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They did not refuse to help anyone...
They did not refuse to help anyone...
Ranana Malchanova-Kleinštein
From the 4th book Hands Bringing Life and Bread
I was born in 1932, in Vilkaviškis, a small Lithuanian town 14 kilometres away from the then border with Germany.
My father, Moshe Kleinshtein (Moisiejus Kleinšteinas), was the principal of the Vilkaviškis Jewish eight-year school and up to 1940, he was the chairman of the city board. The Soviet authorities dismissed him from the position. My mother, Esther Solomin Kleinshtein (Estera Kleinšteinienė), was a German language teacher, and after my brother Zeev was born in 1924, she stopped working.
On 22 June 1941, at 3.30 a.m. our town was bombarded by German aircrafts. After that, there was global panic and everyone who could, tried to run to the East. My father managed to get a horse-driven carriage but we only rode it for a short while. Around noon German soldiers blocked our way and told us to go back to Vilkaviškis.
My father and my brother, along with the majority of the Jewish males from Vilkaviškis, were locked in the printing house cellar. My mother and me, together with the other women and children, stayed in a wooden house which survived the bombing (our house was destroyed)
I remember when my mother and I tried to take some food to my father and my brother. If we managed to bribe the guards, we would come to the grated window of the cellar and all we would see were the hands of men standing and reaching for us. I never saw either my father or my brother again. We would simply drop the food down.
Once on our way from the printing house, my mother and I were walking on the sidewalk, wearing yellow stars, when three Germans approached us. One of them, a senior, probably an officer, was stamping his feet and yelling at my mother. He was furious about her, a Jew, walking on the sidewalk, rather than on the roadside which was her place! He threatened us that we would soon be wiped off the face of the earth.
On 28 July 1941, a line of Jewish men, including my father, brother Zeev and a group of my father’s relatives, was herded towards the barracks. During the day, we could hear the shooting in Vilkaviškis for a long time..
Women, children and seniors were taken to the barracks that had been turned into the ghetto. Piles of documents, clothes and shoes were lying there. Women were crying with terror when they found the documents and belongings of their family members. They kept us there for several months. This experience has been completely deleted from my memory
Soon all the ghetto residents were herded together, and craftsmen (sewers, shoemakers, watchmakers, and similar) were separated from the rest of the crowd. Later they were all taken to the town of Pilviškiai. My mother and I were lucky to join one sewer’s family. We were all located in empty wooden houses (the Pilviškiai Jews had already been shot) under the surveillance of a guard.
I was blond, not looking like a Jew, speaking perfect Lithuanian, therefore I could freely walk in Pilviškiai town. One day when I was walking back home I noticed Germans banging on the windows of the house where Jews were living and telling them to get outside with their belongings. I realised that was a raid. I ran to my mother and persuaded her we should run away. She grabbed a small basket, put a towel in it, a few clothes, some other minor things and on a dark cold November’s night we left, going wherever our feet took us. Before the sunrise we reached a farmstead. We did not dare to wake its owners, so we hid in the stable and waited until dawn. Then we knocked on their door and entered the house. The house owner realised who we were right away and told us he could keep us in his house only until the morning of the coming day because his neighbours were bad people and he was afraid for his own family. He promised to show us the way to another farmstead with good people who could possibly offer us shelter.
Early in the morning we were on our long way. The people we reached were truly good people and they let us stay in their attic for about two weeks. Those people found some other farmers for us. One night after another we were walking from one farm to another. Some people would accept us, others refused to help fearing the danger. Usually we would stay in the attic or the barn. In the winter, barns were very cold and our blankets would freeze to our faces. Neither me nor by any means my mother could appear in the courtyard. During the day we had to stay lying down. Some food would be secretly given to us. Obviously, there was no light.
I was growing up, outgrowing my clothes and shoes. Sometimes villagers would give me their daughters’ dresses but I would have no shoes. In the summer I walked barefoot and in the winter I would wear thick woollen socks knitted by my mother.
Somebody advised us to go to Žėčkalniai village in Šakiai county, to the Strimaitis family, who had 40 hectares of land and a huge garden. They were said to have never refused to help. We went there and it was true: the Strimaitis family accepted us, provided shelter in their house and built a double wall in the room where we stayed. Behind the room was our hiding place in the event of danger.
Veronika Strimaitienė and Stasys Strimaitis had four children: daughters Milda, Laima and Dalia and son Aidas. With this family I felt more at ease, I could walk to the courtyard and the garden. I became friends with Milda, who was the same age, we would graze the cattle together and play around when we had time. We agreed that if someone were to see me, we would say I was a distant relative from Kaunas. During the first time, the Strimaitis family had us for two or three months. Since they were also hiding other Jews, we had to change the house keepers. Yet we would come back to the Strimaitis family now and then.
One day we knocked at the door of some old farmers. Unfortunately, their son, a policeman, came back for a holiday from Kaunas to visit them. He was taking a shower when we came. When he saw us, he shouted “who are these Jews?” and reached for a gun. He would have shot us there, but his mother bent on her knees asking him to let us go. He agreed not to kill us and decided to take us to the district police. It was a beautiful August day in 1943. The police officer was herding us for a long on a road. On the way we met a person who asked the policeman who we were and where we were heading. The policeman explained. The man (he was a district elder) was walking with him in the front and kept talking to him, and we were walking behind them. When we were passing by a rye field, the elder waved at us showing us to run. We dived into the rye running bent as quickly as we could. Suddenly we reached a huge garden. I could not believe my eyes: that was the garden of the Strimaitis family! They certainly accepted us and were happy that we got rescued. They consoled us, yet my mother could not undergo the shock.
We were hiding in the Strimaitis place also during the summer of 1944. While retreating the Fascists were running rampant and it became too dangerous to keep us in the house. We would spend the days in the bushes, near the corn field and Milda would bring us something to eat.
One day I heard a noise and a clatter of hoofs. I carefully approached the road and saw a row of soldiers wearing non-German uniforms. I realised these were Russian soldiers. We were free! We said good-bye to the Strimaitis family, we reached the road and after several days we hitchhiked to Vilnius. There were many empty apartments there and we stayed on what is now Gediminas avenue. All of our property had burnt down, we had nothing to live on and they gave us food coupons. These were barely enough not to die of hunger. My mother got tuberculosis and her treatment was long. For 18 months I lived in a home for Jewish children. I was ill with hepatitis, diphtheria and scarlet fever. But we were free!
In autumn 1944, I started attending the fifth class of a Russian school, successfully finished it and entered the university. I got married and gave birth to two children. For about forty years I worked as a translator of periodicals. I was translating texts from Lithuanian into Russian. Now I am retired and have two granddaughters and a grandson. My mother could not recover from what she had seen. She died at the age of 59.
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, 2009
Ranana Malchanova-Kleinštein
From the 4th book Hands Bringing Life and Bread
I was born in 1932, in Vilkaviškis, a small Lithuanian town 14 kilometres away from the then border with Germany.
My father, Moshe Kleinshtein (Moisiejus Kleinšteinas), was the principal of the Vilkaviškis Jewish eight-year school and up to 1940, he was the chairman of the city board. The Soviet authorities dismissed him from the position. My mother, Esther Solomin Kleinshtein (Estera Kleinšteinienė), was a German language teacher, and after my brother Zeev was born in 1924, she stopped working.
On 22 June 1941, at 3.30 a.m. our town was bombarded by German aircrafts. After that, there was global panic and everyone who could, tried to run to the East. My father managed to get a horse-driven carriage but we only rode it for a short while. Around noon German soldiers blocked our way and told us to go back to Vilkaviškis.
My father and my brother, along with the majority of the Jewish males from Vilkaviškis, were locked in the printing house cellar. My mother and me, together with the other women and children, stayed in a wooden house which survived the bombing (our house was destroyed)
I remember when my mother and I tried to take some food to my father and my brother. If we managed to bribe the guards, we would come to the grated window of the cellar and all we would see were the hands of men standing and reaching for us. I never saw either my father or my brother again. We would simply drop the food down.
Once on our way from the printing house, my mother and I were walking on the sidewalk, wearing yellow stars, when three Germans approached us. One of them, a senior, probably an officer, was stamping his feet and yelling at my mother. He was furious about her, a Jew, walking on the sidewalk, rather than on the roadside which was her place! He threatened us that we would soon be wiped off the face of the earth.
On 28 July 1941, a line of Jewish men, including my father, brother Zeev and a group of my father’s relatives, was herded towards the barracks. During the day, we could hear the shooting in Vilkaviškis for a long time..
Women, children and seniors were taken to the barracks that had been turned into the ghetto. Piles of documents, clothes and shoes were lying there. Women were crying with terror when they found the documents and belongings of their family members. They kept us there for several months. This experience has been completely deleted from my memory
Soon all the ghetto residents were herded together, and craftsmen (sewers, shoemakers, watchmakers, and similar) were separated from the rest of the crowd. Later they were all taken to the town of Pilviškiai. My mother and I were lucky to join one sewer’s family. We were all located in empty wooden houses (the Pilviškiai Jews had already been shot) under the surveillance of a guard.
I was blond, not looking like a Jew, speaking perfect Lithuanian, therefore I could freely walk in Pilviškiai town. One day when I was walking back home I noticed Germans banging on the windows of the house where Jews were living and telling them to get outside with their belongings. I realised that was a raid. I ran to my mother and persuaded her we should run away. She grabbed a small basket, put a towel in it, a few clothes, some other minor things and on a dark cold November’s night we left, going wherever our feet took us. Before the sunrise we reached a farmstead. We did not dare to wake its owners, so we hid in the stable and waited until dawn. Then we knocked on their door and entered the house. The house owner realised who we were right away and told us he could keep us in his house only until the morning of the coming day because his neighbours were bad people and he was afraid for his own family. He promised to show us the way to another farmstead with good people who could possibly offer us shelter.
Early in the morning we were on our long way. The people we reached were truly good people and they let us stay in their attic for about two weeks. Those people found some other farmers for us. One night after another we were walking from one farm to another. Some people would accept us, others refused to help fearing the danger. Usually we would stay in the attic or the barn. In the winter, barns were very cold and our blankets would freeze to our faces. Neither me nor by any means my mother could appear in the courtyard. During the day we had to stay lying down. Some food would be secretly given to us. Obviously, there was no light.
I was growing up, outgrowing my clothes and shoes. Sometimes villagers would give me their daughters’ dresses but I would have no shoes. In the summer I walked barefoot and in the winter I would wear thick woollen socks knitted by my mother.
Somebody advised us to go to Žėčkalniai village in Šakiai county, to the Strimaitis family, who had 40 hectares of land and a huge garden. They were said to have never refused to help. We went there and it was true: the Strimaitis family accepted us, provided shelter in their house and built a double wall in the room where we stayed. Behind the room was our hiding place in the event of danger.
Veronika Strimaitienė and Stasys Strimaitis had four children: daughters Milda, Laima and Dalia and son Aidas. With this family I felt more at ease, I could walk to the courtyard and the garden. I became friends with Milda, who was the same age, we would graze the cattle together and play around when we had time. We agreed that if someone were to see me, we would say I was a distant relative from Kaunas. During the first time, the Strimaitis family had us for two or three months. Since they were also hiding other Jews, we had to change the house keepers. Yet we would come back to the Strimaitis family now and then.
One day we knocked at the door of some old farmers. Unfortunately, their son, a policeman, came back for a holiday from Kaunas to visit them. He was taking a shower when we came. When he saw us, he shouted “who are these Jews?” and reached for a gun. He would have shot us there, but his mother bent on her knees asking him to let us go. He agreed not to kill us and decided to take us to the district police. It was a beautiful August day in 1943. The police officer was herding us for a long on a road. On the way we met a person who asked the policeman who we were and where we were heading. The policeman explained. The man (he was a district elder) was walking with him in the front and kept talking to him, and we were walking behind them. When we were passing by a rye field, the elder waved at us showing us to run. We dived into the rye running bent as quickly as we could. Suddenly we reached a huge garden. I could not believe my eyes: that was the garden of the Strimaitis family! They certainly accepted us and were happy that we got rescued. They consoled us, yet my mother could not undergo the shock.
We were hiding in the Strimaitis place also during the summer of 1944. While retreating the Fascists were running rampant and it became too dangerous to keep us in the house. We would spend the days in the bushes, near the corn field and Milda would bring us something to eat.
One day I heard a noise and a clatter of hoofs. I carefully approached the road and saw a row of soldiers wearing non-German uniforms. I realised these were Russian soldiers. We were free! We said good-bye to the Strimaitis family, we reached the road and after several days we hitchhiked to Vilnius. There were many empty apartments there and we stayed on what is now Gediminas avenue. All of our property had burnt down, we had nothing to live on and they gave us food coupons. These were barely enough not to die of hunger. My mother got tuberculosis and her treatment was long. For 18 months I lived in a home for Jewish children. I was ill with hepatitis, diphtheria and scarlet fever. But we were free!
In autumn 1944, I started attending the fifth class of a Russian school, successfully finished it and entered the university. I got married and gave birth to two children. For about forty years I worked as a translator of periodicals. I was translating texts from Lithuanian into Russian. Now I am retired and have two granddaughters and a grandson. My mother could not recover from what she had seen. She died at the age of 59.
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, 2009