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This is the fourth part of my traveling journal through Lithuania.
It was a painful journey to the past, but I feel that it helped purge some of the Holocaust demons dwelling in me. I would like to share it with you.

With my best wishes and shalom

Solly  Ganor

RETURNING HOME TO LITHUANIA
BY SOLLY GANOR

On the way to the ghetto and the 9th Fort.

Fourth Part

Sunday, September 21, 2003

Kaunas. The town were I grew up and loved so much. My memory takes me back to the day when I so lovingly described the town in my diary. It was June 22, 1941, the day the Germans attacked the Soviet Union. The day that changed my life for ever.

Kaunas, June 22, 1941. 05 AM.
My diary.

    I looked out of the window and took a gulp of the early morning air. A fine mist rising from the river spread slowly over the roofs of the sleeping town.
 - It’s going to be a scorcher again- I thought.
 From my window I could see a large part of the city as we lived on the top floor a tall building and my room was on the attic.
 My eyes wondered lovingly over the silent town. I knew every nook and cranny, every little street and alley there. At first, when we came from Heydekrug I had a hard time adjusting to the new environment, but that was a long time ago and since then I grew to love my town.
 If I stood on my tip toes I could see the river Niemunas shimmering on one side and Laisves Aleya, with its tall chestnut trees and fashionable shops on the other. Somewhere in the middle of Laisves Aleya was State garden with the opera house and at the very end stood the imposing structure of the Sobor, the town’s largest church. Parallel to Laisves Aleya ran Gedimino and Dounelaichiu, two elegant street where the town’s rich lived.
 The golden cupola of the "Chor Shoul", the largest synagogue in town, was clearly visible in the distance.
 Then Niemuno and Vilnius streets and Rotushes Square with its massive stone houses that probably saw Napoleon on his march to Moscow.
Further West the crooked little streets paved with cobble stones of the old town, the Fish Market, and at the end, the ruins of the old castle where the ancient Lithuanian kings once resided.
 To the North and East the great rivers, Vilya and Niemunas embraced the town and met at the tip where the ruins stood. There they merged in one massive body of water, flowing West towards the Baltic Sea. From that point it was known as the Niemunas, or as the Germans called it, the Memel.
 A terrible sadness filled my heart. Soon we were to leave Kaunas for the frozen lands of Siberia.

But we never were deported to Siberia. The Germans attacked the Soviet Union on the day we were supposed to be deported. Ironically, we were saved from the Gullag of Siberia only to be  caught up in Hitler’s killing machine, and put in the ghetto of Kaunas.
 
 
 
 

September 21, 2003

And now, sixty two years later I am  back in my beloved town. Except It isn’t beloved anymore.
The town looks drab, cold and unfriendly. The passersby by look at you with sullen faces.
Wherever I go I am followed by the sinister, threatening shadows of the past. I try to recall my happy childhood days here, but they are overshadowed by horrors I was forced to witness.
The break from innocent childhood to the onslaught of the Nazis was so sudden, so violent, so horrifying and so unexpected that it left the deepest scars in my very soul to my dying days.
After escaping the early massacres of thousands of our people by the Louisianans , the Germans brought some order in the random killings and before they locked us in the ghetto of Khans,I was forced to walk in the gutter with a yellow star of David pinned on my coat, as a symbol of shame.
I was spat upon, humiliated, kicked and beaten. I was called a filthy Jew and had to take off my hat to any one who passed me by.
Why did I come at all? Why open old festering wounds? I realized that my friends who swore they will never put their foot on this soil, were probably right.
I don’t know what I had expected when I  made my decision to return for a visit, but it was not that depressive emotional upheaval.

I feared that my reaction to the coming visit to the old ghetto and the 9th Fort, would be worse, much worse. A part of me wanted to turn around and go back home to Israel, but the other part stubbornly persisted that I should go on with my visit to the bitter end, no matter what it takes. Perhaps subconsciously, I had hoped that this visit would close the circle and would purge the Holocaust demons that dwelt in me.
There is no doubt in my mind though, that what gave me strength to hold out is the knowledge of my home in Israel, to which I would return after this ordeal. Yes, the same Israel where any day you could be blown up by a suicide bomber, or randomly shot by an Arab terrorist. Yet I feel more secure there than in this country that is soon becoming part of the emerging United Europe. It is peaceful now here, as peaceful as the hundreds of mass graves of my people that are strewn about in this country.
 
 

On the way to the ghetto.
 

Shimon came early in the morning. We were to go through the ghetto to the 9th Fort. I braced myself to what was coming.
On the way to the 9th Fort we drove through the streets of what  used to be the ghetto. Krikshukaicio, then Linkuvos and Paneriu. Nothing much had changed here during the years; most of the houses remained the same, most of them dilapidated.
As we entered Linkuvos street my heart began to beat faster.  I asked Shimon to stop. On that street my childhood sweetheart , Lena Greenblat used to live. I recognized the house immediately. The small porch where we sat holding hands the same door, the same windows. Nothing had changed in sixty years. It just looked more neglected. By impulse, I approached the house and looked through the window. I don’t know what made me do it. Did I secretly expect to see Lena there? I don’t know.
Suddenly, I saw a small girl standing behind the glass looking at me. She was about five or six with pink cheeks and blond pig tales. She looked at me round eyed, then she smiled. She reminded me of a little girl I knew  sixty two years ago, except our positions were reversed I was inside the house and the girl was outside.
Oh, God..Little Chavale..Memories came flooding back.. Little Chavale, if only I could change the past... Perhaps I would have acted differently..

September 1941. Sixty two years ago.
The murder of Chavale

It was towards the end of September, on a bright sunny day, when Cooky and I decided to visit Lena and bring back a book that she borrowed from Chaim. He was very strict about the number of days he would allow us to keep his books. Chaim was our teacher and mentor. Before the war he was the owner of a book shop  and a man of great education. Besides teaching us many subjects, he would also lend us books from the library he had brought with him in the ghetto. He lived in a tiny room in a house where his niece and her family lived.
The room was lined up with books from floor to ceiling and it contained books of many languages and subjects.
 Lena had kept the book two days longer than he permitted and he was angry about it. We walked up Linkuvos street where the Greenblats lived and were almost at the house, when suddenly a large truck full of  German and Lithuanian guards drove up and spread out over the whole district, barring our way to enter the house.
 Mrs. Greenblat who was standing on the steps waved to us, but the soldiers pushed us back.
 Looking back we saw the guards  driving people out of the houses, but for some reason they formed a barrier just after the Greenblat’s house.

 I quickly went up to the Lithuanian guard standing in front of the house and told him that we lived there  and Mrs. Greenblat was our mother. As I approached  him he  raised his rifle to hit me with the butt, but when he heard my perfect Lithuanian, he looked at us with some surprise. Cooky who looked more Lithuanian than Jewish began pleading with him to let us through to our home.
 " Are you Jewish? You don’t look Jewish and don’t sound like one, what the hell are you doing in the ghetto? " The guard looked at him suspiciously.
 " My mother is Jewish and my father is Lithuanian, Sir. Please, please, let us through, Sir. We don’t belong on this side of the ghetto, we belong on the other side. " Cooky pleaded.
 The Lithuanian was about eighteen years old, with a sparse blond mustache and baby blue eyes. As in so many instances our fate depended on this boy’s whimsical decision. We were to live or die at his pleasure.
 " Well, since you live in this house, you really don’t belong on this side, so go ahead and disappear." He mumbled scratching his head.
Even before he ended the sentence we ran past him and slipped into Lena’s house.
 Before we slammed the door we heard him shout after us:
 " And don’t you let me catch you again, you hear! "
 Frightened to death, nevertheless we started laughing hysterically.
How many times did we hear that sentence? How many times, when we were out stealing apples from an orchard or picking berries from a neighbors fence, would we hear them shout after us the same words.
 He too probably, not so long ago, was stealing from some orchard and heard that sentence shouted at him. And now he shouted the same words at us, as if he had caught us stealing apples, and the next time he would tell our parents.. It sounded so absurd..
 Mrs. Greenblat, pale as a ghost pulled us inside the room where Rachel, Vova and Lena sat huddled together on the sofa.
 " Why were you laughing like lunatics? Do you know what is going on? Why are they after the people beyond this house and aren’t coming here? Do you think that we are next in the line? Perhaps we should go and hide in Cookie’s hideout? " Mrs. Greenblat asked anxiously barely catching her breath.
 We told her we had no idea what was going on , but whatever it was, it was bad for the people on the other side of Linkuvos street.
 We thought that Mrs. Greenblat’s suggestion to hide in Cookie’s hideout was a good one, but when we opened door ever so slightly, we saw hundreds of Jews, men, women and children, being beaten and herded into the waiting trucks.
 The Germans and Lithuanians were practically on our door step and there was no way we could get out of the house unseen.
There was nothing to be done. We had to wait until the action was over.
 We sat in tense silence for several hours, listening to screams of the women and children and the guttural orders of the Germans. >From to time a shot would be heard, followed by even louder screams by the women. The action seemed endless and every minute seemed like an eternity. Lena, who was unable listen to the screams covered her ears and began pacing up and down the room in nervous agitation. Suddenly we heard the loud scream of a child just outside the house. She must have escaped the Germans and came knocking on our window. I cautiously looked out and saw a little girl of about six looking straight at me. Lena, who was standing right behind me with a horrified look on her face, saw her too. " It’s Havale, our neighbor’s daughter." she whispered.
 " Let me in, Lena, please let me in." She begged us.
 We were about to run to the door when two Germans came after her.
 They were cursing her and calling her little Jewish bitch. One grabbed her by the hair and began pulling her along the street. Then the other one took her by the arm and swinging her over his head like a sack of potatoes hurled her inside the truck.
 Seeing the Germans coming I dropped to the floor and dragged Lena down with me. I didn’t want the Germans to see us. For whatever reasons the Germans stopped short of this house, they might have changed their mind had they seen us looking through the window.
 In the beginning Lena fought me and begged me to let her go. She wanted to run after the Germans to get Havale back, but then she went limp in my arms and began sobbing quietly. " I can’t take it anymore, I just want to die, and get it over with."
 I stroked her hair and kissed her hands and tried to calm her down. We were all crying with her. The scene we saw was too gruesome for words.
 Finally it was over. We heard the motors of the trucks being started and as they departed with their human cargo , there was silence. It was an ominous silence, the silence of the grave.
 We waited a while longer and then cautiously opened the door. There was no one there. The street seemed deserted. We all hugged and kissed and Mrs. Greenblat said the blessing of " Gomel ", a blessing said by Jews who escaped instant death.
 Knowing how anxious my parents would be, as by now they must have heard of the action in this part of the ghetto, I hastily said good bey to them. Strangely enough I did not forget to ask Lena for Haim’s book that was overdue. For a while she looked at me in confusion, then she turned around and went to bring the book. When she came back she threw the book at me and screamed:
 " Here, take your precious book, you cold blooded fish! I bet when we’ll  all be dead you will still be around reading your damned books. "
 How could I have been so insensitive to the tragedy played out before our eyes and return to the daily mundane matters so quickly? I don’t know. To this day I remember Lena’s accusation so vividly and so poignantly and it pains me to think about it. Perhaps, because I saw  the horrors and massacres while we were running to Russia that I became inured and insensitive, or perhaps my obsession with books overshadowed my emotional reactions to situations like these, I don’t know, but I wish I could unsay what I then said.
 In years to come, in the worst of times, I always remembered Lena’s words. Indirectly she implied that I was an insensitive surviving type  and it made me feel guilty, but it also encouraged me to go on, against all odds and never give up. Her words were prophetic, because of all the people in the room , I was the only one to survive the war.

And now  I am  standing before the same house on Linkuvos street where I saw Cavale’s tragedy played out before my eyes more than sixty two years ago. I can see it vividly and distinctly, as if it happened yesterday, and I will take it with me to my grave.

End of part four
 

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