פֿרײַטיק בײַנאַכט זײַנען מיר אָנגעקומען אין װילנע. אַזויװי ס’איז געװען נאָך דער פּאָליצײ־שעה, האָט מען די גאַנצע נאַכט געמוזט זיצן אין װאַרטע־זאַל פֿון ערשטן קלאַס. דער גאַנצער װאָקזאַל איז געװען פֿאַרלײגט מיט מענטשן. דאָס באַקומען אַן אָרט צום זיצן איז ניט געװען פֿון די לײַכטע זאַכן.
ערשט פֿאַרטאָג האָט מען אונדז אַרויסגעלאָזט פֿון װאָקזאַל. שבת, דעם 30טן סעפּטעמבער 1939, בין איך אָנגעקומען אַהײם, צו מײַן מאַמען און שװעסטער, אויף ברײַטע גאַס נומער 50 (אַמאָל דער נעװסקי פּראָספּעקט, אַנטקעגן דעם רוסישן טעאַטער).
די איבעראַשונג אין שטוב, דאָס יאָמערלעכע געװײן, פּונקט װי מ’װאָלט דערזען אַ מענטש פֿון יענער װעלט…
דאָ ערשט האָב איך זיך דערװוּסט װאָס מ’האָט אַלץ אָנדערצײלט װעגן מיר – אַז איך בין מיט אַדװ. יוסף װײצמאַן אַװעק אין אויסלאַנד. אַ צװײטע װערסיע – אַז איך בין מיטן קאָנסול מאַקס קאָן, דער זון פֿון פּרעזעס אָסקאַר קאָן – אײגנטימער פֿון דער “װידזעװער מאַנופֿאַקטור” – אַװעק אין ענגלאַנד, אַנדערע װידער האָבן מיך געזען בײַ דער רומענישער גרענעץ.
נאָך אַן איבערײַס פֿון 14 יאָר, װאָס איך האָב אָפּגעלעבט אין לאָדזש, בין איך צוריק געקומען קײן װילנע, אין מײַן אַלטער הײם, װוּ איך האָב דעם גרעסטן טײל פֿון מײַן לעבן פֿאַרבראַכט, מײַן קינדהײט, מײַנע יונגע יאָרן, דאָ געלערנט און געשטודירט, דאָ חתונה געהאַט, און דאָ אָנגעהויבן מײַן געזעלשאַפֿטלעכע אַרבעט.
ס’האָט געריסן בײַם האַרץ, צוזעענדיק דעם חורבן, דאָס אומגליק, אין װעלכן מיר זײַנען אַרײַנגעװאָרפֿן געװאָרן, אין משך פֿון אײן אײנציקן חודש…
מײַן אָנקומען קײן װילנע איז געװען דער צװײטער נס, װאָס האָט געטראָפֿן מיך און מײַן משפּחה אין דער שוידערלעכער תּקופֿה.
On Friday night we arrived in Vilnius. Since it was after curfew, we had to sit all night in the waiting room of the first class. The whole station was full of people. Getting a seat was not an easy thing.
Only the next morning they let us out of the station. On Shabbat, September 30, 1939, I arrived at home to my mother and sister, at Wide Street 50 (formerly the Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Russian Theater).
What a surprise at home, what heartbreaking crying, as if they had a person from the realm of the dead before them.
Only then did I find out what they told about me – that I went abroad with the lawyer Josef Veytsman. A second version said that I ran away to England with the consul Max Kohn, the son of the chairman Oskar Kohn – the owner of the “Vidzever Manufaktur” –, others still had allegedly seen me at the Romanian border.
After an intermission of 14 years, which I had spent in Łódź, I came back to Vilnius, my old hometown, where I spent most of my life, my childhood, my youth, where I went to school and studied, celebrated my wedding and started my activist work.
My heart ached when I saw the destruction, the misfortune we were thrown into in just one month…
My arrival in Vilnius was the second miracle that happened to me and my family during this terrible time.
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 War. In the interwar period, Balberyszski was an editor of the Yiddish newspaper Der Tog (The Day) in Vilnius. He became a member of the Polish Jewish Folkspartey (People’s Party) and, as part of it, fought for cultural autonomy for Polish Jewry. In 1925, Balberyszski founded the Association of Jewish Craftsmen and Small Entrepreneurs in Łódź and became the president of the largest Jewish aid organization Noten Lekhem (Bread Giver). In 1939, he became the leader of the Polish Democratic Party, one of the three most important political parties in interwar Poland. In the first days of September 1939, he decided to flee from the German Wehrmacht to Vilnius. He arrived in Vilnius on 29 September 1939. His memoir Shtarker fun ayzn : Iberlebungen in der Hitler-tkufe (“Stronger than Iron, Surviving in Hitlers era”), this text being among them, was published in 1967.
Balberyszski survived the “liquidation” of the small and large ghetto in Vilnius and experienced the liberation by the Red Army in a concentration camp in Estonia. After the end of the war he emigrated to Australia and continued to be actively involved in Jewish community work. He founded the Association of Partisans and Camp Survivors, of which he became president.
Excerpt:
Mendel Balberyszski, 1967: Shtarker fun ayzn: Iberlebungen in der Hitler-tkufe, Vol. 1. Tel Aviv: HaMenorah, pp. 69–70.
From the Yiddish Book Center’s Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library.
Translation to English © Minor Kontor.
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.
On 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939” in Vilnius,…
Benzion Benshalom tells of the harsh winter of 1939/40, which made life even harder for refugees in Vilnius and led to tragedies at the…
Internal communications between the Vilnius delegation of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
On 21 December 1939, Chaim-Leyb D. was interviewed by the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry 1939” about his flight…
Internal Communication between the Vilnius Delegation of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the New York Headquarters.
A letter from Emanuel Ringelblum to Raphael Mahler
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Photo collection by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Herman Kruk was a refugee from Warsaw who wrote reports on the refugee situation in Vilnius for the Yiddish magazine Folks-gezunt (Public Health) of…
