Ozacky-Stern, granddaughter of Vilna Ghetto partisan and survivor Chaim Lazar. Dr. Ozacky-Stern had traveled from Israel to present at YIVO and Vilnius University on the Vilna Ghetto, including discussion of Gens; together, the visit underscored that remembrance is strongest when history is shared across generations, disciplines, and borders.
Group photo after the showing of The Commandant’s Daughter in Vilnius. Next to Alexander is the director of the Jewish Library, Liana Jagniatinskytė, who organized this event. 
Group photo of YIVO’s 100th anniversary event, with Alexander, Henrietta and Amy towards the left side of the photo. 
Alexander, Henrietta, and Dr. Ozacky-Stern at Vilnius University with the university’s leading professor in Judaic studies, Prof. Dr. Jurgita Verbickienė, author Rimantas Stankkevičius, Dr. Arūnas Bubnys of Lithuania’s Genocide and Resistance Research Center, and Dr. Dovilė Troskovaitė of Vilnius University’s history faculty. 
Alexander and Irina Guzenberg, author of “Vilnius: Traces of the Jerusalem of Lithuania,” at the dig site for Jacob Gens’ remains. 
Alexander and Dr. Ozacky-Stern at the dig site for Jacob Gens’ remains. 
Touring Ponary with Dr. Šikšnianas and Dr. Ozacky-Stern. 
Alexander’s interview shown on LRT’s television show Menora.
Scholarship, Film, and Institutional Engagement
Phibbs is currently working with German historian and Lithuanian Holocaust expert Dr. Christoph Dieckmann on translating and publishing a historical novel written by Vilna Ghetto survivor Dr. Leon Bernstein. Dr. Bernstein was a Lithuanian-born intellectual who led cultural life inside the ghetto, supported underground resistance efforts, later joined partisan fighters, and after the war became a senior figure in Jewish refugee relief and Holocaust remembrance, including serving in a leadership role within the World Jewish Congress. The project draws on primary-source materials, family documentation, and contextual research related to the Holocaust in Lithuania.
His documentary, The Commandant’s Daughter, places survivor testimony in direct dialogue with archival verification and geographic context, challenging the marginalization of so-called “memory-based history.” It demonstrates how survivor testimony, when treated seriously, does not weaken historical understanding — it deepens it.
Phibbs also remains actively engaged with Jewish museums and historical institutions throughout Lithuania, sharing research materials, supporting exhibitions and education, and helping raise funds necessary to sustain preservation efforts. These relationships reflect a commitment not only to recovering history, but to ensuring the institutions that safeguard it can endure.
Why This Work Matters
The Holocaust in Lithuania dismantled not only lives, but memory itself. Rebuilding that history requires survivors, descendants, scholars, and institutions working together across generations.
Alexander Phibbs’s work reconnects testimony with documentation, geography with memory, and past with present — ensuring that the lives erased are remembered with dignity, complexity, and care.
This is not only Ada’s story.
It is about honoring survivors, and especially those who did not survive — and restoring what was deliberately broken.