Refugees who escaped to Lithuania with their luggage, 1940 ©Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, NY_06674_da1, ID 17590
Signs on a door in Vilnius inform refugees about offers of the Refugee Relief Committee and requests of other refugees, 1940 © Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives_NY_00231_da1
Refugee reading a newspaper in the reading room of the TOZ, 1940 © Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, NY_00313_da1
Refugee Polish journalists have dinner in their dormitory, 1940 © Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, NY_00310_da1
Refugee Polish journalists have dinner in their dormitory, 1940 © Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, NY_00310_da1
The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact from August 23, 1939 led to Soviet dominance over the Baltic region. Lithuania was one of the countries that accepted Jewish refugees from Poland and other countries after the beginning of the Second World War. Especially Vilnius became a city of refuge in which a network of self-help quickly developed. The Jewish Joint Distribution Committee supported refugees with the help of local organizations. The photos kept in the Joint Archive account to how diverse this support network was: While people pinned requests and offers for plumbing services and food stamps on a door converted to a bulletin board, refugees could use the community rooms of the TOZ and Refugee Relief Committee to read and for social gatherings.
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives
Photo 1, Luggage: NY_06674_da1, ID 17590
Photo 2, Bulletin board: NY_00231_da1
Photo 3, Newspaper: NY_00313_da1
Photo 4, Community room: NY_00303_da1, ID 11339
Photo 5, Club room: NY_00310_da1
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on Poland on September 1, 1939, it was decided within the first week of the war that the Polish government was to be withdrawn eastbound as Warsaw was threatened.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.
This list documents a selection of names, “nationalities”, arrival dates and places of origin of refugees who arrived in Vilnius in 1939.
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Photo series by Bolesława and Edmund Zdanowscy
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…
Marcel Weyland (born 1927 in Łódź) survived the Holocaust thanks in part to Sugihara Chiune (1900-1986), the Japanese consul in Kaunas. Thanks to him,…
In the chaos of war, Moyshe Mandelman (1895-1963) made it to Vilnius in 1940. He was particularly impressed by the local Jewish aid networks…
On the night of September 5 to September 6, 1939, only a few days after the German attack on Poland, a group of Jewish…
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 8 February, 1940, Pese R. entered the office of the “Committee to Collect Material about the Destruction of Polish Jewry, 1939” in Vilnius,…