but they realised that any change meant liberation from the Lithuanian terror, even though many of them believed that it was like asking Beelzebub toexpel the Devil.
The German–Soviet War surprised us. On Saturday evening, crowds filled Vilna’s streets, cinemas, cafés, and theatres as usual after a week of work. The following day – Sunday – was supposed to be like dozens of other Sundays. Everyone thought that the air-defence alarm announced around 10 a.m. was just a drill, while German planes were already bombing the airfield in Porubanek, most likely destroying Soviet machines. The first official news of the outbreak of the war came in the speech by Molotov,491 delivered two hours later. During the day, we saw several raids on military facilities, the last, which took place at night, was particularly severe, as it damaged numerous houses and resulted in further victims among the civilian population. On Monday, the Bolsheviks began to retreat. With them, thousands of people left Vilna – mostly Jews and political activists. Evacuation trains were arranged, and those who were too late or who did not manage to board a train set out after the army on foot. Since, however, only members of the party or the Komsomol were admitted to the Soviet Union proper, most of [12] the refugees were forced to return, while other went missing or were captured by the Germans.
When the Germans entered Vilna, the Lithuanians raised their heads and organised their own militia on Monday. Their role was neither particularly glorious nor honourable, as it involved staging cowardly guerrilla attacks on the retreating Soviet troops and vehicles evacuating women and children. The majority of the Lithuanian army, which, as the so-called “territorial corps” belonged to the Bolshevik military force, joined the Germans. Very characteristic is the fact that the Lithuanians remained as employees in all offices – sometimes even folk commissariats, and now that the entire executive power was in their hands, they retaliated against the Jews, often surpassing the Germans in cruelty.
