The following day, the Jewish population learned what happened from peasants who came every day, and a 12-year-old girl who was shot in her hand and saved by a peasant, who brought her to the hospital in the ghetto. In the areaof Vilna, the peasants were Polish – they have shown the Jews a lot of kindness in such a difficult time.
Thus , the Jewish district was emptied. These consisted of the following streets: Straszuna, Szklana, Rudnicka, and others. All flats were sealed.
In view of the continuous raids and constant fear that accompanied people walking down the street, our windows became the only way to see the world. We spent days sitting there and looking outside. One day, we saw a large group, perhaps 1,000 people. They were coming from the Jewish district. Men, women, and children with bundles on their backs. The macabre procession was moving in horrifying, shocking silence. There were paralytics carried bytheir families, infants held by their mothers and children. Despite the lovely weather, they were wearing warm clothes. They were mostly the poor, but one could see faces of the intelligentsia and some well-dressed people. They were escorted by the Lithuanians and the Gestapo holding whips in their hands. Silence was ordered under penalty of death. There were several groups likethem in the three days that followed. It made a colossal impression on us. It was not fear; it was the impotent rage of a man in a cage, unable to defend himself or escape. He must stand and wait for henchmen to come for himto take him to his death. We believed that the same fate awaited us. Thosenights were indescribable. We sat by the window all the time and watched. Will they come for us, or is there still time? We asked the silence of the night and the sun desperate questions, we asked if the sentence had been passedal ready, or if we had some more days still to live… . The night was laugh-ing at us with the stars, the day shone sunlight in our windows, throughwhich we watched the world. The following two days were calm on the out-side, but we were still troubled by most disturbing premonitions. We knewno peace, we did not change for the night, we did not sleep. We prepared our-selves for death. On the third day, a Polish friend of ours came, an engineer,and said that he knew from trustworthy sources that a ghetto was to be estab-lished on the following day. We stayed awake all night. And indeed, shortlyafter midnight, I heard horses and then, in complete silence, the heavy foot-steps of the Lithuanians. I did not know what this meant. I knew, however, that the police had surrounded all street outlets, the house where I lived, as
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