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March 1, 1942, Warsaw, ghetto. Anonymous testimony of a woman, refugee from Łódź, employee of the Judenrat in Vilna, recorded by Salomea Ostrowska, concerning anti-Jewish pogroms in Vilna between 24 June and 4 November 1941
[-]504The Jews in Vilna from 24 June until 4 November 1941
This story is a testimony of a woman – refugee from Vilna, a former refugee from Łódź, Mrs KO, who was an employee of the Jewish community and therefore had insight into all matters related to the Jewish life in Vilna.
Warsaw, 1 March 1942
[1] The testimony covers the months of July, August, September, and October 1941.
The terrible fate of the Jews of Vilna, without precedent in our history, is a powerful reminder to us, who remain under the rule of the German occupiers.
Of the 70,000 Jewish residents of Vilna, only 12,000 people were still there in November 1941. I have been told recently that someone who arrived several days ago reported that after the Bolshevik aircraft raid, which caused a lot of damage in the city, the Lithuanians organised a pogrom.
At the end of August, as a result of a provocation, all the Jews living in the Jewish district were murdered within the space of three days. Three days later, a ghetto was established in that very district, to which the remaining Jews from other parts of the city were brought, and were allowed to take only what they could carry. People were not permitted to move on their own. They had to wait for the Lithuanians, who escorted the Jews to their new homes. Not all Jews were brought to the former Jewish district. The rest were gathered in the so-called Ghetto II, but I was unable to learn any further details about it because my informant, a refugee, did not know Vilna well. The ghetto I have mentioned is nominally inhabited by working Jews, while in fact many are
