Tel Aviv, Sunday October 29, 2006

The Big Action
By Solly Ganor

This evening we gathered once more at the ‘Bet Hachyal’ in Tel Aviv, to commemorate the murder of 10,000 men, women and children of the Kovno Ghetto 65 years ago. We called it the ‘Big Action’. There were a few hundred of us, Lithuanian Jewish survivors gathered to commemorate our nearest and dearest who were murdered by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators on that fateful day. Just a few hundred to cry for the 10,000 of the ‘Big Action’ and the 250,000 Lithuanian Jews who perished during the Holocaust. I couldn’t help thinking of the number of our soldiers who died since the War of Independence in 1948 and the other five or six major wars we fought against the Arabs. We cry for every one of them, the brothers, sisters, children and now the grand children. We cry for the 24,000 who died in our wars against the Arabs. But there was no one to cry for the 10,000 murdered in the ‘Big Action’ in the Kovno ghetto because those who died were whole families and there was no one left to cry for them. No fathers, or mothers, sisters, or brothers, children or grand children; they couldn’t cry for their nearest and dearest because they were all shot and buried together in a mass grave on the killing grounds of the 9Th Fort near Kovno. They tell me that I shouldn’t make such comparisons, but I can’t help myself.

Every year there are less and less of us gathering here, as we die out in ever increasing numbers. Even the few young ones who managed to slip through the killing net of the Nazis are in their seventies. One of the young survivors who attended the commemoration was chief justice of our Supreme Court, Aharon Barak. He had recently retired and came to address us. Professor Barak is an internationally known brilliant judicial scholar and lawyer. His achievements in the justice department and field of law are among the highest in the world. We can only be proud of him as being one of our own. Professor Barak spoke to us in simple terms, from the heart, speaking to his own family. In his speech he brought up his background as a young Holocaust survivor and the positive effect it had on his approach to judgments in his long career as the chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court. During his speech I couldn’t help wondering how many Aharon Baraks were among the murdered million and a half Jewish children and what a difference they would have made in the world if they had stayed alive.
Next to me sat an old man who wiping his tears during the emotional ceremony.

“I can’t help thinking of my family that were among the 10,000 murdered that day. I remember it as if it were yesterday, Yet what I remember most is the face of the murderer Rauka as he stood in his brand new uniform and black shiny boots and selected us like sheep whom he sent to be slaughtered and whom he allowed to stay alive for a while.”

His words brought back my own memories of that dreadful day. A day that will remain branded in my memory till my dying day. The memories I had written down in my diary and later became part of my book ‘Light One Candle’. I am including here an excerpt from my original manuscript.

The Big Action
Kovno Ghetto, October 28,1941

Day light found the whole ghetto population of about twenty eight thousand men, women and children standing in neat columns waiting for the German executioners to finish their breakfast.
It was a cold morning and a few snowflakes came drifting down from a grey sky. A few hours passed and nothing happened. We were cold and our feet began to ache. All around us we could hear babies cry, and children begged their parents for food. Many began to recite psalms and that melancholy melody spread among the condemned throughout the field. Here and there old people began to collapse and fell to the ground while their families tried to lift them up.
Around nine in the morning we suddenly heard a strange sound. It reminded me of the wind moving through tops of trees in a forest. It was the sound that escaped from thousands of mouths when they saw the German and Lithuanian battalions surround the Demokratu place. They were armed with machine guns and they looked grim. Many of the Lithuanians seemed drunk.
Then two figures resplendent in new uniforms and shinny black boots approached us. They were the ghetto Commandant Jordan and the Gestapo man Rauka. These two were to decide our fate.
Rauka placed himself in front of our column and without any further ceremony began his bloody job.
The members of the Jewish Committee and the ghetto police were standing in front of the column. They and their families were sent to the left, to a specially assigned area. After them came all the departments of the ghetto institutions. As we were filling past him he began to send the elderly, the ill, women with small children, some of them boys my age, to the right side, where they were assembled in a separate area. Families were torn apart, the young and the healthy to the left while their elderly parents or small children were sent to the right. The heart rending cries of the separated family members filled the air, while those who tried to reunite would be knocked down with rifle buts by the Lithuanian guards. It immediately became obvious who were to live and who were going to die. A few showed him Jordan Passes, but he only tore it out of their hands and threw it down into the mud.
My heart began to beat wildly. Suddenly I felt awfully small. The precious life certificate that I held in my trembling hands became worthless before my very eyes. In a few minutes our turn would come and I could already feel the cold breath of death on my neck. Neither father, or mother or sister Fanny could do anything for me.’ Within a few seconds my fate would be sealed.’ I thought wildly.
‘If I could stop the time and go back for a short time into the past.
If only.. there.. There is snowman’s hill behind grand father’s house..
It is covered with pure white snow that glitters like a million candles in the afternoon’s sun. Lena is laughing, her hazel eyes full of Joy.
‘Where are the charcoals you dummy? You were supposed to bring the charcoals for the snowman’s eyes, remember? ‘ Itamar’s laughing face pushed itself in my minds vision.
‘Come, Solly, my boy, come with me to Palestine, the only place in the world where a Jew can defend himself..’ My uncle Melech’s dark eyes were laughing at me.
‘A fanatical Zionist, an impractical dreamer.’ Father said, shrugging his shoulders.
‘This place is doomed, doomed! Don’t you see that the ground is burning under your feet? What are you all, blind? ‘ The envoy from Palestine spoke heatedly.
‘If only I could turn the clock back.. If only..’ I thought.
“Forward March!” We started moving.
“Oh, God! Give us a little more time, just a little more time..” I prayed silently.
A red face, pale blue eyes, his right arm extended as if he were conducting an orchestra, Rauka stood before us. The executioner!
Three rows, two rows, one row before us.. Left.. right.. left.. right.
I didn’t even hear the screams of the separated families. My heart stopped beating. I was drowning in fright.
Then we stood before him. He seemed bored, his eyes looking indifferently at us.
I wanted to scream: “ We are people, for God’s sake! We are fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. We have our dreams, our ambitions, our lives given to us by God! You stand there with your pudgy hand sending us to die? You are not God! You are just a fat, red-faced German. How dare you to deprive us of our lives? Who gave you the right?“
But the words of raging protest only echoed in my brains. Not a sound escaped my frightened lips.
Rauka quickly scanned our line and pointing his hand at Moshe and his family said:
“You! Dreck Sack, and the rest of your garbage, off to the right. “
Moshe who stood next to me began shaking like a leaf. Because he stood so close I could actually feel his trembling that reverberated through my body like the death throes of an animal. It made me nauseous and I thought I would vomit my breakfast at Rauka’s feet.
Moshe and his large family began to move in the direction indicated by Rauka.
I stood frozen to my spot not daring to breath. From Rauka’s gloved hand a thumb shot up in the air and pointing at me he made a short ark in the direction of Moshe and his family.
“You too.” He hissed at me. Two words that might as well have been bullets from a gun. I was a dead man. A tremor shook my body. The same type of tremor that shook Moshe.
Moshe who had moved a few steps turned around and our eyes met. He had dark brown eyes that looked at me with compassion.
“He is not my son. He belongs to the other family. “ Moshe said pointing at my father. These words that saved my life will live with me till my dying day.
It symbolizes the nobility of the mind of our people who even at the brink of death tried to save others.
Father, mother, and Fanny who stood like hypnotized, woke up and they all said that I belonged to them. At the same time I whipped my glove off from my right hand and extended to Rauka my Jordan Pass. I noticed how for a second his yes widened at my sudden movement. Later I thought how easily I could have shot him if I had a gun. Perhaps he thought the same thing.
Rauka was already busy with the row behind us. Like in a trance I moved with my family with Fanny holding on to me with all her strength. From the corner of my eye I saw Moshe and his family being chased by the Lithuanians to the right. His older son, who was about my age, was looking at me and there was reproach in that look. Perhaps he thought that his father should have saved him instead of me.
All those gathered on the left stood like transfixed watching the ever-growing number of the condemned. We were the lucky ones, but for how long? But those who are saved from imminent death don’t ask questions like that. All you feel is elation. The future has no meaning at moments like this. So intrinsic is the sense of self-preservation, that survival of ones life is above all else.

Herzelia Pituach.

Israel, Oct. 29, 2006

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