Rescued Jewish Children
Shalom Peres
‘I Asked If It Was “Safe” to Know Her’
Shalom Peres
From Smuggled in Potato Sacks
Fifty Stories of the Hidden Children of the Kaunas Ghetto
Editors
Solomon Abramovich
and Yakov Zilberg
I was born in Kaunas on 6 June 1934 to Eliezer (Lazer) and Shulia Peres (née Budnik). Six years later on 25 September 1940 my sister Ahuva (Luba) joined our family. Our mother, I believe, was born in Krakenava, on a farm (at least this is where her parents lived) and went to school in Panevezis; Father was born and educated in Kaunas.
On the first day of Germany’s invasion our family became part of a large stream of refugees moving towards Russia. Some had horse carriages, but most of the people, including us, were on foot. There were also menacing flights of German planes forcing the crowds to hide in the ditches and fields. I believe that in this chaos our father became separated from us.
While we hid in a barn, we heard a knock at the door. There was a German paratrooper announcing the ‘liberation of the territory’ and telling us to go home.
As we were walking back to Kaunas we encountered a convoy of Soviet troops driving toward Russia, but they had no place for us. They also told us that if they were confronted by Germans they would have to surrender, since most of their weapons and even their bullets were stolen. Continuing our march toward Kaunas we saw some wounded people in the roadside ditches: torn off limbs, blood, cries for help.
Our mother found herself alone with two children in the ghetto. Father arrived in Kaunas a year after we separated. During that year he lived in a number of ghettos, from each he escaped. He hid in a few villages in Belarus. His main asset that assured his survival was his skills in mechanics, which he had acquired when in Soviet Lithuania he had to abandon his profession of many years as a travelling salesman. He could fix cooking pots for farmers, old soviet cars for the Germans, and so on. After my father’s return for a while we had plenty of visitors, who asked my father whether he had met their missing relatives.
One of our father’s last jobs was at some place outside the ghetto, where on that fatal day he had to inflate the tyres of a truck or bus. While pumping air, Father saw that the required pressure had been reached and stopped the pump. But his guard indicated that the meter showed low pressure (Father believed that when he had gone to the washroom, the guard had turned back the needle for fun), accused him of attempted sabotage and ordered him to continue pumping until it showed the correct pressure. As a result the tyre exploded and the rim hit my father in the legs, breaking each of them in two places. He was taken to the ghetto hospital where they operated on him without anaesthetic; these were good doctors, but they had no medical supplies or equipment.
As it became obvious that the ghetto would eventually be liquidated, the residents dug underground hiding places with ingenious secret entrances. In our house the entrance was in the kitchen floor, under the iron protective plate in front of the stove. Yet while they built their hiding place, my parents didn’t put all their faith in it. So they started to search for means of survival outside the ghetto.
Our family was lucky that my mother had the necessary qualities for these circumstances. She had a relentless drive and belief in her ability in finding a solution. In addition, her physical advantages, non-Jewish looks and command of the Lithuanian language provided her with the freedom to move around, once she took off the yellow stars and slipped out of the work column.
Father had four brothers and two sisters in the Kaunas Ghetto, some with spouses and children. When they heard of my parents’ plans to dispatch their kids to different locations from themselves and from each other, they said they wouldn’t do it, that they’d rather the family shared the same fate. My parents, on the other hand, said that it would be better if at least someone survived, rather than nobody at all. They considered and accepted the fact that if only the children survived they might have been converted to Catholicism (goyim). For our parents even this outcome was preferable to being dead. As fate had it, our parents’ decision turned out to be the right choice to have made, because from my father’s family, only one brother and one sister survived; not one of the spouses or children saw the end of the war.
Shalom Peres
From Smuggled in Potato Sacks
Fifty Stories of the Hidden Children of the Kaunas Ghetto
Editors
Solomon Abramovich
and Yakov Zilberg
I was born in Kaunas on 6 June 1934 to Eliezer (Lazer) and Shulia Peres (née Budnik). Six years later on 25 September 1940 my sister Ahuva (Luba) joined our family. Our mother, I believe, was born in Krakenava, on a farm (at least this is where her parents lived) and went to school in Panevezis; Father was born and educated in Kaunas.
On the first day of Germany’s invasion our family became part of a large stream of refugees moving towards Russia. Some had horse carriages, but most of the people, including us, were on foot. There were also menacing flights of German planes forcing the crowds to hide in the ditches and fields. I believe that in this chaos our father became separated from us.
While we hid in a barn, we heard a knock at the door. There was a German paratrooper announcing the ‘liberation of the territory’ and telling us to go home.
As we were walking back to Kaunas we encountered a convoy of Soviet troops driving toward Russia, but they had no place for us. They also told us that if they were confronted by Germans they would have to surrender, since most of their weapons and even their bullets were stolen. Continuing our march toward Kaunas we saw some wounded people in the roadside ditches: torn off limbs, blood, cries for help.
Our mother found herself alone with two children in the ghetto. Father arrived in Kaunas a year after we separated. During that year he lived in a number of ghettos, from each he escaped. He hid in a few villages in Belarus. His main asset that assured his survival was his skills in mechanics, which he had acquired when in Soviet Lithuania he had to abandon his profession of many years as a travelling salesman. He could fix cooking pots for farmers, old soviet cars for the Germans, and so on. After my father’s return for a while we had plenty of visitors, who asked my father whether he had met their missing relatives.
One of our father’s last jobs was at some place outside the ghetto, where on that fatal day he had to inflate the tyres of a truck or bus. While pumping air, Father saw that the required pressure had been reached and stopped the pump. But his guard indicated that the meter showed low pressure (Father believed that when he had gone to the washroom, the guard had turned back the needle for fun), accused him of attempted sabotage and ordered him to continue pumping until it showed the correct pressure. As a result the tyre exploded and the rim hit my father in the legs, breaking each of them in two places. He was taken to the ghetto hospital where they operated on him without anaesthetic; these were good doctors, but they had no medical supplies or equipment.
As it became obvious that the ghetto would eventually be liquidated, the residents dug underground hiding places with ingenious secret entrances. In our house the entrance was in the kitchen floor, under the iron protective plate in front of the stove. Yet while they built their hiding place, my parents didn’t put all their faith in it. So they started to search for means of survival outside the ghetto.
Our family was lucky that my mother had the necessary qualities for these circumstances. She had a relentless drive and belief in her ability in finding a solution. In addition, her physical advantages, non-Jewish looks and command of the Lithuanian language provided her with the freedom to move around, once she took off the yellow stars and slipped out of the work column.
Father had four brothers and two sisters in the Kaunas Ghetto, some with spouses and children. When they heard of my parents’ plans to dispatch their kids to different locations from themselves and from each other, they said they wouldn’t do it, that they’d rather the family shared the same fate. My parents, on the other hand, said that it would be better if at least someone survived, rather than nobody at all. They considered and accepted the fact that if only the children survived they might have been converted to Catholicism (goyim). For our parents even this outcome was preferable to being dead. As fate had it, our parents’ decision turned out to be the right choice to have made, because from my father’s family, only one brother and one sister survived; not one of the spouses or children saw the end of the war.
By the way, getting Ahuva out of the ghetto was quite an adventure. Since Ahuva was still a baby, my mother took her to the ghetto gate in a bag (I have no idea how she was kept asleep or quiet). The Jewish policeman knew of her plan to go out of the ghetto. She waited the whole evening, but there was no opportunity, and she returned home with Ahuva. She repeated the same routine the next evening, and this time she was lucky. A German car broke down within view of the gate. So the policeman ordered the Jews around the gate to run to the car and push it; this was what my mother needed. She soon left the car, removed her Star of David, and grabbed a horse carriage to go to Paukshtys. Pretty soon they heard an order to stop, and a mounted Lithuanian policeman started interrogating her. When he saw her bag, he asked what was in it. She answered that it was something innocent (such as grain or clothes). He ordered her to show its content to him. And at this critical moment another policeman shouted to him that he had stopped the wrong carriage (they were in pursuit of some criminal), and so he left without seeing Ahuva in the bag! That was quite a combination of bad luck (being stopped for the wrong reason), and then good luck (being saved just in time)!
Next it was my turn to escape from the ghetto. Before leaving I was taught some words in Lithuanian, and my new identity, Jonas Petronis; a matching false birth certificate was issued by Paukshtys. I spent a few days alone in a room in his house. Being alone for the first time in my life, with no knowledge of their language, felt very painful. A few days later my mother came for a visit, during which I begged to be taken back to the ghetto. It is obvious that my request was not granted.
Then I was taken to Marijampole, to an orphanage belonging to Paukshtys’ church, the Salesian Society, sometimes known by the name of their founder, Don Bosco. There for a while I played the role of a deaf mute. I was most anxious to conceal that I was circumcised and feared that I would talk Yiddish in my dreams. Otherwise I followed the daily routine of other boys: kneeling in bed to pray in the morning and night, and going to church every week. Sometimes after everyone was asleep the director would take me to her room for a conversational lesson in Lithuanian. When she finally decided that I was sufficiently fluent, she announced that she was taking me to a ‘doctor’. She obviously didn’t take me to a doctor but upon our return from our walk, she announced to the kids that I was ‘cured’, that is, that I could now speak.
One day in the orphanage, the director told me secretly that the new ball given by some donor for us to play with had in reality been sent by my mother. This was obviously good news, that they were still alive.
I remember that most of the other kids were attending school and had homework, but since I was ‘cured’ after the school year had already commenced, I would only be going to school the following year. Nevertheless, when some of the other kids had problems with their arithmetic, I would come out with the right answers despite my lack of schooling, and pretty soon I wasconsidered the resident ‘expert’.
Next it was my turn to escape from the ghetto. Before leaving I was taught some words in Lithuanian, and my new identity, Jonas Petronis; a matching false birth certificate was issued by Paukshtys. I spent a few days alone in a room in his house. Being alone for the first time in my life, with no knowledge of their language, felt very painful. A few days later my mother came for a visit, during which I begged to be taken back to the ghetto. It is obvious that my request was not granted.
Then I was taken to Marijampole, to an orphanage belonging to Paukshtys’ church, the Salesian Society, sometimes known by the name of their founder, Don Bosco. There for a while I played the role of a deaf mute. I was most anxious to conceal that I was circumcised and feared that I would talk Yiddish in my dreams. Otherwise I followed the daily routine of other boys: kneeling in bed to pray in the morning and night, and going to church every week. Sometimes after everyone was asleep the director would take me to her room for a conversational lesson in Lithuanian. When she finally decided that I was sufficiently fluent, she announced that she was taking me to a ‘doctor’. She obviously didn’t take me to a doctor but upon our return from our walk, she announced to the kids that I was ‘cured’, that is, that I could now speak.
One day in the orphanage, the director told me secretly that the new ball given by some donor for us to play with had in reality been sent by my mother. This was obviously good news, that they were still alive.
I remember that most of the other kids were attending school and had homework, but since I was ‘cured’ after the school year had already commenced, I would only be going to school the following year. Nevertheless, when some of the other kids had problems with their arithmetic, I would come out with the right answers despite my lack of schooling, and pretty soon I wasconsidered the resident ‘expert’.
Once while crossing a street one of our orphans got hit by a vehicle. He was taken to a hospital and never came back. I don’t remember what we were told about it, maybe that he had gone to heaven. It was only after the liberation that I heard that he was killed in the hospital when they saw he was circumcised. I never suspected that there was another Jew there. There may have been more!
In addition to the director, there were other personnel, including a few girls (maybe nuns) in their late teens. I had a little argument with one of them, to which I didn’t give much thought. At some point after liberation I found out that the girl with whom I had argued had gone to the police to inform on me. Perhaps they did not completely trust her. And since they were busy with the evacuation, going to investigate only one possibly Jewish boy was a somewhat lower priority.
Since the front was getting closer, Marijampole was being bombed. Someone in the director’s family had a country property. She decided that it would be safer from bombs there, and off we went, on foot. I only remember that this ‘long march’ lasted less than a day. According to the neighbours, the Germans came for me just hours after we had left for the village; it was a close call. And it was too much trouble for them to find the village and go and search for me there.
After the orphanage moved to the village, farmers visited to select kids to adopt. Some of them were suspected of just searching for cheap labour. For some unknown reason, most of them wanted me. The director, knowing that I might still have living parents, would dissuade them with all kinds of invented stories about my health. Soon she found a better solution, sending me daily far into the field to look after the cows. I would leave the house early in the morning and return late at night. This became my daily routine seven days a week. It didn’t change even after I saw the Soviet soldiers, although that was encouraging.
After Kaunas was liberated, my mother confided to a Lithuanian neighbour to being Jewish and told him about her family. As she mentioned a son in the Marijampole orphanage, he started asking whether I was such and such age, such and such size, such and such colour of hair, and then stopped. She managed to squeeze out of him that he heard that such a child had been killed: he was talking about the Jewish child I mentioned already, the one murdered in the hospital. We had enough common characteristics to fall under the same description. Mother was quite convinced that I was dead, in which case she wanted to find my burial place. On the other hand, since it was only a rumour, she did harbour a little hope.
The moment she learned about the liberation of Marijampole, she went there. She managed to find the location of the orphanage. But there were, obviously, no kids. With difficulty she managed to find the orphanage in the village. Looking around she saw children playing, but not me. That only confirmed to her that the rumour was true. Being afraid of hearing confirmation that the story was true, she sat down at a bench. Finally one of the nuns, who probably thought that my mother was looking for a child to adopt, also sat down at the same bench. My mother asked how many boys they had, and then whether there were any Jewish ones. At that point the nun had a good look and asked, ‘Are you the mother of Jonas (maybe Jonelis)?’ I don’t think it is necessary to describe my mother’s feelings upon learning that I was still alive.
As usual, I had continued to spend my days in the field until that day when I was called to return urgently to the farmhouse. There I saw my mother sitting on a bench. I immediately recognized her but I was still afraid to show it. On my arrival at the orphanage I had been coached to deny knowing my mother, should I be questioned. So when the director asked if I recognized this woman, my first answer was negative. When she asked me to look again I asked if it was ‘safe’ to know her. Only when she assured me did I jump into my mother’s arms.
In addition to the director, there were other personnel, including a few girls (maybe nuns) in their late teens. I had a little argument with one of them, to which I didn’t give much thought. At some point after liberation I found out that the girl with whom I had argued had gone to the police to inform on me. Perhaps they did not completely trust her. And since they were busy with the evacuation, going to investigate only one possibly Jewish boy was a somewhat lower priority.
Since the front was getting closer, Marijampole was being bombed. Someone in the director’s family had a country property. She decided that it would be safer from bombs there, and off we went, on foot. I only remember that this ‘long march’ lasted less than a day. According to the neighbours, the Germans came for me just hours after we had left for the village; it was a close call. And it was too much trouble for them to find the village and go and search for me there.
After the orphanage moved to the village, farmers visited to select kids to adopt. Some of them were suspected of just searching for cheap labour. For some unknown reason, most of them wanted me. The director, knowing that I might still have living parents, would dissuade them with all kinds of invented stories about my health. Soon she found a better solution, sending me daily far into the field to look after the cows. I would leave the house early in the morning and return late at night. This became my daily routine seven days a week. It didn’t change even after I saw the Soviet soldiers, although that was encouraging.
After Kaunas was liberated, my mother confided to a Lithuanian neighbour to being Jewish and told him about her family. As she mentioned a son in the Marijampole orphanage, he started asking whether I was such and such age, such and such size, such and such colour of hair, and then stopped. She managed to squeeze out of him that he heard that such a child had been killed: he was talking about the Jewish child I mentioned already, the one murdered in the hospital. We had enough common characteristics to fall under the same description. Mother was quite convinced that I was dead, in which case she wanted to find my burial place. On the other hand, since it was only a rumour, she did harbour a little hope.
The moment she learned about the liberation of Marijampole, she went there. She managed to find the location of the orphanage. But there were, obviously, no kids. With difficulty she managed to find the orphanage in the village. Looking around she saw children playing, but not me. That only confirmed to her that the rumour was true. Being afraid of hearing confirmation that the story was true, she sat down at a bench. Finally one of the nuns, who probably thought that my mother was looking for a child to adopt, also sat down at the same bench. My mother asked how many boys they had, and then whether there were any Jewish ones. At that point the nun had a good look and asked, ‘Are you the mother of Jonas (maybe Jonelis)?’ I don’t think it is necessary to describe my mother’s feelings upon learning that I was still alive.
As usual, I had continued to spend my days in the field until that day when I was called to return urgently to the farmhouse. There I saw my mother sitting on a bench. I immediately recognized her but I was still afraid to show it. On my arrival at the orphanage I had been coached to deny knowing my mother, should I be questioned. So when the director asked if I recognized this woman, my first answer was negative. When she asked me to look again I asked if it was ‘safe’ to know her. Only when she assured me did I jump into my mother’s arms.
After liberation from the Germans, I went to the primary Yiddish school. Being over 10 years old I was in a hurry to catch up and graduated the four grades in two years. From there I continued my education in a Russian secondary school. A good part of my first year in that Russian boys’ school was traumatic. In most cases I didn’t understand the teachers’ questions and instructions, and as a result my responses often seemed funny to the Russian classmates, if not stupid.
As a result of irregular schooling during the war, some of the Russian boys were quite a few years older and bigger than me, and more than one of them harboured strong anti-Semitic feelings. So they used to beat me up on a regular basis. I dreaded to go home after school, since very often somewhere on the way a group of these older kids was waiting to torture me. I was asking my father to come to school to pick me up, but he refused, saying that I must learn to fight! Luckily for me, a couple of months later someone in my class organized a wrestling competition, and I unexpectedly took second place. This brought me so much respect from the other boys that the beatings stopped.
I wanted to continue my education in Leningrad, but every Leningrad Institute rejected me. I ended by returning to my city of Kaunas and being accepted by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of our Kaunas Polytechnic Institute.
Within a couple of years after Stalin’s death the political atmosphere significantly improved. We lost the fear of political persecution, and even started telling some political jokes. This false feeling of freedom ended up costing me dearly. In the fall of 1956 we had a faculty Komsomol election, and as a joke I and a couple of friends crossed out the nominees and wrote in (with our left hands) the names of Eisenhower, Dulles, Adenauer, Ben Gurion and Gomulka. Unfortunately, they discovered the ‘jokers’ months later. There was an open Komsomol ‘court’ where they claimed that such political jokes led to the Hungarian revolution and, as a punishment, I was expelled from Komsomol and from the university. I did graduate however a year later.
Our family took the first opportunity to leave that country. The opportunity turned out to be repatriation to Poland, and then emigration to Israel. We lived in Israel for over six years, and in 1966 left, together with my wife Alexandra and son Amos (born in Poland) for Canada. In 1968 our daughter Belinda was born in Montreal.
I don’t remember now what exactly led me to the subject of Bronius Paukshtys. But I seem to remember that after the war we attended the court hearing against him. Then I remember him visiting us after his return from Siberia. Thinking about it made me feel guilty about going through long stretches of life without a thought about the person who saved my life.
It turns out that after returning from Siberia, Paukshtys couldn’t get his position back. He was receiving some help from the church, but it seems not enough. So to earn a living he had to ‘shlepp’ around Lithuania and make money by preaching in various small churches. Unfortunately, by the time I got this information, Bronius was already dead.
Montreal, Canada, 2009; Haifa, Israel, 2009
First published in 2011 by Vallentine Mitchell
London, Portland, OR
As a result of irregular schooling during the war, some of the Russian boys were quite a few years older and bigger than me, and more than one of them harboured strong anti-Semitic feelings. So they used to beat me up on a regular basis. I dreaded to go home after school, since very often somewhere on the way a group of these older kids was waiting to torture me. I was asking my father to come to school to pick me up, but he refused, saying that I must learn to fight! Luckily for me, a couple of months later someone in my class organized a wrestling competition, and I unexpectedly took second place. This brought me so much respect from the other boys that the beatings stopped.
I wanted to continue my education in Leningrad, but every Leningrad Institute rejected me. I ended by returning to my city of Kaunas and being accepted by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of our Kaunas Polytechnic Institute.
Within a couple of years after Stalin’s death the political atmosphere significantly improved. We lost the fear of political persecution, and even started telling some political jokes. This false feeling of freedom ended up costing me dearly. In the fall of 1956 we had a faculty Komsomol election, and as a joke I and a couple of friends crossed out the nominees and wrote in (with our left hands) the names of Eisenhower, Dulles, Adenauer, Ben Gurion and Gomulka. Unfortunately, they discovered the ‘jokers’ months later. There was an open Komsomol ‘court’ where they claimed that such political jokes led to the Hungarian revolution and, as a punishment, I was expelled from Komsomol and from the university. I did graduate however a year later.
Our family took the first opportunity to leave that country. The opportunity turned out to be repatriation to Poland, and then emigration to Israel. We lived in Israel for over six years, and in 1966 left, together with my wife Alexandra and son Amos (born in Poland) for Canada. In 1968 our daughter Belinda was born in Montreal.
I don’t remember now what exactly led me to the subject of Bronius Paukshtys. But I seem to remember that after the war we attended the court hearing against him. Then I remember him visiting us after his return from Siberia. Thinking about it made me feel guilty about going through long stretches of life without a thought about the person who saved my life.
It turns out that after returning from Siberia, Paukshtys couldn’t get his position back. He was receiving some help from the church, but it seems not enough. So to earn a living he had to ‘shlepp’ around Lithuania and make money by preaching in various small churches. Unfortunately, by the time I got this information, Bronius was already dead.
Montreal, Canada, 2009; Haifa, Israel, 2009
First published in 2011 by Vallentine Mitchell
London, Portland, OR