מײַן פּײַן האָט קײן װערטער נישט. דער הײַנטיקער טאָג האָט פֿון מיר געמאַכט אַ זקן. נײן, נישט קײן זקן, איך װיל זײַן יונג, שטאַרק און דוערהאַפֿט.
איבערהאַלטן, איך װיל און װעל עס איבערהאַלטן!
אלץ איז טאַקע פֿאַרשפּילט. אָט אַזוי טראַכט איך װען איך נעם זיך פֿאַר מײַן אויסגעקויפֿטן בילעט פֿון “אינטוריסט” אויף דער שטרעקע קאָװנע–װלאַדיװאָסטאָק. אויס רײַזע קײן אַמעריקע. װעגן דעם האָבן זיך שוין פֿאַר מיר באַמיט די באָלשעװיקעס. זײ האָבן געהאַט פֿאַר מיר נאָר אײן עצה: אָדער פֿאָרן אין פּוילישן לעגיאָן אין קאַנאַדע און פֿון דאָרט זײ אינפֿאָרמירן… אָדער שלעפּן זיך איבער 6 חדשים ביז… ביז איך בין צװישן די װאָס האָבן נישט אויסגעמיטן געשטעלט צו װערן פֿאַרן פּרוּװ פֿון די דײַטשע הונען.
אויב עס װעט נישט געשען קײן נס איז טאַקע אַלץ פֿאַרשפּילט. דאָס װאָס עס געשעט אַרום אונדז זאָגט דערפֿאַר, אַז קודם־כּל זענען מיר געפֿאַנגענע אין דער האַנט פֿון דײַטשלאַנד. עס קומט אויף מיר אַ נײַע, אפֿשר די שװערסטע ערע אין מײַן לעבן.
איך גיב זיך איבער דעם גורל אין די הענט און נעם אויף זיך די געלע לאַטע, װי קריסטוס די דערנער.
הערמאַן קרוק, װילנע, דעם 24טן יוני 1941
There are no words for my suffering. This day has turned me into an old man. No, not an old man. I want to be young, strong, and persevering. To make it through – I want to and will make it through!
Everything is really lost. This is how I think when I hold the ticket I paid for at “Intourist” [the official Soviet international tourist agency] for the Kovno-Vladivostok train. No more going to America. The Bolsheviks saw to that. All they’ve got for me is a piece of advice: either going to the Polish Legion in Canada and from there inform for them […] or procrastinating for six months until […] until I am among those submitted to the trials of the German Huns.
Unless some miracle happens, everything is really lost. What is happening around us makes clear that, first of all, we are hostages of Germany. It’s the beginning of a new era, perhaps the hardest of my life.
I put myself in the hands of fate and wear the yellow patch, as Christ wore the crown of thorns.
Herman Kruk, Vilnius, 24 June 1941
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. A few days after the invasion, he chronicles his futile attempts to flee to the USA due to the Soviet counter-demands to work as a spy in Canada in exchange for the exit permit. In case he declined the offer, they would postpone the permit for another six months. For Kruk, the decision to stay in Vilnius already pronounces his death sentence, yet he makes the decision regardless.
At this point, Kruk uses the image of the “yellow patch” only symbolically to express his acceptance of the historical Jewish fate. The German order to wear the yellow patch as a way to mark oneself as Jewish was given later. 11vgl. 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, p. 49.
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 Vilna 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, pp. 5f.
For 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, p. 49.
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 22 June 1941, Herman Kruk writes about the National Socialists’ invasion of Vilnius and his decision to stay in Vilnius despite all.
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,…
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…
Joint Funding Agreement for the “Project for Investigating the Destruction of Jewish Population in Poland and its Current Situation” of the YIVO, 20 November…
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…
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…
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…
Ilija Trojanow, who fled with his parents from Bulgaria to Germany in 1971 and whose life is marked by experiences of migration, deals in…
