אַלע קוקן זיך אײנער דעם צװײטן אין די אויגן אַרײַן װי אײנער װאָלט װעלן פֿרעגן דעם צװײטן: װאָס טוט מען? װוּ טוט מען זיך אַהין?
פֿאַר די טויערן שטײען פֿיל מענטשן און קוקן סתּם אין דער װעלט אַרײַן. אָט זעט מען לויפֿן, עס לויפֿט דער, עס לויפֿט יענער.
װאָס טוט מען מיט זיך?…
ניט געװען קײן כּוח װידער אַ מאָל צו נעמען דעם װאַנדער־שטעקן אין האַנט און לאָזן זיך אין װעג אַרײַן צו פֿוס. איך בלײַב. איך בלײַב מיט מײַן שװאָגער. אויסגעטאָן די שװערע שיך, אויסגעפּאַקט דעם רוקזאַק – איך בלײַב!…
איך נעם זיך שרײַבן
אַזוי װאָקלענדיק, װאַרפֿנדיק זיך װי אַ פֿיש אין װאַסער, לויפֿנדיק פֿון זיך צו פּאַטין און פֿון איר צוריק צו אַנדערע, באַשליס איך ענדגילטיק: איך פֿאַרלאָז זיך אויף גאָטס באַראַט, איך פֿאַרבלײַב. און טאַקע באַלד באַשליס איך ענדגילטיק: אויב שוין יאָ פֿאַרבלײַבן און אויב שוין יאָ זײַן אַ קרבן פֿון פֿאַשיזם: איך נעם זיך פֿאַר דער פֿעדער און װעל שרײַבן אַ פּינקס פֿון אַ שטאָט. קלאָר, װילנע קאָן אויך פֿאַרכאַפּט װערן. די דײַטשן װעלן נעמען פֿאַשיזירן די שטאָט. ייִדן װעלן אַרײַן אין געטאָ – דאָס אַלץ װעל איך פֿאַרשרײַבן. מײַן פּינקס דאַרף זען, דאַרף הערן און דאַרף װערן דער שפּיגל און דאָס געװיסן פֿון דער גרויסער קאַטאַסטראָפֿע און פֿון דער שװערער צײַט.
איך באַשליס צו שרײַבן אַ פּינקס פֿון די װילנער געשעענישן.
22 June 1941
“People look one another in the eye as if each one wanted to ask the other: What shall we do? Where shall we go?
In front of the gates of many houses, groups of people stand watching aimlessly. People are running, here one person, there another. What shall we do with ourselves?
No more strength to take the walking stick in hand and set out again on the road. I’m staying with my brother-in-law. The heavy shoes are off, the rucksack is unpacked – I’m staying! …”
I start writing
“Wavering, trembling like a fish in water, running to Pati [Kremer] and from her back to others, I make a firm decision: I leave myself to the mercy of God; I’m staying. And right away, I make another decision: if I’m staying anyway and if I’m going to be a victim of Fascism, I shall take pen in hand and write a chronicle of a city. Clearly, Vilnuis may also be captured. The Germans will turn the city Fascist. Jews will go into the ghetto – I shall record it. My chronicle must see, must hear, and must become the mirror and the conscience of the great catastrophe and of the hard times.
I have decided to write a chronicle of the events of Vilnius.”
On 23 June 1941 the German Wehrmacht occupied Vilnius. Herman Kruk (1897-1944), a Polish Jew and activist of the Bund, lives in the city since his flight from Poland in 1939. On 22 June 1941, the day preceding the invasion of the Wehrmacht, Kruk wrote these lines into his diary. He decides to stay in Vilnius despite the immanent danger since his previous flight from two years earlier stripped him from all strength to pursue another attempt at escaping the Wehrmacht.
Kruk lived in Vilnius for almost four years and experienced the fate of the Jewish community under Soviet, Lithuanian, again Soviet and finally German occupation. From 1941 until 1943, he lived in the Vilnius Ghetto. Kruk documented his time in Vilnius as a chronicler. In 1943, he was deported to the concentration camp Klooga nearby Tallinn where he was murdered in September 1944. Parts of his manuscripts are missing until today.
Yiddish Original (PDF): Kruk, Herman, 1961: Togbuch fun Vilner geto, New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, p. 3.
English Translation, see Kruk, Herman, 2002: The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939-1944, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, pp. 46-47.
Shortly after the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, it was decided within the first week of the war that the Polish government was to be withdrawn eastbound as Warsaw was threatened. The Polish press, among them representatives of the Jewish Polish press, was to be rescued as part of the evacuation plans.
On 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the "Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939" in Vilnius, Lithuania in order to give an interview. She was one of many Polish Jewish refugees who had found shelter in Vilnius.
On 21 December, 1939, Chaim-Leyb D. was interviewed by the "Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939" in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Among the more than 10,000 Jews who were stranded in Vilnius in the fall of 1939 there was the librarian and political activist Herman Kruk from Warsaw. His exceptional diary records and press reports sketch a mosaic of the heterogenous society of refugees in Vilnius since the beginning of the war.
Polish-Jewish refugee journalists and writers having dinner in their dormitory in Sadowa Street 9, 1939/40.
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, just a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
On November 27, 1939, Motel Grajer, a Yeshivah student from Markuszów, Poland, who had escaped the Germans to Vilnius, gave an interview to the…
Mendel Balberyszski (1894-1966) was born in Vilnius but had been living in Łódź for over a decade at the outbreak of the Second World…
Benzion Benshalom tells of the hardships of everyday life of the refugees in Vilnius and their worries about the measures taken by the Lithuanian…
This is one of the crucial excerpts from Hannah Arendt’s essay “We Refugees” that she published in 1943 shortly after arriving in New York.
On the night of September 5-6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish journalists and writers…
