When we arrived in Vilna we found a Lithuanian militia and a proclaimed Lithuanian republic under a German protectorate (Naujoji Lietuva).400 I arrived in Vilna on the evening of Thursday, 24 June 1941. The Germanshad entered the city the previous day. People were allowed on the streets from 5 in the morning to 9 in the evening. Since the Russians had abolished all private shops and set up only cooperatives, from 5 in the morning there were long queues in front of them for bread, butter, meat, [21] andother products.
The Lithuanian militia, composed for the most part of former Sovietmilitiamen, threw all Jews – or to be more precise, all Jewish women – out of the queue. No Jewish men stood in line, because they were more easily rec-ognisable as Jews than the women. I witnessed the following incident: a fewplaces ahead of me in the queue stood a middle-aged Polish woman. While the Lithuanians were throwing the Jewish women out of the queue, she called out to a Lithuanian militiaman, “Why are you tormenting the Jews? They have to live, too”. The Lithuanian took his rifle from his shoulder and shotthe woman on the spot.
They began seizing Jews for work from the first day they arrived. Jewswere taken for work on the railway, the trams, the roads, made to chop wood, etc. Just as they seized men, they also seized Jewish women to wash and cleanthe floors of barracks, bureaus, and offices. Jewish women were also madeto do laundry, to take the laundry home and wash it [21a] for the Germantroops, and, above all, to clean toilets by hand. When there was no work to be done, the Jews, men and women, were ordered to pull up grass. While theyworked, the Jews were badly beaten and tormented. A considerable numberof Jews obtained two-week work permits certifying that they were employedby Germans.
Posters in German, Polish, and Lithuanian appeared on the streets stat-ing: “All of our troubles stem from the Jews. Now their domination has ended,along with the domination of Jewish capitalism in general”. Lithuanian and German newspapers immediately began to appear, followed also by Polishpapers. All these papers were crammed with hatred and animosity towardsthe Jews. This had its effect: all the Lithuanians without exception and the Polish masses, aside from the intelligentsia, were enraged at the Jews.
