Sara Ginaite-Rubinson - Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas, 1941-1944

R ESISTANCE

AND

S URVIVAL

T HE J EWISH C OMMUNITY I N K AUNAS
1941-1944

Sara Ginaite-Rubinson, 1944

R ESISTANCE

AND

S URVIVAL

T HE J EWISH C OMMUNITY I N K AUNAS
1941-1944

Sara Ginaite-Rubinson

L IBRARY AND A RCHIVES C ANADA C ATALOGUING IN P UBLICATION

Ginaite-Rubinson, Sara, 1924

Resistance and survival : the Jewish community in

Kaunus, 1941-1944 / Sara Ginaite-Rubinson; translated

by Karla Gruodyte and Darius Ross.

Translated from the Lithuanian.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-88962-816-8

1. Ginaite-Rubinsone, Sara, 1924- 2. Holocaust, Jewish

(1939-1945)--Lithuania--Kaunas--Personal narratives. 3. World War,

1939-1945--Jewish resistance--Lithuania--Kaunas. 4. Jewish ghettos-

Lithuania--Kaunas. I. Gruodyte, Karla II. Ross, Darius III. Title.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Pubished by Mosaic Press, Oakville, Ontario, Canada, 2011. Distributed in Canada by Mosaic Press. Distributed in the United States by Midpoint Trade Books. Distributed in the U.K. by Gazelle Book Services.

Copyright Sara Ginaite-Rubinson, 2005

second printing, 2011

Designed by Josh Goskey

Printed and Bound in Canada

ISBN 978-0-88962-816-8

www.mosaic-press.com

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for this project / Nous reconnaissons laide financire du gouvernement du Canada par lentremise du Fonds du livre du Canada (FLC) pour ce projet.

And with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

www.mosaic-press.com

This book is dedicated to the memory
of my perished parents, my family
and the Jewish victims of Kaunas

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express my thanks to my dear daughters, Tania and Ania, and my sister, Alice, who encouraged the English translation of the Lithuanian edition of this book. I am grateful to them for the assistance they provided throughout the process of completing the English version.

I am thankful to Myrna Riback and Philip Loosemore for their useful advice in editing the manuscript.

My appreciations go to all my friends and colleagues in Canada, Israel, and Lithuania who directly and indirectly helped shape the final appearance of the work. A note of thanks to the Memorial Foundation For Jewish Culture for the grant which helped in the translation of this book.

Sara Ginaite-Rubinson,

Torotno, 2005

This is the first volume in

The Esther and Maurice Boyman Series of Holocaust Memoirs

Co published by

The Holocaust Centre of Toronto, UJA Federation

&

Mosaic Press, Publishers

Facsimile of original Lithuanian edition, 1999.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Zivia Lubetkin, a heroic leader of the Jewish fighters during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and one of the few to survive by escaping through the sewers wrote in 1946 after illegally reaching Palestine:

There were times that we believed that the whole world, including the Jewish world, had forgotten us. We wanted you to know not only for the sake of history, but for the future as well. Let our people know let the survivors know. Remember the past and learn for the future.

It is this sacred imperative that Sara Ginaite-Rubinson fulfills in this meticulously researched and articulately written history and personnel memoir of her resistance and survival in the Kovno Ghetto and the surrounding forests.

Hundreds of histories and film documentaries, memorial books, and thousands of personal Holocaust memoirs have appeared since the floodgates were released by the trial and execution of Adolph Eichman in Israel in 1960. Many hidden areas of the Holocaust have been illuminated in the years since. These illuminations eventually included the fate of the Jews in Lithuania, 90% of whom perished in World War II. Strangely, however, while different aspects of the fate of Vilnas Jews during those years have been told, the story of the Jews of Kovno (Kaunas) did not receive a concomitant attention, especially in the English-speaking world. Moreover the story of the Kovno Ghetto differs markedly from the stories of most other ghettos.

The present volume largely rectifies this omission. Written by one of the surviving fighters and partisans of the Kovno Ghetto, it records step by step the reduction of a vibrant, ancient community of almost 40,000 to its total destruction through starvation, brutal work conditions, and mass murder much of it at the notorious 9th Fort. While this was happening, a courageous Judenrat (Jewish Council), under the leadership of Elchanan Elkes, worked feverishly to maintain some semblance of normal life and to protect and save as many as possible. Unlike in other ghettos, the leadership of the Judenrat maintained good relationships with the Kovno underground led by the redoubtable Chaim Yellin.

Among Yellins resistance fighters was the author, Sara Ginaite, still only an adolescent, and her husband, Misha Rubinsonas, one of Yellins young lieu-- ants, whom she married in the ghetto in November, 1943. Sara Ginaite was born in Kovno in 1924 into a comfortable, prosperous family. Her father, a representative of a foreign manufacturer, died in the ghetto while her mother perished in Stuthoff Concentration Camp. Her older sister was liberated in Stuthoff. After the War Sara completed her interrupted education and eventually became a renowned Professor of Political Economy at University of Vilnius, publishing some ten books.

In prose that sometimes reads like an exciting adventure novel, Sara describes the many hazardous missions she and her husband Misha undertook against the Germans inside and outside the ghetto. These included stealing weapons from under the Germans noses to smuggling resistance fighters and other Jews out of the Ghetto, as well as combat missions attacking German positions or blowing up trains and munitions magazines. More than 300 fighters were smuggled out of Kovnos Ghetto into the Rudninkai Forest.

Without doubt, Resistance and Survival is one of the most important contributions to the field of both Holocaust history and the collections of Holocaust memoirs that are our first line of defense against Holocaust deniers. That it is also an invaluable aid to Holocaust education, especially on the tragic fate of Lithuanias Jewry generally and Kovnos in particular, makes it even more important than most memoirs. The Holocaust Centre of Toronto is proud to be the co-publisher of this significant memoir.