rescued jewish children
Tobijas Jafetas
I Was Rescued by The Rabbits
Tobijas Jafetas
Fromthe 4th book Hands Bringing Life and Bread
I was born in 1930 in Kaunas. We were three brothers in the family: the eldest Azriel (Azia), Fima, who died at the age of six, and me, Tobijas, the youngest. My father Rafaelis Jaffetas was from a big family who lived in Rezekne, Latvia. Before the war, my father moved to Kaunas and worked as a representative of UK textile companies in Lithuania.
Two of my father’s brothers lived with their families in Kaunas. Michailas Jaffetas with his wife Zina and sons Aaron and Grigorij managed to escape to the depths of the Soviet Union in 1941. Another uncle of mine, Aleksandras Jaffetas, was exiled to Siberia with his wife Sonia in 1941. Aunt Sonia died in a concentration camp and her husband Alexander came back to Lithuania but later on went to Israel, where he died.
My mother Berta Jaffetienė graduated from the Real gymnasium in Riga. She did not work anywhere, she raised and taught us. My mother’s family was big too. Her grandfather Chaim Don Yechija was the eldest rabbi of the town of Vyžuonai, and mother’s father David Shustef (Davidas Šustefas), was also a rabbi and married Henia, the daughter of my grandfather.
Before World War II, my mother’s two sisters lived in Kaunas. Aunt Hilna Frenkel died early in 1933 and was buried in Kaunas. Her husband Lazar Frenkel worked as a radio engineer. They had a son named Lyova. When aunt Hilna, Lyova’s mother died, he was only four. Lyova was raised by a nanny named Pranė Špokaitė (Juodvalkienė). When the boy and his father were confined to the ghetto, Pranė used to help them as much as she could. Unfortunately, father and son both were killed during the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto.
Another sister of my mother, Maša Katinskienė, was married to the colonel of the Lithuanian army, Juozas Katinskas. Uncle Juozas’ sister Kotryna Katinskaitė (we all used to call her Kasya) and their daughter Onytė helped me to escape from the Kaunas ghetto. I was hidden by the Katinskas family on Kaštonų street in Vilnius.
In 1939 our family moved to the UK, as my father realised that it was not safe to stay in Lithuania. My brother and I started going to school in Brighton.
My cousin Onytė (Ona Katinskaitė) graduated from Aušros gymnasium the same year and my mother invited her to stay with us in the UK. The times in Europe were becoming more and more turbulent and my mother decided to take Onytė back to her parents in Kaunas and took me with her. Unfortunately, we could not come back to the UK, as our visas were no longer valid after the change of the government in Lithuania in 1940. So my father stayed in England with my brother, while my mother and I stayed in Kaunas.
Up till that time I had finished four years at Shwabe gymnasium. When the gymnasium was closed, I finished my fifth year at Sholom Aleichem school.
In 1941 during summer holidays I went to the pioneer camp in Palanga. As if foreseeing the danger, my mother did not want me to go there.
At 4 a.m. on June 22 the Palanga pioneer camp was awakened by gunfire. The war had broken out. The children were told to get together in the camp courtyard. We were taken to Šventoji along the coast. The flying planes fired on us while we were walking. Around noon we reached Šventoji. We were fed at the fishermen’s harbour: we received a handful of sauerkraut and one small dried fish. Two buses came to Šventoji to take the kids. We could not all fit into the two buses, therefore only the weaker and more tired kids were put on the buses. I did not manage to get on the bus. As we discovered later on, these kids reached the depths of Russia and the rest of us were going towards Latvia. It was not easy to walk – the road led through a swamp. Quite soon German motorcyclists with iron helmets, machine guns and firearms caught up to us. We were told to go back to Palanga. We went back to Šventoji, and from there we were taken to Palanga by bus, the former courtyard of the Kurhauzas. We were “sorted out” there: the Jews were taken to the synagogue of Palanga, while the rest were taken back to the camp. There were lots of Palanga Jews in the synagogue. We were guarded by the baltaraiščiai. We stayed there for three days, and later we were all taken to the farm of one farmer two kilometres away from Palanga, near the road to Kretinga. There were about 600 of us, including women with children, old people. We had to go to work during the day. We had to clean the Russian soldiers’ former premises. We would come back to sleep at the farm which was guarded. We used to sleep on the floor of a barn. We could only sleep on one side as there were many of us but little space. We got food twice a day: in the morning a handful of cabbage and a boiled potato and the same in the evening. I stayed there for eleven days. One day I discovered that the buses from Kaunas are arriving to take the kids from the camp. That evening I did not come back to the guarded farm, and I secretly slept in the camp at my friend’s. On the next day I went with the kids of the camp back to Kaunas, to my mum’s place. Later on I found out that all the children on the farm had been shot.
When my mother and I saw one another, we were overwhelmed with joy. Up till then my mother had no idea where I was. Uncle Misha went to the East with his family. My mother did not go, because she was waiting for me. At the time mother’s sister Masha lived in Vilnius with her family.
Pranė Špokaitė (Juodvalkienė), the nanny of my cousin Lyova, used to come to our flat on Daukanto street quite often, would bring us food and talk about the current events in the city. We were too afraid to go outside, though it was not very safe at home either. While I was still in Palanga, our former building custodian attempted to strangle my mother...
In the middle of July, all of the Kaunas Jews were told to leave their homes and move to the ghetto that was established in Vilijampolė.
Our first “flat” in the Kaunas ghetto was on Jūratės street. The street was on the slope of a hill, along which the border of the ghetto was established. Linkuvos street was on top of the hill going to the 9th Fort. We got a room on the first floor of a two-storey wooden house. We did not stay there for long. After the Great Action when the majority of the ghetto residents were forced to go to the 9th Fort along Linkuvos street, we were told to move. The house we moved to was on the corner of K. Griniaus and Panerių streets. Panerių street did not belong to the ghetto, and was marked off from it by barbed wire. Our “corner” was in one room on the second floor of a wooden house. I lived there with my mother and a family of four other people. We had a bed and a small space near to the bed. I slept together with my mum, with my head near my mother’s feet. There was a young couple in the other corner of the room: a young ghetto policeman with his pregnant wife.
There was a rather large courtyard next to the house, and in the spring it became a garden for the residents. I also had a garden bed there. The adults used to go to work during the daytime. My mother worked at the Silva sock company. She would leave early in the morning and come back late at night very tired. When it was quiet, the children used to play in the courtyard, and sometimes I would play with them too. However, I had my own things to do. At the beginning I went to the crafts school, and trained to be a metalworker.
The school was on Varnių street, one of the three multi-storey concrete blocks. One of my teachers was Benjamin Tsvizon (Benjaminas Cvizonas). I met him by chance in Vilnius many years later. In the ghetto I used to work as a courier at the gates of Varniai. These gates were also called the fifth gates. So, there was only short time for the games. There were a lot of children in our courtyard. The most popular games were the ones with buttons (clingers). Quite often we used to put on plays and lotteries. There was a field that stretched out behind our courtyard. Sometimes we used to play football there. The majority of us had homemade wooden clogs with canvas. These were our shoes we could kick the ball really hard with.
Life in the ghetto was complicated. The main worry that kept bothering me every minute was how to get food for myself and my relatives.
In the attic of our house I had rabbits and looked after them. They bred fast and I had to spend a lot of time looking after them: cleaning their cages so it didn’t stink, and get the grass leaves and roots for the feed. The rabbits liked the roots and leaves of dandelions very much. You weren’t able to give them carrots anyway...
I turned thirteen in the ghetto. My mother sent me to study so I could pass the required exams for the Bar mitzvah. During those difficult times, we were determined to preserve our traditions. They became particularly necessary, and more meaningful.
Tobijas Jafetas
Fromthe 4th book Hands Bringing Life and Bread
I was born in 1930 in Kaunas. We were three brothers in the family: the eldest Azriel (Azia), Fima, who died at the age of six, and me, Tobijas, the youngest. My father Rafaelis Jaffetas was from a big family who lived in Rezekne, Latvia. Before the war, my father moved to Kaunas and worked as a representative of UK textile companies in Lithuania.
Two of my father’s brothers lived with their families in Kaunas. Michailas Jaffetas with his wife Zina and sons Aaron and Grigorij managed to escape to the depths of the Soviet Union in 1941. Another uncle of mine, Aleksandras Jaffetas, was exiled to Siberia with his wife Sonia in 1941. Aunt Sonia died in a concentration camp and her husband Alexander came back to Lithuania but later on went to Israel, where he died.
My mother Berta Jaffetienė graduated from the Real gymnasium in Riga. She did not work anywhere, she raised and taught us. My mother’s family was big too. Her grandfather Chaim Don Yechija was the eldest rabbi of the town of Vyžuonai, and mother’s father David Shustef (Davidas Šustefas), was also a rabbi and married Henia, the daughter of my grandfather.
Before World War II, my mother’s two sisters lived in Kaunas. Aunt Hilna Frenkel died early in 1933 and was buried in Kaunas. Her husband Lazar Frenkel worked as a radio engineer. They had a son named Lyova. When aunt Hilna, Lyova’s mother died, he was only four. Lyova was raised by a nanny named Pranė Špokaitė (Juodvalkienė). When the boy and his father were confined to the ghetto, Pranė used to help them as much as she could. Unfortunately, father and son both were killed during the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto.
Another sister of my mother, Maša Katinskienė, was married to the colonel of the Lithuanian army, Juozas Katinskas. Uncle Juozas’ sister Kotryna Katinskaitė (we all used to call her Kasya) and their daughter Onytė helped me to escape from the Kaunas ghetto. I was hidden by the Katinskas family on Kaštonų street in Vilnius.
In 1939 our family moved to the UK, as my father realised that it was not safe to stay in Lithuania. My brother and I started going to school in Brighton.
My cousin Onytė (Ona Katinskaitė) graduated from Aušros gymnasium the same year and my mother invited her to stay with us in the UK. The times in Europe were becoming more and more turbulent and my mother decided to take Onytė back to her parents in Kaunas and took me with her. Unfortunately, we could not come back to the UK, as our visas were no longer valid after the change of the government in Lithuania in 1940. So my father stayed in England with my brother, while my mother and I stayed in Kaunas.
Up till that time I had finished four years at Shwabe gymnasium. When the gymnasium was closed, I finished my fifth year at Sholom Aleichem school.
In 1941 during summer holidays I went to the pioneer camp in Palanga. As if foreseeing the danger, my mother did not want me to go there.
At 4 a.m. on June 22 the Palanga pioneer camp was awakened by gunfire. The war had broken out. The children were told to get together in the camp courtyard. We were taken to Šventoji along the coast. The flying planes fired on us while we were walking. Around noon we reached Šventoji. We were fed at the fishermen’s harbour: we received a handful of sauerkraut and one small dried fish. Two buses came to Šventoji to take the kids. We could not all fit into the two buses, therefore only the weaker and more tired kids were put on the buses. I did not manage to get on the bus. As we discovered later on, these kids reached the depths of Russia and the rest of us were going towards Latvia. It was not easy to walk – the road led through a swamp. Quite soon German motorcyclists with iron helmets, machine guns and firearms caught up to us. We were told to go back to Palanga. We went back to Šventoji, and from there we were taken to Palanga by bus, the former courtyard of the Kurhauzas. We were “sorted out” there: the Jews were taken to the synagogue of Palanga, while the rest were taken back to the camp. There were lots of Palanga Jews in the synagogue. We were guarded by the baltaraiščiai. We stayed there for three days, and later we were all taken to the farm of one farmer two kilometres away from Palanga, near the road to Kretinga. There were about 600 of us, including women with children, old people. We had to go to work during the day. We had to clean the Russian soldiers’ former premises. We would come back to sleep at the farm which was guarded. We used to sleep on the floor of a barn. We could only sleep on one side as there were many of us but little space. We got food twice a day: in the morning a handful of cabbage and a boiled potato and the same in the evening. I stayed there for eleven days. One day I discovered that the buses from Kaunas are arriving to take the kids from the camp. That evening I did not come back to the guarded farm, and I secretly slept in the camp at my friend’s. On the next day I went with the kids of the camp back to Kaunas, to my mum’s place. Later on I found out that all the children on the farm had been shot.
When my mother and I saw one another, we were overwhelmed with joy. Up till then my mother had no idea where I was. Uncle Misha went to the East with his family. My mother did not go, because she was waiting for me. At the time mother’s sister Masha lived in Vilnius with her family.
Pranė Špokaitė (Juodvalkienė), the nanny of my cousin Lyova, used to come to our flat on Daukanto street quite often, would bring us food and talk about the current events in the city. We were too afraid to go outside, though it was not very safe at home either. While I was still in Palanga, our former building custodian attempted to strangle my mother...
In the middle of July, all of the Kaunas Jews were told to leave their homes and move to the ghetto that was established in Vilijampolė.
Our first “flat” in the Kaunas ghetto was on Jūratės street. The street was on the slope of a hill, along which the border of the ghetto was established. Linkuvos street was on top of the hill going to the 9th Fort. We got a room on the first floor of a two-storey wooden house. We did not stay there for long. After the Great Action when the majority of the ghetto residents were forced to go to the 9th Fort along Linkuvos street, we were told to move. The house we moved to was on the corner of K. Griniaus and Panerių streets. Panerių street did not belong to the ghetto, and was marked off from it by barbed wire. Our “corner” was in one room on the second floor of a wooden house. I lived there with my mother and a family of four other people. We had a bed and a small space near to the bed. I slept together with my mum, with my head near my mother’s feet. There was a young couple in the other corner of the room: a young ghetto policeman with his pregnant wife.
There was a rather large courtyard next to the house, and in the spring it became a garden for the residents. I also had a garden bed there. The adults used to go to work during the daytime. My mother worked at the Silva sock company. She would leave early in the morning and come back late at night very tired. When it was quiet, the children used to play in the courtyard, and sometimes I would play with them too. However, I had my own things to do. At the beginning I went to the crafts school, and trained to be a metalworker.
The school was on Varnių street, one of the three multi-storey concrete blocks. One of my teachers was Benjamin Tsvizon (Benjaminas Cvizonas). I met him by chance in Vilnius many years later. In the ghetto I used to work as a courier at the gates of Varniai. These gates were also called the fifth gates. So, there was only short time for the games. There were a lot of children in our courtyard. The most popular games were the ones with buttons (clingers). Quite often we used to put on plays and lotteries. There was a field that stretched out behind our courtyard. Sometimes we used to play football there. The majority of us had homemade wooden clogs with canvas. These were our shoes we could kick the ball really hard with.
Life in the ghetto was complicated. The main worry that kept bothering me every minute was how to get food for myself and my relatives.
In the attic of our house I had rabbits and looked after them. They bred fast and I had to spend a lot of time looking after them: cleaning their cages so it didn’t stink, and get the grass leaves and roots for the feed. The rabbits liked the roots and leaves of dandelions very much. You weren’t able to give them carrots anyway...
I turned thirteen in the ghetto. My mother sent me to study so I could pass the required exams for the Bar mitzvah. During those difficult times, we were determined to preserve our traditions. They became particularly necessary, and more meaningful.
The end of March of 1944 was beautiful and sunny. One morning we got the feeling that bad things were happening around us. The ghetto was surrounded, and security strengthened. Soldiers came to the house nearby. There was noise and screams coming from there. I realised that I needed to hide. I went to the attic where I kept the rabbits, set them free from the cages and hid beneath the grass while closing the door to the stairwell. I sat like that listening very carefully... The noise quieted down in the nearby house, and the soldiers moved to our house. I heard steps in the stairwell and the screaming of a woman in our apartment. After an hour or so you could hear the voices of men near the attic door. They did not open them, but forced it open with a blow. The doors fell on the grass that I was lying under. The rabbits got scared and started running. Somebody came to the attic, walked around looking for people, and poking the grass. I heard them say: “the only things alive are the rabbits, maybe you’d like some?” They left. I was lying motionless. After a good hour or so the voices were no longer heard in the house but I still didn’t move. I realised, I was lucky - the rabbits had saved me. Our Getala was gone. Her mother was walking around like a madwoman. There were practically no children left in the house...
My mother came back home in the evening. She told me that it was too dangerous to stay in the ghetto. At first I had to leave and later she promised to come back. She had already agreed with the people, they would wait for me.
A few days later before going to work, my mother left me the clothes without the Star of David. She told me to come to the Silva factory around noon, and told me in detail how to get there.
It was a sunny day. It seemed to me like a holiday. At the agreed hour, I approached the barbed wire fence. There was no guard close by. He was sitting in the booth at the Varniai gates and did not see me. There were practically no passers-by on the street. I stepped down on the lower wire, pushed the upper one up with one hand and bending over I got through. I crossed to the other side of Panerių street. Slowly, without paying attention to the passers-by, I went on the sidewalk till I reached the short tall fence of the Silva factory. It seemed to me that what I was doing was a joke, a game. I was not afraid but once I approached the factory I did not know what to do next. I was walking next to the fence. Suddenly I heard a male voice over the fence. He was speaking Yiddish: “Hey, boy, would you like to come in?” “Yes”, I answered. The man opened the gates and without asking anything walked me through the courtyard into the boiler room, and told me to sit behind the stove so no one could see me. I did. Time passed very slowly. My mum came. We hugged each other. She was visibly worried, pressed me close to her, saying that she could not go with me now. She needed to get ready, and then she would come but I had to go right now. Everything would be alright.
Soon the man came and said that a woman was waiting for me on the street. These were the last moments my Mum and I were together.
Juozas’ sister Kasya met me on the street. In 1939 she moved to live with the Katinskas family from Druskininkai. Aunt Kasya took my hand and took me to the city. We walked up Jurbarko street, the bridge across the River Neris, and passed by the guards. I saw cousin Onytė come in front of us. We were walking along Daukšos street, near father’s office and house. Aunt Kasya was saying something but I did not hear her. I was interested in looking at the streets, houses which seemed I had seen long ago. We approached Prezidento street. My cousin Lyova with Uncle Lazar Frenkel lived there. We entered their apartment on the third floor. Pranutė Špokaitė, Lyova’s nanny, lived there at the time. She told such nice fairy tales. She used to come to the fence of the ghetto to bring us some food. There were four of us in this apartment: me, Aunt Kasya, Onytė and Pranutė. I was fed and told to be quiet so the neighbours did not hear me. They explained to me that from now on I was Jonas Vaitkevičius, a mute. Those fake documents were brought to me by Father Alminas from Teneniai. Feliksas Vaitkevičius was the husband of my Uncle Juozas Katinskas’ sister Manė. I became one of his children.
The next morning Pranutė combed my hair, and put some makeup on me so my dark skin was not as noticeable. Together with Aunt Kasya and Onytė, we went to the Kaunas railway station. The tickets had been bought in advance. I did not say a word on the train. I sat at the window watching as the images along the roadside changed.
We reached Vilnius. I walked with Aunt Kasya. The city was unfamiliar, not like Kaunas at all, it was foreign to me. We were taken to the flat of the Katinskas family on Kaštonų street to the square four-storey house No. 2. The flat was on the third floor. I was here for the first time. Aunt Masha opened the door. Her black eyes were full of joy. She took me to the bedroom and showed me my bed – on a big hope chest near the stove, next to the bathroom door. There were two beds in the same room, which were my uncle and aunt’s. In the depths of it there was a mirror. There was a dining room, the room of Aunt Kasya and a room for two strangers: a policemen and a student. There was also a dark room. The strangers did not know I was living there, and did not have to know. I had to be quiet and when they were at home I could not walk or talk.
Aunt Masha and Uncle Juozas took me in with open arms. During the day, while the strangers were at work, I used to stay in Aunt Kasya’s room. My uncle gave me a chess board, a chess book, and a pile of interesting books. I would sit at the table, solving chess problems, endgames, and other tasks using the chess book. I read a lot. But after lunch when the strangers came back, I had to go to the bedroom. I used to sit quietly on the hope chest and read.
When the Nazis closed Vilnius University, the Katinskas daughter Onytė went to Šilalė to teach. She taught Lithuanian. My Aunt Masha would not leave the apartment – she was hiding. She was pale and looked ill. Everything was settled by Uncle Juozas and his sister Kasya in the city.
One day Professor Konstantinas Jablonskis visited us. He passed best wishes to me from my Mum and brought me clothes. He said that Mum would soon be with us. Later I discovered that while working in the archive, the professor found the documents of a Polish woman that looked like my Mum and gave her passport to my Mum...
This is how the days passed by, quietly, without anything really happening. Once my aunt told me that the policeman was celebrating his wedding on Sunday. There would be lots of different guests: policemen, SS employees with their ladies. I had to think of where to hide. I tried different hiding places. I tried the closet but there was little air there and it was impossible to lock. Then I got under my aunt’s bed. There was lots of space there, and enough air, but if somebody would bend over and look underneath, they could see me. Finally we found a solution: my aunt rolled up a carpet and stuck it under the bed, so it would block anyone from seeing me.
I had to stay under the bed for a long time, as preparations for the wedding were going on. I hid when the “lady of the house” came to prepare food for the wedding. My aunt cleaned the rooms. In the evening the guests started coming: governors, staff officers and policemen with ladies. Laughter, noise, fun and conversation. They spoke mostly in German. I stayed in my hiding place, sometimes on my back and sometimes on my side. I wanted to bend my legs, but I couldn’t. I had to stay and breathe quietly, as if I was not there at all. The ladies were going into the bedroom, as there was a mirror there. They wanted to put some more makeup on, lipstick or maybe get some fresh air. My aunt was scared that they might suspect something. But the guests were having fun and celebrating. They did not care about me at all. At last the drunk guests and ladies started going home. Everything ended well for the Katinskas family, my saviours and me.
The front was approaching. Uncle Juozas went to his daughter Onytė’s place in Šilalė The policeman made off to the West. The student also disappeared. The Gestapo agents who lived opposite our house on Kaštonų street also vanished. Vilnius was heavily bombarded. My aunt did not manage to get to a safer place with me. The city emptied out. Many houses burned. There were two sisters living opposite the Katinskas flat, in the same stairwell: one was a nun and the other a nurse. They convinced my aunt to hide in nearby St. Jacob’s Church where many residents from nearby where hiding. We went there as well.
There were many people lying on the brick floor in the long corridor of the church which was defended by thick medieval walls. Some prayed, while other slept and waited the war to pass by. My aunt met a woman from Šermukšnių street who had a lot of food. My aunt exchanged the clothes for food so we were not hungry. Sometimes she would go to her flat to see what was happening there. Fires raged and thieves rampaged in the city at that time. My aunt told that there was an explosion in the courtyard, and all the windows facing it were broken, the rooms full of ash that was carried from the stoves by a wave of air. The German soldiers, who walked near the church and churchyard, disappeared on that day.
The morning of 13 July dawned. It was raining. The church courtyard was full of Red Army soldiers with an outdoor kitchen. They gave us warm soldier porridge. Little by little the people started going back to their houses.
Near the church at the Šermukšnių street intersection there was a bullet-ridden German tank. There were piles of ash and charred wood in Lukiškių square where wooden barracks had been built.
The corner house on Kaštonų street opposite our house was burning. We came back home. We had a lot of work by the time we picked up the glass, and swept up the ash. I found some cardboard and nailed it on the windows. We started living without being afraid of the Nazis.
The front shifted to the East, and gradually life went back to normal. My aunt would go to the market to exchange goods for food. Uncle Juozas came back from Šilalė. In the fall I started going to the second grade at the gymnasium. Henrikas Jonaitis, the director of the gymnasium, was a very kind person. In the spring the deportees started coming back from Germany. I used to go to the railway station to meet them quite often. Maybe my Mum would come back? One day Mr. Meris from Dachau came to see us. He had been in the Kaunas ghetto till its liquidation in July 1944. Mr. Meris was a good acquaintance of my parents. According to him, my Mum was shot at the fifth gates of Varniai. She bribed the soldier by giving him all her remaining valuables, he let her out and then shot her in the back. My Mum was buried in the ghetto cemetery by the River Neris in a mutual grave with those killed on that day. Many people who wanted to escape were shot during those days.Meris could tell us nothing about Uncle Frenkel and Lyova. Maybe they were incinerated in Malina, or maybe died in the concentration camp.
Aunt Masha and Uncle Juozas raised and taught me. Aunt Masha was like a real mother to me and Uncle Juozas wanted to adopt me. But I wanted to stay who I was born as.
I met my father for the first time after the war in 1958 in Leningrad. In 1970 my father Raphael Yafet died in London, where he is buried.
My brother Azriel completed his studies in the UK and became an architect. The first time we saw each other after the war was in 1960 in Moscow.
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, 2009
My mother came back home in the evening. She told me that it was too dangerous to stay in the ghetto. At first I had to leave and later she promised to come back. She had already agreed with the people, they would wait for me.
A few days later before going to work, my mother left me the clothes without the Star of David. She told me to come to the Silva factory around noon, and told me in detail how to get there.
It was a sunny day. It seemed to me like a holiday. At the agreed hour, I approached the barbed wire fence. There was no guard close by. He was sitting in the booth at the Varniai gates and did not see me. There were practically no passers-by on the street. I stepped down on the lower wire, pushed the upper one up with one hand and bending over I got through. I crossed to the other side of Panerių street. Slowly, without paying attention to the passers-by, I went on the sidewalk till I reached the short tall fence of the Silva factory. It seemed to me that what I was doing was a joke, a game. I was not afraid but once I approached the factory I did not know what to do next. I was walking next to the fence. Suddenly I heard a male voice over the fence. He was speaking Yiddish: “Hey, boy, would you like to come in?” “Yes”, I answered. The man opened the gates and without asking anything walked me through the courtyard into the boiler room, and told me to sit behind the stove so no one could see me. I did. Time passed very slowly. My mum came. We hugged each other. She was visibly worried, pressed me close to her, saying that she could not go with me now. She needed to get ready, and then she would come but I had to go right now. Everything would be alright.
Soon the man came and said that a woman was waiting for me on the street. These were the last moments my Mum and I were together.
Juozas’ sister Kasya met me on the street. In 1939 she moved to live with the Katinskas family from Druskininkai. Aunt Kasya took my hand and took me to the city. We walked up Jurbarko street, the bridge across the River Neris, and passed by the guards. I saw cousin Onytė come in front of us. We were walking along Daukšos street, near father’s office and house. Aunt Kasya was saying something but I did not hear her. I was interested in looking at the streets, houses which seemed I had seen long ago. We approached Prezidento street. My cousin Lyova with Uncle Lazar Frenkel lived there. We entered their apartment on the third floor. Pranutė Špokaitė, Lyova’s nanny, lived there at the time. She told such nice fairy tales. She used to come to the fence of the ghetto to bring us some food. There were four of us in this apartment: me, Aunt Kasya, Onytė and Pranutė. I was fed and told to be quiet so the neighbours did not hear me. They explained to me that from now on I was Jonas Vaitkevičius, a mute. Those fake documents were brought to me by Father Alminas from Teneniai. Feliksas Vaitkevičius was the husband of my Uncle Juozas Katinskas’ sister Manė. I became one of his children.
The next morning Pranutė combed my hair, and put some makeup on me so my dark skin was not as noticeable. Together with Aunt Kasya and Onytė, we went to the Kaunas railway station. The tickets had been bought in advance. I did not say a word on the train. I sat at the window watching as the images along the roadside changed.
We reached Vilnius. I walked with Aunt Kasya. The city was unfamiliar, not like Kaunas at all, it was foreign to me. We were taken to the flat of the Katinskas family on Kaštonų street to the square four-storey house No. 2. The flat was on the third floor. I was here for the first time. Aunt Masha opened the door. Her black eyes were full of joy. She took me to the bedroom and showed me my bed – on a big hope chest near the stove, next to the bathroom door. There were two beds in the same room, which were my uncle and aunt’s. In the depths of it there was a mirror. There was a dining room, the room of Aunt Kasya and a room for two strangers: a policemen and a student. There was also a dark room. The strangers did not know I was living there, and did not have to know. I had to be quiet and when they were at home I could not walk or talk.
Aunt Masha and Uncle Juozas took me in with open arms. During the day, while the strangers were at work, I used to stay in Aunt Kasya’s room. My uncle gave me a chess board, a chess book, and a pile of interesting books. I would sit at the table, solving chess problems, endgames, and other tasks using the chess book. I read a lot. But after lunch when the strangers came back, I had to go to the bedroom. I used to sit quietly on the hope chest and read.
When the Nazis closed Vilnius University, the Katinskas daughter Onytė went to Šilalė to teach. She taught Lithuanian. My Aunt Masha would not leave the apartment – she was hiding. She was pale and looked ill. Everything was settled by Uncle Juozas and his sister Kasya in the city.
One day Professor Konstantinas Jablonskis visited us. He passed best wishes to me from my Mum and brought me clothes. He said that Mum would soon be with us. Later I discovered that while working in the archive, the professor found the documents of a Polish woman that looked like my Mum and gave her passport to my Mum...
This is how the days passed by, quietly, without anything really happening. Once my aunt told me that the policeman was celebrating his wedding on Sunday. There would be lots of different guests: policemen, SS employees with their ladies. I had to think of where to hide. I tried different hiding places. I tried the closet but there was little air there and it was impossible to lock. Then I got under my aunt’s bed. There was lots of space there, and enough air, but if somebody would bend over and look underneath, they could see me. Finally we found a solution: my aunt rolled up a carpet and stuck it under the bed, so it would block anyone from seeing me.
I had to stay under the bed for a long time, as preparations for the wedding were going on. I hid when the “lady of the house” came to prepare food for the wedding. My aunt cleaned the rooms. In the evening the guests started coming: governors, staff officers and policemen with ladies. Laughter, noise, fun and conversation. They spoke mostly in German. I stayed in my hiding place, sometimes on my back and sometimes on my side. I wanted to bend my legs, but I couldn’t. I had to stay and breathe quietly, as if I was not there at all. The ladies were going into the bedroom, as there was a mirror there. They wanted to put some more makeup on, lipstick or maybe get some fresh air. My aunt was scared that they might suspect something. But the guests were having fun and celebrating. They did not care about me at all. At last the drunk guests and ladies started going home. Everything ended well for the Katinskas family, my saviours and me.
The front was approaching. Uncle Juozas went to his daughter Onytė’s place in Šilalė The policeman made off to the West. The student also disappeared. The Gestapo agents who lived opposite our house on Kaštonų street also vanished. Vilnius was heavily bombarded. My aunt did not manage to get to a safer place with me. The city emptied out. Many houses burned. There were two sisters living opposite the Katinskas flat, in the same stairwell: one was a nun and the other a nurse. They convinced my aunt to hide in nearby St. Jacob’s Church where many residents from nearby where hiding. We went there as well.
There were many people lying on the brick floor in the long corridor of the church which was defended by thick medieval walls. Some prayed, while other slept and waited the war to pass by. My aunt met a woman from Šermukšnių street who had a lot of food. My aunt exchanged the clothes for food so we were not hungry. Sometimes she would go to her flat to see what was happening there. Fires raged and thieves rampaged in the city at that time. My aunt told that there was an explosion in the courtyard, and all the windows facing it were broken, the rooms full of ash that was carried from the stoves by a wave of air. The German soldiers, who walked near the church and churchyard, disappeared on that day.
The morning of 13 July dawned. It was raining. The church courtyard was full of Red Army soldiers with an outdoor kitchen. They gave us warm soldier porridge. Little by little the people started going back to their houses.
Near the church at the Šermukšnių street intersection there was a bullet-ridden German tank. There were piles of ash and charred wood in Lukiškių square where wooden barracks had been built.
The corner house on Kaštonų street opposite our house was burning. We came back home. We had a lot of work by the time we picked up the glass, and swept up the ash. I found some cardboard and nailed it on the windows. We started living without being afraid of the Nazis.
The front shifted to the East, and gradually life went back to normal. My aunt would go to the market to exchange goods for food. Uncle Juozas came back from Šilalė. In the fall I started going to the second grade at the gymnasium. Henrikas Jonaitis, the director of the gymnasium, was a very kind person. In the spring the deportees started coming back from Germany. I used to go to the railway station to meet them quite often. Maybe my Mum would come back? One day Mr. Meris from Dachau came to see us. He had been in the Kaunas ghetto till its liquidation in July 1944. Mr. Meris was a good acquaintance of my parents. According to him, my Mum was shot at the fifth gates of Varniai. She bribed the soldier by giving him all her remaining valuables, he let her out and then shot her in the back. My Mum was buried in the ghetto cemetery by the River Neris in a mutual grave with those killed on that day. Many people who wanted to escape were shot during those days.Meris could tell us nothing about Uncle Frenkel and Lyova. Maybe they were incinerated in Malina, or maybe died in the concentration camp.
Aunt Masha and Uncle Juozas raised and taught me. Aunt Masha was like a real mother to me and Uncle Juozas wanted to adopt me. But I wanted to stay who I was born as.
I met my father for the first time after the war in 1958 in Leningrad. In 1970 my father Raphael Yafet died in London, where he is buried.
My brother Azriel completed his studies in the UK and became an architect. The first time we saw each other after the war was in 1960 in Moscow.
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, 2009