Children Write
The letter Maya Berelovich, aged 11, from Vilnius, wrote in 1947 to her aunt Pera Kopech, Argentina
I was 5 years old when the war with German invaders started. We wanted to escape to the Soviet Union but we failed because the Germans dropped off the amphibious in Marijampole and we had to turn back. We spent the night in a forest and the following day returned to Kaunas. The next day my father was arrested, soon the Ghetto was established and I with my mother got there. In the Ghetto thousands of people were murdered. My mother passed me to some Christian who lived in the city but I was there a short time because she brought me back to my mother in Ghetto. After several days the “Children action” occurred, we – the children - were hidden in the loft. When the Germans a bit calmed down mother transferred me to another Christian. There I pastured horses, cows and pigs. I lived there a year, till the Red Army came. After Kaunas was liberated I reunited with my mother again, but father didn’t return he was murdered.
Now we live in Vilnius, some of our relatives returned. But not all of them remained to live here. I began my studies in the Jewish school; I completed it already with good marks and passed to the middle school. Now we have vacations.
