Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander’s Account of a Mass Murder 9780300129175

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Ponary Diary, 1941–1943

Ponary Diary 1941–1943

A Bystander’s Account of a Mass Murder

Kazimierz Sakowicz e d i t e d b y Yitzhak Arad

Yale University Press

New Haven and London

This diary was published in Polish in 1999 by Towarzystwo Milosnikow Wilna i Ziemi Wilenskiej and Rachel Margolis. The translation was made possible through the assistance of the Organization of Partisans, Underground Fighters and Ghetto Rebels in Israel and of Towarzystwo Milosnikow Wilna i Ziemi Wilenskiej. Translation copyright © 2005 by Yad Vashem. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sakowicz, Kazimierz, 1894–1944. [Dziennik pisany w Ponarach od 11 lipca 1941 r. do 6 listopada 1943 r. English] Ponary diary, 1941–1943 : a bystander’s account of a mass murder / Kazimierz Sakowicz ; edited by Yitzhak Arad. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-300-10853-8 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-300-10853-2 (alk. paper) 1. Jews—Persecutions—Lithuania—Vilnius. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Lithuania—Vilnius. 3. World War, 1939–1945— Atrocities. 4. Vilnius (Lithuania)—Ethnic relations. 5. Sakowicz, Kazimierz, 1894–1944—Diaries. I. Arad, Yitzhak, 1926– II. Title. DS135.L52V5569413 2005 940.53⬘18⬘094793—dc22 2005013119 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Foreword by Rachel Margolis vii Preface by Yitzhak Arad xiii Note on the Text xvii Ponary Diary 1

Index 145

Foreword rachel margolis

This is the first publication in English of the diary kept by Kazimierz Sakowicz from 1941 to 1943 in Ponary, near Wilno (Lithuanian Vilnius, Jewish Vilna). This diary, which describes the murders of some 50,000 to 60,000 Jewish men, women, and children by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators, is one of the most shocking documents of its time. Historians were denied access to the diary for many years, possibly because it provides evidence of the atrocities committed by Lithuanians (Sakowicz’s “Ponary riflemen”) as well as by the German occupiers of the city. When I first learned of the existence of this document I resolved to track it down and publish it so that the widest possible audience could learn the truth about the last years of Wilno, the Eastern European cultural center known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.” The only member of my family to survive the Holocaust, I, along with my husband, Haim Zaidelsan, have spent my life collecting documents relating to that period. While I was collaborating with the Jewish Museum established in what is now Vilnius after World War II (the museum was shut down in 1949), with the assistance of Shmerke Kacherginsky and Abraham Sutskever, I learned about numerous documents relating

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to the Holocaust that had survived the war. Among these newly discovered documents was Sakowicz’s diary, which had been written on loose sheets that were then placed in empty lemonade bottles, sealed, and buried in the ground. After the war, Sakowicz’s neighbors dug up some of these bottles and gave them to the Jewish Museum. Many years later I was employed as director of the historical division of the Jewish State Museum of Lithuania. While searching through documents in the Central State Archives of Lithuania I discovered a folder containing a number of yellowing handwritten sheets. Some were pieces of plain paper ranging from 5.5 to 25 centimeters long; others were the margins of a Russian-Polish calendar for 1941. The entries appeared to have been written in great haste, with a trembling hand; nothing was crossed out. Many sheets had been stamped “illegible” by the archive. This was my first glimpse of Sakowicz’s diary, which, along with other documents from the earlier Jewish Museum, had wound up in the Central State Archives of Lithuania. Working under special lighting and using a magnifying glass, I was eventually able to sort out and decipher the heartrending entries, which covered the period from July 11, 1941, through August 1942. Because of my familiarity with the Wilno dialect and Russian, I was able to decipher everything—a total of sixteen documents. But these pages, the first section of Sakowicz’s diary, turned out to be only a fraction of the diary. In various articles and books on the Holocaust period I encountered quotations from other entries in the diary, written in a later period. I recognized Sakowicz’s style and hasty writing, even in distorted transcriptions. For example, his terms “Lithuanian killers” and “Ponary riflemen” were replaced by “Lithua-

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nian police,” apparently in order to diminish the role played by Lithuanian nationalists in the extermination of the Jews. I continued my search for documents. In the 1970s an employee of the Museum of the Revolution in Vilnius had told me of her discovery of some Sakowicz documents in the museum’s collection. During the Soviet period, however, access to them was impossible. After the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1989, the staff of the newly established Jewish State Museum of Lithuania submitted frequent requests for access to these documents to the Historical Museum, where many of the collections of the Museum of the Revolution had been transferred, but were refused permission to see the documents. In the 1990s the Jewish State Museum applied to the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture for permission to see the documents, and we were granted access to the second part of Sakowicz’s diary for just two days. After photocopying the sheets, I began the long task of deciphering these new pages. Most belonged to the first part of the diary. The second part comprised a total of fiftyone documents. The sheets were of various sizes, though none was more than twenty-eight centimeters long. They included one photograph and one document from the ghetto (see October 26, 1943) that Sakowicz found in Ponary. The events described in these sheets took place between September 10, 1942, and November 6, 1943. At the time I was deciphering Sakowicz’s diary I knew little about the man himself. When the Polish edition of the diary was being prepared for publication, the editor, Jan Malinowski, was able to contact Sakowicz’s relatives and gather some information about him. Kazimierz Sakowicz, the son of Elias and Sofia, was born in Wilno in 1894 and studied law in Moscow. After re-

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turning to Wilno he served on the staff of various newspapers. He later opened a print shop that published journals, such as the Przegla˛d Gospodarczy (Economic Review), on Mickewicz Street, where he and his wife, Maria, lived. The couple had no children. In 1939, when Wilno and the surrounding region were occupied by Soviet troops and handed over to Lithuania, Sakowicz had to close his print shop and find cheaper lodgings. He moved to a frame cottage in Ponary, a suburb of Wilno. From there he rode his bicycle back into town, taking odd jobs to support his family. The cottage was located in the woods, adjacent to an area where, during the period of Soviet control of Lithuania (1940–41), a fuel storage facility to serve the nearby airbase had been under construction. Large pits—twelve to thirty-two meters in diameter and five to eight meters deep—had been excavated for fuel tanks. The pits were connected by ditches in which pipes were to be laid. But the facility was never completed. Instead, the Nazis—who occupied Wilno on June 24, 1941—used the pits and ditches for the extermination of tens of thousands of people. Ponary became one of several sites of large-scale massacres in Eastern Europe. Executions by shooting continued there for three years, from July 1941 until July 1944. On July 11,1941,the first day of mass executions,Sakowicz and his wife heard the sounds of gunfire at the airbase. He immediately recognized the importance of recording the ongoing events, and from then on never missed anything that occurred at Ponary. From a hiding place in his attic he observed the executions taking place at one of the pits. He also made inquiries among his neighbors and talked with railroad employees, farmers who bought the victims’ clothes, and the Lithuanian killers,

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or “Ponary riflemen,” themselves. He counted the number of people brought to the execution site, noted the numbers on the trucks and automobiles that carried the victims, and described the clothing the victims wore. Sakowicz’s record ends on November 6, 1943. Because we still have not located other entries and the diary breaks off abruptly, I originally thought that Sakowicz must have died that fall; in the last entries, Sakowicz noted that people were looking at him with suspicion. But Sakowicz’s first cousin told Malinowski that she had heard from his late wife that he kept writing until July 3–4, 1944, and that he had hidden these pages. Sakowicz was discovered in the woods on July 5, 1944, mortally wounded, next to his bicycle. His grave is located in the Rossa Cemetery in Vilnius, among graves of the fallen soldiers of the Polish underground (Armia Krajowa). Through his diary, Sakowicz, an eyewitness to the atrocities at Ponary, left key testimony against the Nazi coverup that attempted to hide the crimes committed there. I would like to express my gratitude to the Jewish State Museum of Lithuania, especially Deputy Director Rachel Kostanian, for giving me access to the archival holdings. In addition, museum personnel assisted my study of Sakowicz’s diary by helping me locate statements by witnesses and other materials from the museum’s collections—mainly diaries and testimonies from residents of the Wilno ghetto—with which I was able to verify the accuracy of the diary. I am also deeply grateful to Jan Malinowski for publishing the first edition of the diary in Polish with my annotations and for uncovering information about its author.

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I dedicate my labor of locating, deciphering, and re-creating the diary to the members of my family who perished at Ponary on July 5, 1944: my father, Samuel Margolis; my mother, Emmy; and my brother, Josef.

Preface yitzhak arad

Kazimierz Sakowicz’s Ponary diary is a unique document, without parallel in the chronicles of the Holocaust. It provides a bystander’s view of the activities of the Nazi extermination machine in the restricted arena of Ponary, a wooded area in the countryside some ten kilometers southwest of Wilno on the road to Grodno. Once it served as a holiday resort for the people of Wilno, and a paved road and railroad connected it to the city. In 1941, during the Soviet occupation of the region, the Soviets began excavating giant pits to serve as storage tanks for airplane fuel, but before they finished the task, the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. The subsequent occupation of the region by the German army two days later left the excavation of the pits and construction of the storage tanks unfinished. During the German occupation, these pits became the site of the mass murder of some 50,000 to 60,000 men, women, and children, who were shot on the edge of the pit and then buried within it. The vast majority of the victims described by Sakowicz in his diary were Jews from the Wilno ghetto and environs. A few thousand were members of the underground or hostages—Poles, Communist cadres, Soviet prisoners of war, and some anti-German Lithuanians. Ponary thus became the

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gravesite of the Jews of Wilno, which, under its Jewish name, Vilna, was known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.” Sakowicz, a Polish journalist who lived in Ponary, decided to keep a record of the atrocities taking place almost outside his front door. He was taking a risk in committing to paper his meticulous chronicle of the unspeakable crimes he witnessed: the genocide being perpetrated by the Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators. Sakowicz was certainly aware that discovery of his diary would cost him, and perhaps also his family, their lives. We can only conjecture as to what motivated him to continue his perilous task. Was it an intellectual urge to transcribe an event whose scope and atrocity were unprecedented in European history? Did he envision publishing the diary after the war, or using it as the basis for a book? Perhaps his goal was to produce a document that could serve as an indictment of the murderers. Whatever his motive, Sakowicz did not live to fulfill it, but now, sixty years later, his diary, published in both Polish and English, stands as a testament to the events Sakowicz witnessed and a monument to the man who so bravely recorded them. Because of the conditions under which the diary was buried, described in the Foreword by Rachel Margolis,some pages were severely damaged. But thanks to Dr. Margolis, an inmate of the Wilno ghetto who escaped to fight as a partisan, the diary was resurrected from the archive in which it had remained hidden throughout the Soviet period, laboriously deciphered, and published in the original Polish in 1999. In the Polish edition the entries are not always chronological, owing to Sakowicz’s practice of writing on loose sheets and stuffing them into lemonade bottles in no clear order.In this,the first English edition of the diary, the entries have been reordered chronologically.

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In his diary, Sakowicz describes the final stage in the destruction of the Jews of Wilno, their last journey and hours in the valley of death that was Ponary. The diary offers testimony from a bystander, an “objective” observer who saw tens of thousands of Jews murdered in front of his eyes on an almost daily basis over a period of two years and four months. The diary is written as a chronicle: the diarist evinces no personal involvement or manifestations of emotion or identification with the Jewish victims. He begins, “July 11: Quite nice weather, warm, white clouds, windy, some shots from the forest. Probably exercises.” This matter-of-fact opening sets the tone for what follows, although sometimes Sakowicz’s scorn at the conduct of the Jewish victims, the way they go unresisting to their deaths, shows through, especially in contrast to his proud description of the demeanor of the Polish victims, whom he feels behaved “honorably” in the face of death. In Sakowicz’s accounts of the behavior of the perpetrators, particularly the Lithuanians, whom he, as a Pole, despised, we feel his disgust at their greed—trading in their victims’ personal effects—and in their drunkenness, which Sakowicz stresses repeatedly. We can also discern his distaste for the Soviet Union in his references to Soviet partisans as “Bolsheviks” and his description of their seizures of food and clothing for survival as “banditry.” Sakowicz also provides details about events in Ponary and the region that he did not witness personally but heard about from his neighbors, occasionally some time after the fact. The events he describes—the murderers leading the victims to the fenced-off area and the pits, shooting them, and covering the bodies with lime—constituted the final stage in the destruction of the Wilno Jews. Before the Jews were murdered, they

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went through several stages: roundups, confinement in the ghetto, eviction from their homes, selection for either Ponary and extermination or labor camps, and finally transport to Ponary and death. Many of Sakowicz’s descriptions are extremely terse, comprehensible only to the diarist himself—perhaps they were meant as a sort of aide-mémoire for future expansion. The translation endeavors to preserve Sakowicz’s style. But to help readers understand the events described so elliptically in the diary, we have provided introductions to the various sections that offer details of the events that preceded the victims’ arrival at Ponary. Sakowicz’s diary is unique. No similar documentation has survived from any of the other mass murder sites at which Jews were shot: Babi Yar in Kiev, Maly Trostinets near Minsk, Bogdanovka in Transnistria, and hundreds of other places in the occupied Soviet Union. That Sakowicz’s diary offers “objective” testimony from a bystander rather than from a victim, devoid of any emotional agenda that might call its credibility into question, places it among the most important of the Holocaust testimonies.

Note on the Text

Because Kazimierz Sakowicz wrote his diary in Polish, placenames for the period 1939 to 1944 are given in Polish; if the Lithuanian name is more familiar, it is given in parentheses. Vilna (Lithuanian Vilnius) therefore appears as Wilno. Sakowicz dated his entries somewhat erratically,and the editor has had to piece them together. Datelines were sometimes Sakowicz’s own and sometimes supplied by the editor. Occasionally Sakowicz wrote two or more separate entries for the same date. In such cases, we have retained his datelines. In addition, he would sometimes return to an entry and add new information under the date; thus some entries refer to events that happened after the date in the dateline. Sakowicz set a number of words in quotes, which have been retained. Bracketed ellipses ([ . . . ]) indicate illegible or obviously missing material.

Ponary Diary

Events in Wilno, September 1939–July 1941 For generations before its liquidation during World War II, the Jewish community of Wilno was a major center of Jewish secular and religious culture; world Jewry referred to the city as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.” From the second half of the eighteenth century Wilno was part of tsarist Russia. Then in 1920 it came under Polish control, until September 19, 1939, when the Red Army occupied the city in accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact apportioning Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union. A few weeks later the district was transferred to Lithuanian control. The local Jews welcomed the Soviets and later the Lithuanians, thinking that these rulers would protect them from the German menace. Indeed, during the months of Lithuanian control, Wilno, sandwiched between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, offered a center of vibrant Jewish life, and about 14,000 Jewish refugees moved to the city from German-occupied Poland. In July 1940, the Red Army invaded Lithuania, annexing the country to the Soviet Union as a Soviet republic. The Soviet authorities banned activity by Jewish organizations and political parties. Jewish educational and cultural institutions were closed down and Jewish leaders arrested. The entire educational system was put under government control. In the state schools where Yiddish was spoken, classes in Jewish history and religion and in the Hebrew language were prohibited; the new curriculum was steeped in Communist ideology and sang the praises of Soviet 1

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Ponary Diary

rule and Soviet leaders. Jews, especially the recently arrived refugees (including several leaders of the Polish Jewish community) and the Zionist youth movements, which continued to function clandestinely, sought ways to emigrate to the Land of Israel (Palestine) or other countries in the free world. Between September 1939 and the German invasion on June 22, 1941, about 6,500 Jews managed to leave Soviet Lithuania. At the same time, a handful of Jews who had been members of the former Communist undergrounds in Poland and Lithuania found places in the new Soviet regime, chiefly in lower- and middle-echelon positions of the sort that had been off-limits to Jews in independent Poland and Lithuania. This situation, plus the fact that the Jews as a whole were favorably disposed toward the Soviet regime (which they saw as a bulwark against Nazi Germany), intensified the antisemitism that had always been rampant among the local Poles and Lithuanians. Another factor in the new surge in antisemitism during this period was the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), established in November 1940 by exiled representatives of the political parties in Lithuania who had escaped to Germany when the Soviets occupied the country. The LAF had underground branches inside Lithuania, where they disseminated vicious antisemitic propaganda though leaflets smuggled into the country. The leaflets called for a popular rising if Germany attacked the Soviet Union and the elimination, by whatever means, of the Jews from Lithuanian soil. One of the LAF leaflets—headed “What Are the Activists Fighting For?”—stated, “The Lithuanian Activist Front,

September 1939–July 1941

3

by restoring new Lithuania, is determined to carry out an immediate and fundamental purging of the Lithuanian nation and its land of Jews, parasites, and monsters. . . . [This] will be one of the most essential preconditions for starting a new life.”1 On June 14–15, 1941, a week before the German invasion, the Soviet authorities in Lithuania banished “anti-Soviet elements” to Soviet Asia. Almost a fifth of the 20,000 deportees were Jews, some from Wilno. Even though more Jews, proportionally, were being deported than Lithuanians, the action did nothing to diminish Lithuanian antisemitism and Judeophobia. The fear of further Lithuanian deportations heightened the tension among the locals and increased the animosity toward the Soviet regime and the Jews just before Germany attacked the Soviet Union. We do not have precise figures for the population and ethnic composition of Wilno on the eve of the German invasion. The last prewar census was conducted in 1931, when the city was under Polish rule. It listed 195,000 residents of the city, including 128,000 Poles (65.6 percent), 54,600 Jews (28 percent), and 2,000 Lithuanians (1 percent). The remaining 10,000 (5 percent) were Belorussians, Russians, Ukrainians, and others. This enumeration distorted the true picture. Because Wilno was a bone of contention between Poland and Lithuania, the Polish authorities wanted to show that the Lithuanians constituted a neg1. Liudas Truska, The Upsurge of Antisemitism in Lithuania in the Years of Soviet Occupation (1940–1941) (Vilnius, 2001), 23. [Lithuanian and English]

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ligible minority in the city by inflating the number of Poles. According to Lithuanian documents submitted to the Germans after the German occupation, Lithuanians constituted 30 percent of the population and Jews nearly 40 percent; the balance were Poles, Belorussians, Russians, and others. There is no doubt that these numbers overstated the number of Lithuanians in the city. But both the Polish and Lithuanian figures yield an estimate of some 60,000 Jews in Wilno on the eve of the German invasion, including refugees from Poland. The Germans entered Wilno on June 24, 1941, two days after the start of the invasion. In those two days about 3,000 Jews managed to be evacuated or flee to the Soviet hinterland, leaving about 57,000 Jews in the German-controlled city. Groups from the Lithuanian underground, calling themselves partisans, and soldiers from the 29th Lithuanian Territorial Corps of the Red Army, who had deserted en masse, attacked the retreating Soviet forces, murdering Jews as well. On June 23, after the Soviet authorities had fled, a provisional Lithuanian government, headed by Juozas Ambrazevicius, was established in Kovno (Kaunas). When Wilno fell, the Germans set up a military administration in the city. At the same time, Lithuanian activists set up a council to run the city, with German consent. The council organized itself as a national and sovereign regime, with a police and military force, subordinate to the Lithuanian provisional government in Kowno. The Jews of Wilno were not touched by the wave of pogroms perpetrated by Lithuanians that swept Kowno, Szawle (Siau-

September 1939–July 1941

5

liai), and other towns. Although there were attacks against Jews, and dozens were murdered in Wilno during the first days of the occupation, these murders did not compare in scale with what was taking place elsewhere in the country. Because the Lithuanians who had seized power in the city were a minority, they wanted to prove to the Germans that they could impose order; pogroms would have interfered with this goal. The Lithuanian leadership in Wilno also had an interest in painting the majority Poles as enemies of Germany and sympathetic to the Jews. A German report dated October 15, 1941, reads, “In the view of the Lithuanian population in the Vilnius [Wilno] district, the Jewish question . . . takes second place after the Polish problem. The strongest argument of the Lithuanian populace in the Vilnius area against the Poles is that some of them are cooperating with the Jews.”2 A few days after the Germans entered Wilno, the German military authorities and Lithuanian civil government issued orders requiring Jews to wear the yellow badge forbidding them to use the sidewalks, subjecting them to a nighttime curfew, permitting them to buy food only at certain hours and in certain stores, and confiscating their property. On July 4, the Germans ordered the Jews to set up a Judenrat (council) and Jewish police force. The Jewish leadership selected Shaul Trotzki to head the Judenrat and named Jacob Gens, formerly a reserve officer in the Lithuanian army, chief of police. 2. Einsatzgruppe A Report, Nuremberg Document L-180 [Trials of the War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Blue Set].

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One of the first anti-Jewish actions was a roundup of Jewish men on the city streets, conducted chiefly by the Lithuanian “partisans.” Most of those picked up were taken to work for the Germans and sent home when their work was done. Some, however, did not return; rumor had it that they had been detailed to work at more distant sites. As became clear some months later, though, those who did not come back had been murdered by their abductors at Ponary. The organized mass murder of the Jews of Wilno began with the arrival of Einsatzkommando 9, a subunit of Einsatzgruppe B, one of four German killing brigades, on July 2. Before they reached Wilno, Dr. Alfred Filbert, the Einsatzkommando commander, informed his men of their mission in the occupied Soviet Union: exterminating the Jews and key officials of the Soviet regime and the Communist Party. Filbert explained that the order came from Hitler and requested absolute obedience from his junior commanders and soldiers.3 In early July the status of the Lithuanian administration in the city changed. The Lithuanian council, which had claimed sovereign power subject to the Lithuanian provisional government in Kowno, was abolished and replaced by a municipal government directly subordinate to the German commander in the city. The Lithuanian military units were disbanded; some of their members were reorganized into police units—both munici3. Yitzhak Arad, Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust ( Jerusalem and New York, 1980), 65– 66.

September 1939–July 1941

7

pal police and mobile battalions—under the command of the German Ordnungspolizei (Order Police). Others were formed into a special 150-man unit, the Ypatingi Buriai (special ones). This unit was attached to Einsatzkommando 9 and helped arrest Jews and murder them at Ponary. The roundups and murders in July targeted men almost exclusively, as was the practice of the Einsatzgruppen throughout the occupied Soviet Union. It was not until late July and early August that an order went out to begin the total extermination of the Jews, including women and children. In the initial roundups intellectuals and public figures were selected for elimination, and Einsatzkommando 9 ordered the Lithuanian police to draw up a list of such persons.4 Nevertheless, except for one or two Aktionen (killing actions) that targeted this group, all social classes were represented among the Jewish men picked up and murdered at Ponary from early July to early August 1941. Sakowicz began keeping his diary on July 11, 1941. He did not refer to the executions of Jews and Communist cadres carried out by the Ypatingi Buriai and Einsatzkommando 9 during the previous two and a half weeks after the Germans entered Wilno. It is possible that these killings, some of which involved groups of only a few dozen people, did not attract his attention or were not perpetrated in Ponary. Fifty-four Jews were murdered on July 4 and 93 more on July 5. The Ypatingi Buriai was then placed un4. Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, eds., The Einsatzgruppen Reports (New York, 1989), 15.

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der the command of Einsatzkommando 9, a reinforcement that made it possible for the Einsatzkommando to greatly increase the scope of its killing activities in Wilno. Einsatzgruppen Report No. 21, dated July 13, notes, “In Vilnius by July 8 the local Einsatzkommando liquidated 321 Jews. The Lithuanian Ordnungsdienst [Ordnungspolizei] which was placed under the Einsatzkommando was instructed to take part in the liquidation of the Jews. 150 Lithuanian police were assigned to this task. They arrested the Jews and put them into a concentration camp [Ponary] where they were subjected the same day to Special Treatment [Sonderbehandlung—a euphemism for killing]. This work has now begun and thus about 500 Jews, saboteurs among them, are liquidated daily.” 5 A witness to the roundups of Jews during the first weeks of the occupation later remembered: “Gestapo [that is Einsatzkommando] men come in cars and stop outside Jewish homes. They haul the men out and order them to bring along a towel and soap. The people are ostensibly being taken to work for a few days, but they never come back. Groups of young Lithuanians and Poles appear on the streets, wearing white armbands. They round up Jews and take them to the police or jail.”6 The force that carried out the murders at Ponary consisted of three subunits, each comprising several members of the Ein5. Ibid. 22. The 150 Lithuanian officials were the Ypatingi Buriai unit. 6. Mark Dworzecki, Jerusalem of Lithuania in Revolt and Holocaust (Tel Aviv, 1951), 20–21. [Hebrew]

September 1939–July 1941

9

satzkommando and dozens of Lithuanians. One subunit brought the people to Ponary, generally in Einsatzkommando trucks. Another guarded the killing site, both outside—to prevent people, including German soldiers, from approaching the shooting pits— and inside, to keep the victims from escaping. Upon arrival victims were placed in a secure waiting area; here they were told to undress and hand over any valuables they had in their possession. They were then told to blindfold one another or to wrap their heads in a shirt and close their eyes. They were led, naked, from the waiting place to the shooting pit in groups of 10 to 20, walking single file, holding one another’s hands. At the head of the line walked a Lithuanian, who guided the first prisoner to the shooting pit. As soon as a group left the waiting area the killers would begin preparing the next group. Members of the third subunit, at the shooting pits, lined up the victims up at the edge of the pit and shot them. The victims would fall into the pit, where any who showed signs of life would be shot again. The people in the waiting area, only a few dozen meters from the pits, could hear the shots clearly but could not see what was going on. At the end of the day’s killing, the pits would be covered with a layer of sand. Sometimes this was done by the last group of Jews, who were then shot and covered with sand by Lithuanians from the firing squad. In July 1941, while Einsatzkommando 9 was active in Wilno, about 5,000 Jewish men were murdered, along with a few Communists and non-Jewish Soviet officials. In July and August 1941, the Jews of Wilno still knew nothing about what was happening at Ponary. They believed that the men picked up in the

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roundups had been sent to work for the Germans. The fact that the victims were generally men of working age reinforced this belief. At the beginning of August, Herman Kruk, an inhabitant of the Wilno ghetto, wrote in his diary: “Yesterday about 400 women gathered in the courtyard of the Judenrat and demanded that the Judenrat bring back their husbands, who had been working for three weeks, and send others in their place.”7 The victims’ clothes, along with any money and valuables they had taken with them—for they, too, believed that they were being taken to work sites and would need such things—were usually kept by the murderers. The money and valuables collected at the waiting area near the shooting pits were taken by members of the Einsatzkommando, who were supposed to hand them over to their superiors to be forwarded to the German authorities in Berlin. Originally, the victims’ clothes and other personal effects were left as booty for the Lithuanian murderers. They took some things for themselves, their families, and their girlfriends; the rest they sold to the local population. Among the locals, brokers started buying Jewish articles from the Lithuanian murder squad for resale. Later, when the Aktionen became more organized and inclusive, instructions were issued to deliver all the victims’ property, including their clothes and other effects, to various German authorities. Even then, despite the orders, some of 7. Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939–1944, ed. Benjamin Harshav; trans. Barbara Harshav (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 73.

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the stolen goods remained in the hands of the Lithuanian policemen, who continued their illicit trade. Beginning at the end of August 1941, when thousands of people were taken to Ponary in a single operation, the killing actions took place in three phases carried out simultaneously: Phase 1: Jews were rounded up, dragged from the streets or their houses and hauled off to Lukiszki Prison. Phase 2: The prisoners were held in Lukiszki: because it was not possible to kill the thousands of detainees in one day, the prisoners would remain at Lukiszki until the murderers were able to deal with them. As the roundups continued, the number of prisoners in Lukiszki increased; eventually there were thousands of Jews in the prison for days. Phase 3: The prisoners, on foot or in vehicles, were transported to Ponary, where they were murdered.

JULY 1941 July 11

Quite nice weather, warm, white clouds, windy, some shots from the forest. Probably exercises, because in the forest there is an ammunition dump on the way to the village of Nowosiolki. It’s about 4 p.m.; the shots last an hour or two. On the Grodzienka8 I discover that many Jews have been “transported” to the forest. And suddenly they shoot them. This was the first day of execu8. The Wilno-Grodno high road.

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tions. An oppressive, overwhelming impression. The shots quiet down after 8 in the evening; later, there are no volleys but rather individual shots. The number of Jews who passed through was 200. On the Grodzienka is a Lithuanian (police) post. Those passing through have their documents inspected. By the second day, July 12, a Saturday, we already knew what was going on, because at about 3 p.m. a large group of Jews was taken to the forest, about 300 people, mainly intelligentsia with suitcases, beautifully dressed, known for their good economic situation, etc. An hour later the volleys began. Ten people were shot at a time. They took off their overcoats, caps, and shoes (but not their trousers!). Executions continue on the following days: July 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19, a Saturday. The Shaulists9 do the shootings, striplings of seventeen to twenty-five years. At the Juchniewiczes’ [house]10 a military post was installed which guards the area. A group (5 people) of Jews goes to the post for shovels. It turns out that they are going to bury those shot yesterday. This goes on for a week. Then the post in the Juchniewiczes’ is wound up. Only the Shaulists do the shooting and guarding. At the Grodzienka post they detain Jews returning to the city from Drusk11 or from the city12 and 9. Lithuanians who manned the firing squad at Ponary. The Sauliu Sajunga (Riflemen’s association) had been a paramilitary nationalist organization before Lithuania fell into Soviet hands. Many of its members rose up against the retreating Soviet Army and then volunteered to serve the Germans. 10. Inhabitants of Ponary. 11. Druskieniki, a resort town about 120 kilometers southwest of Wilno. 12. Presumably Wilno.

July 1941

13

then a group on its way to “work” joins them. In this way two Jews, among others, were “added,” young people going to Wilno by road together with a Jewish woman. The next three days—July 20, 21, and 22—are quiet.

July 23

A nice day. About 500 people are transported. Executions until late; cries of “I am not a Communist!” “What are you doing?” They began to escape; shootings throughout the forest the whole night and during the morning. They were caught, shot, and finished off.Many intelligentsia.A few reached Jagiellonow; they were caught and shot, but presumably a few escaped via the Grodno highway. Since July 14 [the victims] have been stripped to their underwear. Brisk business in clothing. Wagons from the village of Gorale near the Grodzienka [railroad] crossing. The barn—the central clothing depot, from which the clothes are carried away at the end after they have been packed into sacks. Brisk business. They buy clothes for 100 rubles and find 500 rubles sewn into them. Shaulists with bulging knapsacks, with watches, money, etc. Brisk business—for a bottle of skaidrioji (.75 liters),13 clothes, etc. On the road the Jewish women ask, “Where is the work?” From July 23 until the end of the month they shoot, with the exception of Sunday, July 27. All together, in July, in the space of 17 days, they have shot an average of 250–300 daily, that is, 4,675 total, only men, with one woman “added.” In addition to 13. Presumably some kind of vodka or other homemade alcohol.

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Ponary Diary

this, practically every day a few or a few dozen people are brought by car, probably Communist bigshots. So that all together about 5,000 people have been shot. Ravens, the ravens remain, shots dispersed them. Piotr Kiejzik, a pupil of the priest Bielauskas of the Lithuanian shelter at Zarzeczy, goes mad. Kiejzik is a thief, he stole the Ruch printing press in Podbrodzi, and other things.

Events in Wilno, August 1941 In late July 1941 the military government in Lithuania was replaced by a German civil administration, creating the Generalbezirk Litauen under Theodor von Renteln. The Generalbezirk was part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, run by Hinrich Lohse; it also included Latvia, Estonia, and western Belorussia. Wilno became a Gebietskommissariat governed by Hans Hingst, and Wilno Province (excluding the city) was the Wilna LandGebietskommissariat, headed by Horst Wulff. One of the first anti-Jewish measures taken by the new German civil administration of Wilno was the imposition of a fine on August 6 of five million rubles (500,000 Reichsmarks) on the community, to be paid the next day or the members of the Judenrat would be executed. This was an astronomical sum, considering that that the local Jewish population had lost most of its assets during the Soviet period or in the confiscations of the month and a half of German rule. But the threats produced a superhuman

August 1941

15

effort that raised the money—some of it in the form of valuables—and delivered it to the Germans. On August 9, Einsatzkommando 3 was given responsibility for the Wilno district. About thirty of its members arrived in the city and became a permanent operational station of Security Police and SD (hereafter Sipo), placing the Ypatingi Buriai unit that had been carrying out the murders in Ponary under its command. While the Sipo was getting organized, the murders of Jews decreased. Sakowicz’s estimate of 2,000 victims shot in August evidently includes Jews from outside Wilno as well as non-Jews; it is also possible that the number is somewhat overstated. SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger, the commander of the Einsatzkommando 3, filed a report on December 1 stating that between August 12 and the end of the month the Einsatzkommando under his command killed 425 Jewish men, 19 Jewish women, and 17 Communists (both men and women) in Wilno.14

AUGUST 1941

Shooting August 1 and 2, groups of more than 300 each. Kiejzik settled in at the Wereszkos’. The clothes are carried away after 9 in the evening, so that nobody will see, because no one can go out. They pass by us. I ask one of them if he will sell me the potatoes he is carrying in a sack on his back. Not saying anything he 14. Yad Vashem Archive 053/1.

16

Ponary Diary

walks on to the Wereszkos’. Kiejzik blackmails Jews such as the Ponas and the Szapiro families in the Ponary colony. At the Ponas house he stole a radio and, as I hear, many other things as well. He fakes inspections—“search for weapons”—and carries away clothing and other things. For the Germans 300 Jews are 300 enemies of humanity; for the Lithuanians they are 300 pairs of shoes, trousers, and the like. From August 3 through August 5, they don’t shoot.

August 6

About 300 people, all with bundles, several wagons with valises at the back. They are going via Ponary—the settlement—“for work.”

August 7

No shootings.

August 8

About 200 people are shot. They only shoot in the afternoon. They beat them with clubs on the way. Dawid Kassel: We were on the road, we worked.

August 9 and August 10

No shootings.

August 1941

17

August 11

For the first time, [the Jews arrive] in the morning, at about 8 o’clock (because what kind of “work” is there at night?). The daughter of a certain Z. Bialostocki from Francziszkanska Street came; [she told us] they were taken on Saturday, August 9, to Lukiszki, and then on Monday to Ponary. The daughter had a certificate,15 but she was already too late, because they were shot about 9–11 in the morning and it was already 3 p.m. The passenger car NV-370 had two amused Lithuanian “ladies” (dames) in the company of a certain “gentleman” who were on a day excursion to see the executions. After the shootings they returned; I did not see sadness on their faces. In July there was a case in which, in order to torture a party of Jews on the field near Nowosiolki, gymnastics were thought up.

August 12 through August 15

No shootings.

August 16

In a group of 200, a middle-aged, emaciated Jewish woman in a navy-blue dress with white dots went arm in arm with a man. 15. Sakowicz seems to mean that the daughter brought a certificate stating that her father was employed and should not have been picked up.

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Ponary Diary

She was the first woman in the group from Wilno. Many children aged twelve to fifteen years and old people, who are carried because there are no more wagons. Wagons for a few days, then they didn’t bother with such things.

August 17 and August 18

No shootings.

August 19

There were already two women [among the victims]. A young blonde, intelligent looking—all together about 100 people. Many young people. A Karaite16 taken from the street was already in the pit when a German, who was present at the beginning of the execution and to whom he turned claiming that he was not a Jew, freed him. He drank water at the Rudzinskis’ and then went to Wilno. Supposedly he lives on Kijowska Street. They shoot in groups, from behind, in the back, or with grenades or machine guns, when it’s raining or late. One escaped in his underwear as far as Deginie. He was hunted down and shot. Children were herding cows, and he ran 16. Karaites were members of a Jewish sect that emerged in the eighth century. Their center in Lithuania was the township of Troky (Trakai) near Wilno. Some claimed that their racial origin was not Jewish but Turko-Mongolian, and the Germans did not consider them Jews so they were not subject to the Final Solution policy.

August 1941

19

to them, but they ran away. A few meters farther the rye was already tall. Normally they shoot 10 at a time. They blindfold only those who so desire. The second group sees the first killed, but they don’t bury the first group. No! They step over the corpses to the next (candidates)—corpses.

August 22

It turns out that on the ploshchadka17 on August 22 one of the Jews struck a German with a bottle on the temple. The German fell down, and they carried him. This happened when the German tried to take the valuables from the man condemned to death. Since August 22 the Germans have been taking the valuables, leaving the Lithuanians with the clothes and the like. August 22,11:30.My wife and I gather up the buckwheat to take away. At this moment we see Kiejzik running up the road in the direction of the Grodno highway. I say to my wife that Jews are being brought, because Kiejzik is hurrying to “work” (in a new suit). I follow after him—on the highway more than 100 people are being led, among them 7 Jewish women, one of whom is quite handsome, very young. Twenty minutes later a volley of gunfire reverberates. Next to the hut is a woman; it turns out that she is the servant of the owner of the sawmill, Szapiro. She explains that yesterday Szapiro’s son, 18-year-old 17. “Square,” close to the shooting pits, where the victims undressed.

20

Ponary Diary

Sioma Szapiro—a pupil in his last year at the Polish gymnasium (in Bolshevik times that gymnasium was located on Dominikanska Street, opposite the town hall)—was picked up on the street when he went to work in the morning. She brought him an overcoat, food, and other things. I don’t know what happened to her. She is a Christian; so far as I could see she brought for him, among other things, a pupil’s coat. After a strong wind and many clouds, beautiful weather (it was Friday). At 4 p.m. Arbon N540118 returns to Wilno; an hour later, near the house, as I was gathering the buckwheat, Kiejzik acts like himself again. From the bundle of bed linens on his back clothes can be seen. He goes calmly, he is not embarrassed in front of anyone. He is walking in the company of a Lithuanian.

Saturday, August 23

Fine warm weather. At 8:30 in the morning; Arbon N5491 is coming from the direction of Wilno. What is going on? This time a few Germans on the bus, a few civilians, and 12 Jewish women, young ones I believe. The bus turns on the main highway and heads toward the forest. A short time later I hear some crying and spasmodic moaning. After a moment, a volley; later a few individual shots, then everything quiets down. At 9:30 the Arbon passes the Grodzienka (without the women) in the direction of Wilno. With the Karaite it was the case, I think, that on August 18 18. Arbon was a local bus company.

August 1941

21

he had already been assigned to the fourth successive group of 10 slated to be shot. It seems that on August 23 there were two groups of Jewish women, each made up of 6 women, or 12 women all together. The first group—young Jewish women—were shot by a Lithuanian. Kiejzik boasted to Hawelowna that stripped naked they looked very pretty. The second group, delivered a few hours later, was liquidated not by the Shaulists but by the Germans. Apparently the Germans corroborate that the ones shot were nude; they did not deliver them to the Shaulists but shot them themselves. In all likelihood this was the reason why the Lithuanians were angry and got their revenge by spreading rumors that the Germans “contaminated the race with the Jewish women.” Because the Germans, after bringing the Jewish women, removed the Shaulists as far as the gate; nearly an hour elapsed from the arrival until the first shots were fired. That Kiejzik told the truth about the nudity can be corroborated, because the next day silk stockings were being sold.

August 24 and August 25

No shootings.

August 26

Eighty-eight people were shot, of whom 6 were Jewish women. The majority, as can be seen from their clothing, etc., did not

22

Ponary Diary

come from Wilno, but from outside the city, from the small towns. And so Ponary has become something of a central base. Markowski got the date confused from July and August to August 25. During August there were shootings on the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 16th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd, and 26th: all together, ten days, 2,000 people shot. Last week, that is, July 27–29, the Shaulists were already saying that next week there would be as many shot in one day as were shot in the whole month of August. And that is how things turned out.

Events in Wilno, September 1941 Following an Aktion in which thousands of Jews were murdered, the Jews of Wilno were shut up in a ghetto on September 6, 1941. Unlike previous Aktionen, in which only men were killed, the ghetto Aktion did not discriminate; the victims were men and women, children and old people. This change was the result of a decision to liquidate all the Jews in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union. The procedure the Germans followed to establish the ghetto in Wilno differed from their methods elsewhere. In other places they would usually select a predominately Jewish neighborhood and bring in Jews from other parts of the city or neighboring towns to join the local population. In Wilno the authorities first killed the Jews in the neighborhood they had selected and then brought in

September 1941

23

Jews from the other parts of the city to the now empty neighborhood. The reason for the change, claimed the Germans, was that the Wilno Jews had shot at German soldiers. The Aktion, which is known as the Great Provocation, was actually the result of a staged attack by the Sipo. On the afternoon of Sunday, August 31, two Lithuanians in civilian clothes entered a house in the Jewish neighborhood from which they fired on a group of German soldiers milling outside the Pan Cinema. No one was injured in the shooting, but the Germans were able to accuse the Jews of making the attack and to represent the Aktion as a reprisal. On September 1, Hingst published the following statement: “Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, shots were directed from an ambush at German soldiers in Vilna [Wilno]. Two of these cowardly bandits were identified—they were Jews. The attackers paid with their lives for their act—they were shot on the spot. To avoid such hostile acts in the future, new and severe deterrent measures were taken. The responsibility lies with the entire Jewish community.”19 The removal of the Jews from the area selected for the ghetto and their transportation to Lukiszki and from there to Ponary lasted from August 31 to September 2. The people were held in cells or the prison yard at Lukiszki for a day or two, with no food or sanitary facilities. During this period the Lithuanian guards robbed them of their money and valuables. Starting on September 1, the Jews were taken from Lukiszki, transported to Ponary, and 19. Quoted in Arad, Ghetto in Flames, 102–3.

24

Ponary Diary

shot. In Jäger’s report he notes that the death toll on September 2 in Wilno was “864 Jews, 2,019 Jewesses, 817 Jewish children (punitive action because German soldiers had been shot by Jews).” 20 In his diary Kruk put the figure higher, at about 5,000, which is closer to Sakowicz’s estimate.21 This Aktion also claimed the lives of most of the members of the Wilno Judenrat, whose offices were in the area from which the Jews were removed. The disproportionate number of women killed to men was owing to the fact that many of the men had already been murdered in July and August. It was after this Aktion that news of what was happening at Ponary began to filter back to the Jews in Wilno. Sakowicz describes women and children who were only wounded and, apparently after dark, managed to crawl out from under the pile of corpses and escape. (The men had been shot first, in the morning and early afternoon, so that even those who survived the shooting and fell into the pit alive were buried by the corpses that fell on them later and were suffocated or died of their wounds in the pit. The women and children were shot later in the day; those who were still alive were able to climb out of the pit after nightfall, when the firing squad and guards had gone home.) Most of the survivors were captured and shot, but a few managed to reach Wilno. Kruk records in his diary under September 4, 1941, that

20. Yad Vashem Archive 018/245. 21. Kruk, Last Days, 83.

September 1941

25

six women and girls who had escaped the pits in Ponary had returned to Wilno and been treated in utmost secrecy at the Jewish hospital. He notes that they were the first to bring back the story of what was happening to the people taken to Ponary, a report that he treats with near-disbelief: “With trembling hands, I write the words. . . . It sounds like an echo from the other world. Indeed, that is what it is.” He goes onto recount the story of an eleven-yearold girl, Judith Trojak, who was one of those who had escaped Ponary. At about 8 in the morning, Lithuanians suddenly appeared and ordered everybody to get dressed and go down to the courtyard. . . . “The janitor took everyone’s keys to their apartments and then they took us from there to jail [Lukiszki]. We stayed in jail from Monday to Tuesday. “On Tuesday morning they led us all out into the jail yard and all were sure that we would be released. But an order came to leave all our belongings and get into the waiting trucks. Traveling in the covered trucks, a women saw that we were riding through a forest. Later we heard shooting. . . . We didn’t understand what was happening with the men because they were led away on foot. “When we got out of the trucks, we were taken to a forest, among sand hills, and there we waited.” . . . All day long, they heard shots. . . . “Not until 5 in the afternoon did they take the 10 of us. From there, we walked about five minutes. They blindfolded us and stood us in front of a pit. . . . There in the pit lay a lot of dead bodies, whole mountains of them!” She was dragged out of the grave by a woman. Five or six women gathered there, all of them wounded.

26

Ponary Diary

With help from the peasant woman, Trojak and two women managed to return to the ghetto.22 On September 5, rumors spread among the Jews that they were about to be confined in a ghetto. At dawn on September 6, Lithuanian police units fanned out in the streets where Jews lived and in the neighborhood earmarked for the ghetto—the area that had been cleared of its residents in the Great Provocation Aktion. Two ghettos were set up and closed off, and the city was divided into districts. The Jews of the first district were deported to Ghetto No. 1, those from the second to Ghetto No. 2, and those from the third to Lukiszki Prison. The removal of 40,000 Jews to the ghettos and 6,000 to Lukiszki took place in the space of twentyfour hours without any involvement from the Judenrat, which had been liquidated several days earlier. The transfer was implemented by the Lithuanian municipal police and members of a Lithuanian police battalion, whose commandant was Antanas Iskauskas. New Judenräte were established in both ghettoes to arrange matters of housing in the densely populated ghettoes and organize essential services such as burial, health care, and water supplies. Jews taken to Lukiszki were held until September 10, when they were transported to Ponary and murdered. While they were in Lukiszki their money and valuables were taken from them. According to Jäger’s report, 993 Jewish men, 1,670 Jewish women, and 771 Jewish children—3,334 in all—were shot in Wilno 22. Ibid., 89–91.

September 1941

27

(Ponary) on September 12.23 This figure is much larger than the number given by Sakowicz but is less than the 6,000 found in Jewish sources. The German authorities intended Ghetto No. 1 for artisans and workers who held Scheinen [certificates] and Ghetto No. 2 for everyone else. Consequently there was a mass transfer of thousands of persons between the two ghettos. On September 15, about 2,000 Jews en route from Ghetto No. 1 to Ghetto No. 2 were diverted by their Lithuanian guards to Lukiszki and from there, after two days, to Ponary, where they were shot. According to Jäger’s report, 337 Jewish men, 687 Jewish women, 247 Jewish children—a total of 1,271 Jews—and 4 Lithuanian Communists were murdered in Wilno on September 17.24 Sakowicz presents this Aktion through the story of two nonJews who were included with the Jews brought to Ponary to be shot.

SEPTEMBER 1941 Tuesday, September 2

Wind. A strong rain, cold, clouds. At 7 in the morning I go to Pirczupki. Along the road, down the main road, and into the square a passenger car comes, followed by two trucks carrying Jews. When I was near Chazbijewicze, shots had already been 23. Yad Vashem Archive 053/1. There is a mistake in Jäger’s report. The real number is 3, 434. 24. Ibid.

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Ponary Diary

fired. Half an hour later on the road there was a long procession of people—literally from the [railroad] crossing until the little church—two kilometers (for sure)! It took them fifteen minutes to pass through the crossing. There were, as it turns out, 4,000— so says Jankowski; others claim that it was 4,875, exclusively women and many babies. When they entered the road (from the Grodno highway) to the forest, they understood what awaited them and shouted, “Save us!” Infants in diapers, in arms, etc. Eighty Shaulists did the shooting, while the fence around [the pit] was guarded by 100 Shaulists. They shot while they were drunk. Before the shooting they tortured men and women horribly (Jankowski).25 The men were shot separately. The women were stripped to their underwear. [They had] many items—furs, valuables—because they thought they were going to the ghetto. The Lithuanian platoon commander went on to the road in a woman’s fur, he was drunk (Kalinowski). The way they shot, the group [of shooters] stood on the corpses. They walked on the bodies! [The bodies were] immediately covered over the next day. There were many wounded. One woman escaped to Dolna. She was shot in the arm. Next to her in the pits she saw two of her children killed, and in another pit her husband perished. That day the Heneks met 5 bleeding Jewish women, their clothes torn to shreds. Two thousand Jews were brought here, among them men, women, and children. On September 3 and 4 there was a brisk business in women’s clothes! Next day a small child was found in the forest near the pit, playing in the sand. He was thrown into the pit and 25. When Sakowicz’s information is secondhand, he inserts the name of the source in parentheses.

September 1941

29

shot (Jankowski). In another case an infant was torn from the breast it was suckling and shot (Krywkowa). These shootings were a punishment for the bogus shooting at German soldiers in Wilno on Sunday, August 31. There, on the outskirts of the city, Hingst announced that Jews would be punished for the shooting on the previous Sunday. The shootings took place over the whole day, after which the Shaulists continued to drink [until] the next day. On the day after September 3 (Wednesday), a Jewish woman went to the Jankowskis’ on her way to Wilno. A Lithuanian saw her—a Shaulist. He jumped onto the porch, and asked “Juda?” When she answered “Yes, Juda!” he began to beat her mercilessly and dragged her to the forest, where he shot her. The Lithuanians took many valuables because the people “dispatched” to the ghetto were told that they could take these with them; thus they brought their valuables, warm clothing etc. Lithuanian women came for the clothing. September 8

A sensation—an inspection in Ponary in the apartment of Kiejzik, who is then arrested. September 12

Again, about 2,000 are shot. September 17

A sensation—Kiejzik is among the Jews marched up, and there is another peasant from Chazbijewicze who was seized beyond

30

Ponary Diary

the wire where he went to steal clothing. Both of them were forced to put on coats with Jewish stars. Kiejzik was sent to the first line of those to be shot. He was killed. It turns out that one of the main reasons he was shot was that he dared take watches from the Jews when they belonged to someone else, in any case not to the Shaulists.

Events in Wilno, October–November 1941 On October 1, 1941—Yom Kippur—there was an Aktion in both ghettos. Around noon, when the synagogues were packed with worshipers, Germans and Lithuanians entered the ghettos and began to arrest people. The Aktion came as a total surprise to the residents. According to Kruk, 1,200 men were taken from Ghetto No. 1 and 1,700 from Ghetto No. 2, including many who held Scheinen and had thought themselves immune. In his diary Kruk describes that day’s events in Ghetto No. 1: “People started looking for hiding places. Jews in prayer shawls ran through the streets looking scared. The prayer houses emptied out. Everyone looked for a hole to hide in.” 26 The detainees were taken to Lukiszki and from there, over a period of a few days, in small groups to Ponary. About 4,000 Jews were caught by this “Yom Kippur Aktion.” Ghetto No. 2, whose residents did not have Scheinen, was liquidated in three further Aktionen between October 3 and October 21. In the first, on the night of 3–4 October, more than 2,000 26. Kruk, Last Days, 122–23.

October–November 1941

31

people were taken away. They were told that they were going to another ghetto where there was a labor shortage. When they realized that they were actually going to Lukiszki, they fell to the ground and refused to move, the first case of passive mass resistance by the Jews of Wilno. The Germans and Lithuanians began shooting; dozens of Jews were killed or wounded, though a few got away. Jäger’s report notes that 432 Jewish men, 1,115 Jewish women, and 436 Jewish children were murdered on October 4. The second Aktion took place on October 15–16. According to Jewish sources, some 3,000 people were taken away in this Aktion, although Jäger reported only 1,146 killed: 382 Jewish men, 507 Jewish women, and 257 Jewish children. The third Aktion, which completed the liquidation of Ghetto No. 2 and its residents, took place on October 21. Germans and Lithuanians went from house to house searching for hiding places. That day about 2,500 Jews were taken from the ghetto directly to Ponary and murdered. Jäger’s report states that 718 Jewish men, 1,063 Jewish women, and 586 Jewish children were shot in Wilno on October 21, making the total number of deaths for the three Aktionen 5,496.27 While Ghetto No. 2 was being liquidated and its residents murdered, preparations were under way for the partial liquidation of Ghetto No. 1. All the work certificates issued to the Jews were canceled and replaced by new certificates, called Gele Shaynen (yellow certificates) because of their color. Each of the new certificates protected its holder, his or her spouse, and two of their 27. Yad Vashem Archive 053/1.

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Ponary Diary

children, indicating that the Germans intended to reduce the ghetto population to 12,000 from the 27,000–28,000 still living there. The Judenrat quickly arranged fictitious families of four for Schein holders who had no spouse or children. The first “Yellow Schein Aktion” took place on October 24. Thousands of people without Scheinen disappeared into prepared hiding places, while Schein holders and their families were ordered to go to their workplaces outside the ghetto, which was then searched from top to bottom. About 6,000 Jews were taken to Lukiszki and then to Ponary, where they were murdered. Jäger noted that 5,644 Jews were killed in Wilno on October 25, 27, and 30. On October 25, 1,766 women and 812 children were killed, but no men; the toll on October 27 was 946 men, 184 women, and 73 children. In his diary, Sakowicz provides a similar description of the breakdown of victims on those dates. The second Yellow Schein Aktion was conducted on November 3–5. Schein holders and their families were transferred for three days to the now-empty Ghetto No. 2, while Ghetto No. 1, cleared of its “legal” residents, was searched from house to house. Many of those discovered were killed on the spot when they refused to leave their hiding places. About 1,300 “illegal” Jews were taken to Lukiszki and then to Ponary. Jäger reported that 340 men, 749 women, and 252 children were shot in Wilno on November 6—a total of 1,341. The Jews who had been evacuated to Ghetto No. 2 were returned to Ghetto No. 1 on November 5. In his report, Jäger noted that an additional 171 Jews were murdered on November 19 and 63 more on November 25. Some of these last victims of the

October–November 1941

33

Yellow Schein Aktionen were found hiding in bunkers in the empty Ghetto No. 2 and others in the city outside the ghetto; the rest were people who had been held in Lukiszki for various reasons. According to Jäger’s report, nine Soviet prisoners of war and nine Poles were also killed on November 19, 20, and 25.28 Sakowicz wrote about killings on October 2 and 3 (the Yom Kippur Aktion) but not about those on October 4. Later he refers to the liquidation of Ghetto No. 2 and the Yellow Schein Aktionen in Ghetto No. 1. Around this time that the Germans provided uniforms to the members of the Lithuanian police, and in his entry for November 1 Sakowicz notes that the Lithuanians who made up the firing squad were wearing military uniforms. On October 27, for the first time, Sakowicz mentions Soviet prisoners of war who were shot along with groups of Jews. Most of these prisoners were Soviet soldiers who had remained behind German lines when the Red Army retreated and instead of reporting to prisoner-of-war camps had gone into hiding, wandered in the forests, or found work in villages. When caught they were taken to Lukiszki and then, in accordance with standing German orders, sentenced to death by firing squad as partisans. Other prisoners were escapees from POW camps. Those executed in Ponary included several hundred Soviet citizens, government and Communist Party officials who had been sent to Lithuania when it became a Soviet republic in the summer of 1940. They and their families had not been evacuated but remained in German28. Ibid.

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occupied Wilno and its environs. Most of them were shot at Ponary as members of the Communist Party.

OCTOBER 1941

Shootings on October 2, 3, 16, 21, 25 and 27.

Thursday, October 16

In cool weather, quite strong for October, frost (an unexpected cold front, which arrived on Monday, Tuesday). Tuesday 4 Jewish women escaped via Deginie.

October 21

About 1,000 are transported, women and small children among them. Because it was unusually cold, especially for the children, they permitted them to take off only their coats,letting them wait for death in clothes and shoes.

Terrible Saturday, October 25

At about 8:20 in the morning a long procession of the condemned appeared on the road near the little chapel. When they neared the crossing, I observed that it was made up exclusively of women—old and young, children in carriages, suckling ba-

October 1941

35

bies. Some of them slept peacefully. The weather was exceedingly beautiful; sunshine. At the same time, the first volleys of gunfire reverberated in the forest. Women and children transported from Lukiszki since 7 in the morning by two trucks (NN4003 and 4005) were also shot. An interesting thing is that when the trucks returned from the forest, the Lithuanian soldiers sitting inside were already dividing the possessions among themselves. How could they have had time! Jankowski, Wysocki, and others [remained] at the railway hut. Szligielmilch lost his nerve and fled.29 When the head of the procession neared the crossing it was exactly 8:52; when the last file passed it was 9:17. They walked quite slowly; their awful fatigue was reflected on their faces. And the volleys rang out at the same time. The condemned began to get nervous. One of them turned to Wysocki, who was standing next to the hut, and asked, “What is this place?” Even though “conversation” with the condemned was forbidden on pain of death (they could shoot him; there was such a case, when they took a man on October 16 who, in answer to the question of [a prisoner], informed him that it was Ponary), he answered in an irritated voice, spelling out the word “Po-na-ry.” Weeping arose in the ranks. The Jewish women began to fall back. Then, on the officer’s order (there were twelve of them—six at the front with a captain), the soldiers began to beat the women with their rifle butts. One of the Jewish women said to a soldier, “I gave you all my money and you promised to let me and the child go, and now you lead me to death!” The soldier smiled. A second young Jewish woman, nineteen to twenty years 29. These men are Sakowicz’s neighbors.

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body under the hyssop. The Lithuanians who gave him the sack ordered him to disappear quickly. Workers on the road, seeing that the peasant was hiding something under the hyssop, [waited until] he walked away, and then ripped up the moss and found the Jew. Note: October 25, one of the Jewish women, hearing the shooting, attempts to escape. She is caught and at the officer’s order they execute her on the road. The officer also beats and mocks [the victims]. The Germans carry away the rags to Wilno by wagon.

Monday, October 27

Through the crossing, nearly all men (among them about fifteen Soviet soldiers); at the end of the procession, several dozen women. Snow was falling mixed with rain. One of the women with a teenage boy and another Jew escapes. The Jew is killed. The woman and the boy escaped via Ponary in the direction of Czarna Krynica. Note: Shaulists in civilian clothes, as well as a military escort, have already begun doing the shooting. They continue to torture.

October 30

Beautiful weather, sunny. At 9 in the morning four trucks full of Lithuanian soldiers and officers arrive. Immediately after, four trucks arrive full of old women and children. The shooting begins. At 10:00 near the chapel the second procession appears.

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When they enter the Grodno highway, several people try to escape. Shots. Did they escape? I don’t know. At the crossing, the women are at the front, men at the back. The women have only a few guards around them; the men are surrounded by a thick chain of soldiers.They shoot volleys from machine guns; the execution is carried out in three places (echo of volleys). In the evening at about 7:30 violent shooting began in the forest. Such shootings have been repeated in the last weeks very often. It now appears that some of the badly injured attempt to escape under the cover of night. Some of them succeed if they have enough strength; the badly wounded, not having the strength to run quickly, are caught. Now at 9 in the evening, the shooting comes from a few different places. Clearly heard is the shooting in the forest, at a fast pace and coming closer. Evidently someone is running and firing. He is in pursuit. After entering the gate, a Jewish woman realizes where she is going; she persuades her child (teenage boy) to escape. The boy takes advantage of an opportune moment and runs. A Lithuanian officer notices. He shouts at them to stop and shoots. The child stops, the officer runs up, and with several shots (a burst of fire) kills him. The child falls. The mother lunges at him, but the soldier stabs her with the bayonet. She falls. Other Jews are ordered to pick her up and carry her. Whether she was wounded or dead, I don’t know.

NOVEMBER 1941 November 1

Jewish men and women with children are shot.

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39

On November 1, God-fearing representatives of the Catholic Lithuanian nation liquidated four truckloads of Jews. They have already begun shooting in their military clothing. November 1 (Saturday) was All Saints’Day.It did not disturb their executions.

November 6

It seems that on November 6 there will be . . . mass murders. Jewish men and women are brought by trucks.

November 17

Four trucks bring just men. Then a hunt is staged: the condemned run through the forest and are hunted down. Evidence of this is the fact that there are individual shots sounding at different parts of the forest. The “hunt” lasts about two hours, and then it quiets down. Trucks. Hunting. They scattered.

November 19

More than 200 women and children were brought. It was cold, with a cool wind. They had no bullets; they went to the buildings to warm up. But instead of bullets they took the little ones from their mothers and killed them with rifle butts. It seems that there were cases (previously) in which they hadn’t bothered to shoot every “whelp” so they [the children] were thrown in.

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old, in a gray overcoat and black fur collar, intelligent, with a boy about three to four in a navy blue coat, falls to the ground (full of mud), kisses the feet of the noncommissioned officer and begs for her life, grasps his muddied shoes and pleads. To free his leg he kicks her in the jaw with the tip of his shoe, freeing himself with the same leg from her grasp. On her torn cheek blood gushes out, mixing with the mud. The Jewish woman lies there and pleads spasmodically. The second soldier beats her with the rifle butt. She grabs the rifle butt, kisses it, kneeling on the road at the entrance to the killing grounds. Then the soldier snatches the crying boy, swings him around, and throws him like a log past the wire; there the rifle butt is raised to kill the child. The Jewish woman rushes forward and runs past the wire and shields the child.And when all is said and done, this is what it was about, wasn’t it? The shooting carried on continuously until 5 p.m. Many wounded. At night they tried to escape. Shooting the whole night. Jewish women went in a procession over the dead bodies; the same on October 27. There is no time to cover every line [of bodies with sand].

October 25

It is said that when one of the villagers came to the Lithuanians with moonshine for “Jewish rags,” he received an entire sack of rags in exchange for the vodka.The sack was unusually heavy.In the nearby forest the peasant, curious about what was inside, untied the sack, and began to look through the items. Under the things he glimpsed a murdered Jew stuffed inside. He hid the

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November 21

Again, women and children, (a few) men. During the time the murders are carried out volleys of gunfire sound in the forest. A Shaulist with a rifle left the base and on the road (it was market day—Friday) he began to sell women’s clothing: a few topcoats, dresses, and galoshes. He sold the last pair of coats, navy blue and brown, for 120 (one hundred and twenty) rubles and as a “bonus” he also threw in a pair of galoshes. When one of the peasants (Waclaw Tankun of Stary Miedzyrzecz) asked whether he would still sell [him something for his wife], the Shaulist replied. “Let them wait” and he would “choose” a Jewish woman exactly her size. Tankun and his wife were horrified, and when the Shaulist left they went away quickly. The Shaulist reappeared with the clothing. He was angry that the “yokels” weren’t there because he had “gone to the trouble” of choosing a Jewish woman from the fourth line whose height was about that of the villagers.

November 25

Trucks, women, children, a few men. A total of nine trucks. At the entrance to the gate they tried to jump out. Beaten.

Events in Wilno, December 1941 Six small Aktionen, the last in the first great wave of murder that began with the occupation of the city, were conducted in Wilno in

December 1941

41

December 1941. There is nothing in either Jewish sources or the Einsatzgruppen reports about an Aktion in late November or early December that would correspond to Sakowicz’s December 5 diary entry about 360 prisoners, mainly women and children. What did take place in early December was what the Jews called the “Untervelt [Criminal] Aktion” against people with a criminal record, all men. On the nights of December 3 and 4, German and Lithuanian police entered the ghetto with a list of names and removed 157 men with criminal backgrounds from their homes. Jewish police accompanied the Lithuanian squads that performed the arrests. The prisoners were taken to Ponary and shot. It seems plausible that this group was supplemented by Jews who had been caught for various “crimes” and held at Lukiszki, including women and children. Sakowicz refers to this Aktion in his diary entry for December 5, but he did not know the identity of the people involved. On December 15 Jews who supplied various services to the German security police (Sipo) were taken along with their families from the special houses in the ghetto where they lived and hauled off to Lukiszki. After a Selection a total of 200 people, workers and their families, were returned to the ghetto, while 300 were taken to Ponary and shot. On December 20 –22, German and Lithuanian policemen combed the ghetto for people without Scheinen; they caught about 400 and transported them to Ponary, where they were shot.

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DECEMBER 1941 December 5

Three hundred and sixty people, mainly women and children as well as worn-out skilled laborers.

December 7

On Sunday, at 6:30 in the evening, it was dark. A woman was stopped on the road and dragged into the gate—screams, a struggle, then a shot and quiet. During that time a [horse drawn] wagon headed out from Chazbijewicze; when the shouts and the tumult arose it turned around. As it turned out [in the wagon] was, among others, Mrs. Olszewska from Ponary. In Sorok-Tatar a Jewish woman with a child was caught hiding. The woman was shot and the child was done in with a rifle butt. Professor of medicine Henryk Rauchenbauer from the Waka Lenski Estate, among others, testifies to this.

December 12

Kiejzik returned pale and cropped.30

30. It appears that Sakowicz’s earlier information about Kiejzik’s death was incorrect.

January–July 1942

43

[This section of the diary is undated]

How they shot the Jews: The Jews were driven to one place on the base. They were ordered to lie down with faces to the ground. Then they [the murderers] took several dozen and led them close to the pit. Here they were beaten, abused, and ordered to undress. At the beginning: [Method] 1: They set up a trampoline over the pit. When a condemned man walked onto the trampoline, shots were fired at him. Then Method 2: A dozen or so were driven to the pit and shot. Method 3: Driven to the pit and [the murderers] threw grenades. [Method] 4: Inside the ditches. When there were shootings, the Jews, still dressed, were forced into the ditches; here they had to undress and then they were shot with machine guns. The [rest] of the Jews sat [waiting] on the road; they did not know that shortly they would be killed.

Events in Wilno, January–July 1942 After the Aktionen of December 1941, a period of relative quiet set in for the Jews of Wilno that lasted until July 1942. There were no large Aktionen. Nevertheless, the murder of isolated Jews and groups of ghetto residents continued in Ponary—for purchasing “illegal” food and bringing it into the ghetto, for trying to escape using Aryan papers, for hiding outside the ghetto, and for other

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“crimes” against German decrees that Jews committed in their attempt to survive. In April 1942, Sakowicz mentions for the first time the murder of Poles at Ponary. A Polish underground had been organized in Wilno and environs during the period of Lithuanian rule that began in late 1939; the underground continued its activities when Lithuania became a Soviet republic and later under the German occupation. This group was associated with the Polish underground active in other parts of occupied Poland, the Armia Krajowa (Home Army, originally the Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej or “Association of Armed Resistance”), which came under the authority of the Polish government-in-exile in London and its representatives in the occupied territories. This was a Polish underground that aimed at the restoration of independent Poland to its prewar borders and considered both the Germans and Soviets enemies. The German authorities began intensive activity against the Polish underground in the Wilno area in the early spring of 1942. Hundreds of Poles, chiefly intellectuals and university students—including women, former officers of the Polish army, and clergymen—were arrested and detained in Lukiszki. Many of the Polish prisoners were shot at Ponary. According to reports by the Polish underground, more than 150 Poles who had been held at Lukiszki were shot in May 1942. Some were murdered in retaliation for the killing of two German officials by Soviet partisans in the Swieciany (Svencionys) district. Lithuanian police identified

April 1942

45

Poles as the perpetrators; at German orders, about 400 people were arrested, mainly Poles, and shot. According to figures provided by the Polish underground, 450 to 500 prisoners, most of them Poles, were shot at Ponary in July.31 Sakowicz refers to these executions in his diary, but the number of victims he cites does not agree with the figure reported by the Polish underground.

APRIL 1942

One Friday in April,Mongirdowna was shot,so her brother told me, by the same man who murdered the lawyer Sikorski. His nickname is “Senelis,” which in Lithuanian means “grandfather”; his real name is Stasys Lenkitajtis. Sikorski had two wounds, in his stomach and his temple, both shot from the front, because Sikorski [had been] withdrawing, pleading for his life.

Thursday, April 30

Among the condemned there were 6 women.

31. Maria Wardzynska, Sytuacja Ludnosci Polskiej w Generalnym Komisariacie Litwy, Czerwiec 1941–Lipiec 1944 (Warsaw, 1993), 58– 65; Krzysztof Komorowski, ed., Rozwoj Organizacyjny Armia Krajowa (Warsaw, 1996), 200–207.

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MAY 1942 Tuesday, May 5

Forty-seven people were executed, not Jews but Poles and Red Army men.

Friday, May 8

Again shooting of the condemned, not Jews, brought in three trucks. One Shaulist found sixteen 10-ruble gold coins, another found two gold dollars. They drank and gambled for two nights.

Events in Wilno, July 1942–January 1943 What the ghetto residents referred to as the “Old People’s Aktion” was conducted on July 17 and the night of July 23, 1942. A squad of Jewish police went from house to house and to the old people’s home and rounded up 84 elderly, chronically ill, and paralyzed Jews, taking them in wagons to Pospieszki , a resort near Wilno, where they were housed in a former resort camp. A group of Jewish ghetto police remained behind to guard them and provide them with food. On July 26, the Jewish police delivered them to German and Lithuanian policemen, who loaded them on trucks and took them to Ponary or Lukiszki Prison. On July 30, as Sakowicz writes, they were moved to Ponary. In his diary Kruk

July 1942

47

recorded that the German authorities had demanded that 300 Jews who were unfit to work be handed over. Other sources report that the Germans demanded children as well. The Judenrat, in keeping with its policy in such cases, negotiated with the Sipo to reduce the number handed over and to save children; the elderly and the chronically ill were sent in their place. The figure of 150 elderly provided by Sakowicz seems high, unless the Germans took advantage of the Aktion to kill other Jews who had been arrested for various “crimes” and held in Lukiszki. After the “Old People’s Action” there were no more Aktionen in the Wilno ghetto until the spring of 1943. But the murder of isolated groups of Jews, Poles, and Soviet POWs continued in Ponary.

JULY 1942

For some time, recording the days of execution has been impeded by the following factors: (1) The Lithuanians do no not carry the clothes to the villagers by road but deliver them to Jankowski, who since the spring has been living in the forest near the base. (2) From time to time the pits are filled (more thoroughly) because of the stench.Even in July they are filled up.For this purpose they [Lithuanian police] come specially from Wilno by bus. And simultaneously in the same way they often bring the condemned, lying on the floor [of the bus] at the feet of the Lithuanians. Now it appears that in 1941–42, whenever Lithua-

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nians (police) in Wilno murdered a Pole during investigation in a police station, they would bring him to be buried in Ponary.

July 2

At 8:30 in the morning one car, with the same number as the previous one, [arrives]. There were 6 people, 5 men and one very pretty girl (apparently in her late teens). They were chased, running, through the forest. They [the murderers] shot several rounds from revolvers (apparently this time the Germans were doing the shooting). Maryla saw the people running. There were many shots fired. Evidently it became necessary to search for them throughout the forest and catch them. At 10:30 in the morning the shooting was over and the car left. The victims’ effects were acquired by Rudzinski for 5,000 rubles, borrowed from Stenia Kwiatkowska (Sieniuncowa) using the effects of the murdered as collateral. Among them was a women’s coat. Rudzinski (whom I met) told me of the above and also led me to his apartment at the crossing near the station and showed me a dark-blue precious stone with a yellowish spot (on one side of the stone) from the glue with which the stone had clearly been affixed to something. Rudzinski inquired about the value of the stone, explaining that he found it in the pocket of the coat of one of the people shot. The stone was hidden in the corner of the pocket and tied [with threads]. The shoes of the murdered man were suede, a small size, evidently a small man; they did not have shoelaces but elastic bands, on the tongues of which could be seen the inscription “handmade,” which indicates that the shoes were not factory made. Rubber heels. In addition to that I

July 1942

49

saw a black sheepskin coat, covered with a gray material (why was the victim in a sheepskin coat in the summer?). The watch and the other items the Shaulists kept at home, as well as the woman’s patent-leather shoes. They then drank the night away in the hut and shot in the air until 3 in the morning. Rudzinski is in despair: he cannot find the money and gold hidden by his dead wife. Out of despair he drank everything and emptied his apartment, selling his things.

Wednesday, July 15

Red Army men and Poles shot, four trucks (about 70 people). Nowicki from Polukno heard the shouts: “Oh, Jesus.”

Thursday, July 30

One hundred and fifty old Jews, who had previously been eliminated from the ghetto as unfit for work , were brought by trucks through the gate on the strategic highway [the Wilno-Kovno highway]. They delivered them at about 9 in the morning. They buried many of [them] badly wounded. All together about 150 old Jews were executed. After a merciless beating (one soldier complained that he became exhausted performing the beating) they were shot. It seems that many of the badly wounded were buried [alive]. Because their shoulders ached from the beating and shooting they [the soldiers] didn’t want to shoot any more to finish them off. Close contact with the Shaulists (actually they are not

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Shaulists but military men) in Ponary is maintained by Lithuanian railway men, policemen, and the woman from the post office—in general, the whole of the Ponary “Lithuanian colony.”

AUGUST 1942 Thursday, August 6

Twenty people, Jews and Soviets, were killed; they brought them on a single truck. Shooting throughout the forest. One could hear the laughing of the pursuing Shaulists. Applies to July 15, 1942. Two Shaulists came to Ponary. They carried a sheepskin coat and offered to sell it; they went in the direction of Czarna Krynica. Recently, the Shaulists have been robbing people on the streets much more frequently. In Wilno they say that the Lithuanian military men wear special (Ponary) badges. In fact, the shooting is done by people wearing various badges, including cavalrymen. Kiejzik, it seems, is again working at the base. I saw him on August 7; he had a terribly wounded face.

Friday, August 14

They brought 4 people. Of these, one person had already been murdered in the prison; the rest,that is,3 people,were sitting on the truck, covered with a tarpaulin together with the body of the forth. Shaulists surrounded them. It was 11 in the morning. It is not known who they were.

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Tuesday, August 25

Eight people killed; who they were is not known. Weeping was heard and then a quick succession of pistol shots. As usual the Lithuanians did the shooting. Attention. For some time now the victims have been delivered in another truck, painted over “Arbon,” in the following way: the Shaulists sit on the seats and their victims lie on the floor at their feet. At first glance it appears that only the executioners are on the truck and that their victims will arrive later or that the Shaulists came only to fill in old pits and use the opportunity to shoot in the air a little. But the truth was revealed by the indiscretion of the guards. In the same way the Shaulists came several times to level the pits, that is, both without and with victims.

Wednesday, August 26

Twenty Jews, who were hiding in the forest and were recently caught by the Shaulists and the gamekeepers, were shot.32

32. This is the end of the text held by the Central State Archives of Lithuania, No. R1390, 1, b 27. The rest of the diary is in the Lithuanian National Museum, No. D3776.

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SEPTEMBER 1942 September 10

In the afternoon at about 5 o’clock (17:00) on a fine day I was in the hut. Unexpectedly, a passenger car appeared, the window covered up. Germans were on their way to the base and they were transporting one person. They removed the Lithuanians from the base and shot and buried him themselves. When they returned, the Lithuanians dug him up to take the clothes to sell later. It was impossible to find out who he was, a Jew or a Christian.

September 12

Almost punctually at 9:25 in the morning—it was warm and sunny—car no. 51620 arrived with Lithuanians. After unloading the victims it returned to Wilno. It didn’t wait for the Lithuanians, which indicates that there will be another group. At this time shots. At 10:50 the car returns and again they shoot. After which the Lithuanians return. It was a truck covered with a tarpaulin. They supposedly shot 25 people—Bolsheviks, Poles, and Jews.

OCTOBER 1942 Wednesday, October 7

At 8:30 a truck comes from the side of the main highway; shots. The truck returns to Wilno and after an hour returns with a

October 1942

53

group of the condemned. Supposedly they shot a so-called partisan from the Wilno district; there was one from Molodeczno. Why as far as Ponary? The Lithuanians took the things to sell in Nowosiolki and Chazbijewicze. It is said that in one of the garments a card was found to a wife [imploring her] to save him. He writes that he does not know why he was imprisoned.

October 10

One bus; the Lithuanians sit on the benches and the condemned lie on the floor. In this way the act of execution is camouflaged because it can be supposed that the Lithuanians are coming to fill in old ditches.

Tuesday, October 13

Two cars. They brought old Jews and shot them.

Tuesday, October 20

Two cars, supposedly 16 old Jewish women.

Saturday, October 31

Two cars. There were shouts, cries for help.

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NOVEMBER 1942 Saturday, November 14

Two cars of Poles from the prison in Lukiszki. They escaped and the Lithuanians chased them and shot them. The wounded were not finished off so that [the murderers] would not have to drag them to the place of burial, themselves [ . . . ] they crawled [ . . .]

DECEMBER 1942 December 1

When women brought packages to the prison that day the packages were accepted.33

Wednesday, December 2

Almost punctually at 8:30 in the morning, a familiar truck appeared on the road from the direction of Wilno, covered with a tarpaulin. Next to the driver “an acquaintance”—by his face a German Gestapo officer, with glasses and a swollen, ugly bloated face (red). In the back of the truck, Lithuanians who sat in such a way that from the outside they hid the inside of the truck with the condemned. The truck passed the railway hut and then turned onto the main road and from there went to the 33. Sakowicz is referring to Polish women who brought food packages and clothes to relatives held in Lukiszki Prison.

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55

base. Shortly afterward the rattle of the motor could be heard at the base, close to the road leading from the base to the Grodno highway. Most likely near the small pit N 1, since only in that case could voices be heard from the direction of the railway. After a certain time, a few minutes, loud shouts of “Halt! Halt!” Then again quiet, followed by shots. After a short while, another truck. Again quiet for a few dozen minutes and then shots. Immediately after the last shot an escaped prisoner appeared, running on the Grodno highway. He was in light gray trousers without a shirt or cap; he ran in this manner: the route [here Sakowicz includes two drawings of the prisoner’s escape route]. When he fled, he had already been wounded, shot at the height of his rib cage; evidence of which were the marks of blood on his chest and back. When he had crossed the road and run to the forest on the other side of the base he reappeared on the road where the Lithuanian post is located. Here, when he caught sight of the Lithuanian, he turned back and then bumped into fourteen or fifteen Lithuanians from the base and two Germans. The Lithuanians opened fire on him furiously. The condemned man fell to the ground. One of the Lithuanians came running over and with a rifle butt struck the head of the man lying on the ground with all his strength, delivering a blow from the shoulder. Then they commandeered an empty wagon and in it placed the remains (the head was a great mass of brains and blood) and brought them over to the base. They had run after the condemned man some five minutes after [he fled]. Had it not been for the fresh snow, and thus the tracks, he would certainly have escaped, but the footprints betrayed the direction of his escape attempt. Men, each of them shackled.

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Page from Sakowicz’s diary showing his drawing of the prisoner’s escape route

Interesting facts from when, the next day, that is, December 3, I was in Wilno.

December 3

Once more, when the packages were presented (underwear), a few women had their packages returned. It is said that on De-

January 1943

57

cember 2, the lawyer Waclawski [Weslawski] and others were taken from the prison, among others.34

December 18

They brought one car. Six shots were fired.

JANUARY 1943 Thursday, January 28

Three (3) cars from the direction of the main road. The appearance of the prisoners is dreadful, exhausted, from the prison, among them a few women, and there were also Jewish women.35 Lithuanians did the shooting. There were two Germans. The next day, Jankowski sold patent-leather shoes with hard uppers, a large size. He said that these were his shoes and too small for him. This is doubtful, because the size was too large, and be34. Wardzynska, Sytuacja, 61, writes that on December 2 several dozen members of the Polish underground were murdered in Ponary, including the famous lawyer and musician Stanislaw Weslawski, who had been among the founders of the Polish Scouts movement in the Wilno district. The packages were returned because, as Sakowicz mentioned, the Polish prisoners to whom the packages were addressed had been shot the day before. 35. In January 1943, Luba Lewicka, a well-known singer in the ghetto,was arrested with another woman at the entrance to the ghetto for trying to smuggle in a kilo of groats and a little flour. They were taken to Ponary and shot. Evidently Sakowicz is referring to them. Wardzynska (Sytuacja, 64) writes that in January 1943, 19 Poles, including 5 officers, were brought from Lukiszki and shot at Ponary, along with a woman named Lubecka. This may be a corruption of Lewicka.

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sides, they were in good condition, but they had been resoled. Why in that case were they not “too tight” before? They were the shoes of a victim. Snow is falling constantly, as if it would like to make up for its late appearance this winter. The Lithuanians plunder on the roads.

January 31

[. . .] A strong frost, a lot of snow. I traveled by bicycle from the village at 5 p.m.An intense smell of carbolic acid or something like that.

Events in Wilno and the Generalbezirk Litauen, February–March 1943 This period was marked by increased anti-German activities in the Wilno region and heightened German outrages against the local population. Because of the deteriorating situation at the front and activity by Soviet partisans in western Belorussia, adjacent to the Generalbezirk Litauen, in February 1943 the Germans decided to recruit a Lithuanian legion, to be commanded by the Lithuanian general Povilas Plechavicius. Men were conscripted and registered in Lithuania. Most Lithuanians, disappointed in their hope of receiving some form of independence from the Germans and now believing that Germany would lose the war, ignored the

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conscription order. They fled from their homes and found places to hide in remote regions and the forests. Sakowicz refers to these events in his diary. But even in the new situation, many Lithuanians continued to cooperate with the Germans and performed a significant share of the murders at Ponary.

FEBRUARY 1943 Thursday, February 4

The snow is so deep that on Thursday, February 4, two cars of Bolsheviks with shovels arrived at the strategic road and cleared the snow from the road between the strategic road and the base. I hear of continual arrests in the countryside and the search for “Soviets” in hiding. In Bowszyszki they caught one (Siemion); on January 18 they arrested there Trusewiczowa, at whose home they arrested Siemion [hiding] under the oven. In Rudniki they conducted a manhunt and also arrested people. In Stary Macele they arrested 9 people, mainly the Jurgielewiczes, in connection with the apprehension of the former Soviet policeman in Wilno, Zytkiewicz from Stary Macele, who joined a band which the Lithuanians have been hunting for a long time. All this presages imminent shooting.

After February 15

The day before yesterday [Radio] London announced, citing Stockholm, that the bishop of Kovno said that it is not the obli-

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gation of Lithuanians to kill Jews and Poles, and in any case he condemned and forbade it. I do not believe that this happened. Why did the bishop fail to condemn it when Germans and Lithuanians were killing priests, when they took away the archbishop, when they were torturing and murdering Poles? But now, when there are defeats in Libya and Tripoli; when Stalingrad,Rostov,Kursk,Kharkov have fallen; when the Germans are encircled in the Caucasus and threatened in the Crimea, only then does the bishop “condemn” because he sees a foretaste of the defeat of the Germans and simultaneously the defeat of the Lithuanians, who more than any other nation in the world have so many murders on their conscience. Before this he did not prohibit the murders, because then they suited his purpose, to cleanse the church of Poles.36

36. This passage refers to remarks by Bishop Vincentas Brizgys of Kovno, the second-highest member of the Catholic hierarchy in Lithuania. Although undated, it could not have been written before the second half of February 1943, since Sakowicz says the remarks were made after the Red Army’s victory in Stalingrad and after it had liberated Kharkov, Rostov, and Kursk. The Soviets entered Kursk on February 8, Rostov on February 14, and Kharkov on February 16, 1943. According to Avraham Tory, Brizgys cautioned his flock against spilling Jewish blood and on various occasions asked the Germans to modify their treatment of the Jews in Lithuania (Tory, Surviving the Holocaust: The Kovno Ghetto Diary, ed. Martin Gilbert and Dina Porat [Cambridge, Mass., 1990], 316). According to Leib Garfunkel, Brizgys spoke out in his cathedral against the “satanic deeds of the Germans against the Jewish people” (Garfunkel, The Destruction of Jewish Kovno [ Jerusalem, 1959],224 [Hebrew]).

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Thursday, February 18

At 9 a familiar truck appears. It stops on the Grodno highway (not traveling farther on the strategic road) just opposite, where the hole in the fence is next to the gate. Three Germans and Lithuanians jump out and after them men, mainly without coats and caps, their hands chained behind their backs, and after them one tall woman, with a sea-green coat (this was, it turned out later, fur on a gray sheepskin coat). Next to each of them is a Lithuanian who holds the prisoner by the collar with his right hand and a rifle in his left. If the prisoner is a tall person, the executioner holds him from behind by his chained hands. They move in single file. After a short time, hollow individual shots. The Germans and some of the Lithuanians return to the vehicle waiting for them. Some of the Lithuanians return—that means that they will come back again. And that is the way it happens. This time men come out of the vehicle, well dressed, in hats, ski caps, rich coats and furs, good-looking men, so they are not from the prison. Also chained; a Lithuanian behind each of them. Again they set out to the base, again individual hollow shots. Again only some of the executioners return; what this means I shall not repeat. The vehicle comes for the third time. Women get out, only women, mainly young ones, without chains. A Lithuanian gestures toward the forest, and they move, the women in single file, and after the last one the gang of executioners. There is quiet, but afterward sharp shots, small volleys. More than an hour passes. The Lithuanians return loaded down with the effects of the murdered. They place them in the truck and return with the Germans; all of them go away. The end? Shortly afterward in the

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railway hut the Lithuanian Wladyslaw Klukas appears, a routine murderer. He talks about his worries; in his hands are shoes (Polish walking shoes): he wants 4,000 rubles. The shoes are still warm. He says that the Germans shot the men individually with pistols. One was shooting while the other pushed [the victim] into the pit with a club. Women (they were mainly Jewish and Soviet women) . . . The men were shot in their clothes. The Lithuanians stripped the murdered men and hid the clothing under the bushes in the snow. It was the same with the second truck. Only the women were ordered to undress. But after the shootings the Germans began to walk along the tracks: they found almost everything that the Lithuanians had hidden under the bushes. The Germans jeered: Hermanawiczus hid a woman’s fur from the first truck at the guardhouse under the bed, but the Germans found that too. They ordered him to take it to the truck. In the fur a man’s suit was hidden, a good one, only a bit bloodstained around the back of the neck. The German did not notice the suit, so on the way, when Hermanawiczus was carrying the fur behind the German, he quickly removed the suit and hid it. Supposedly some of the condemned were Bolsheviks caught during the last manhunt somewhere near the banks of the river Vilia, east of Wilno. The Soviet women were also with them and were also shot.

Supplemental to February 18

Forty-two people were shot then. In the first vehicle, where the appearance of the condemned was dreadful, . . . there was a young man without a cap, blond disheveled hair, horribly fa-

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tigued. They buried [the victims]; [I know] because the Lithuanians returned with shovels.

Saturday, February 27

In Rudna some partisans, supposedly Soviet, killed two Germans and two Lithuanian foresters at a wedding. After the murder they rested in Wisincza the whole day and then moved in the direction of Nacza.37 That day there was a railway catastrophe near Oran; March 3,a second catastrophe (collision) at the same place. The balance for February. Many Lithuanians escape from Wilno to the countryside before conscription. They mainly escape to Oran, Olity, and Rudziszki. I see this “while on duty” on the road. One can’t stand near the tracks because the Lithuanians are walking about and are very excitable.

MARCH 1943 Friday, March 5

At about 2 p.m. a passenger car with “commanders” appears on the road, N35979 (it seems?), and after it a vehicle with the condemned. After a short while rifle shots. (The vehicle went via the 37. “Rudna” is Rudnicka (Rudninku) Forest, about 40 kilometers south of Wilno. “Nacza” is a large forest about 100 kilometers south of Wilno, in Belorussia. “Wisincza” is a village between Rudnicka and Nacza (English, Nacha) Forests.

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strategic highway, which has little snow; a good road). Then it returns with some of the Lithuanians, so we know it will come back. That is the way it is. It returns, but this time gunshots all over the forest; they escape. I am near the hut, the familiar passenger car returns. In the gentleman’s seat [back seat] is a Lithuanian lieutenant; the drivers are Germans. After a few minutes two Germans appear, with two stars on their epaulettes, one in glasses, young, between twenty-two and twenty-five years old. They are accompanied by a Lithuanian noncommissioned officer. It turns out that they cannot [leave] the base because they do not have gasoline. They send Lithuanians to Ponary to the station with a telephone number: 3041. They wait at the crossing. Suddenly, from behind the hut, a “partisan”38 appears, bearing a package of clothes, a gray shirt. Navy blue or black clothing, part of a woman’s skirt, is visible. He bumps into the Germans,who hold him and order him to take the things back to the bus. The Lithuanian returns through the gate, but again goes out through the hole in the fence, across the railway tracks, and on through the forest (I follow him). He crosses the road (the road to Ponary), where a wagon is standing. He gets on and goes to Wilno. The rest of the things on the vehicle, late in the evening—to Wilno. I couldn’t stay near the hut any longer because one of the Germans began to look at me suspiciously. The one who took the radio is Jurgis Guoba. 38. The word partisan appears here for the first time as a term to describe a Lithuanian rather than a member of the Soviet underground resistance to the German occupation.

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It turns out that Lithuanians and Germans did the shooting, because the condemned ran and were hunted down. A change in command: now commanding the executioners is not a Lithuanian, but two: a German and an officer subordinate to him, a Lithuanian.

Friday, March 19

I was on the road; suddenly, at about 12 noon a “familiar” passenger car appeared from the direction of the little chapel. Inside we recognize the driver, the officer with the glasses in the front, and in the back 2 civilians. First thought: evidently some kind of inspection. The car turned onto the connecting road, and from there went on to the base. We wait. When will the “inspectors” return? But soon, from the direction of the base, three bursts sounded from a submachine gun. And so no “inspection.” Shortly after that the car returned. Inside, aside from the driver, only the officer with the glasses. The back seats of the car are empty. Who were they? Now we can guess that the two condemned men were Lithuanians. Because it must be known that during the past few days, and particularly since Monday, March 15, the Germans have arrested many Lithuanian dignitaries in Wilno and throughout Lithuania because of the Lithuanian protest against conscription. The protest was carried out splendidly. All Lithuanians were working against conscription, from the lowest functionary in the provinces to the highest dignitary in Wilno. The Lithuanian police ordered those who went to the conscription point to return home.

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Saturday, March 20

The same car with the officer with the glasses arrived at about 9 with a truck. This time there was a second car with the truck. Shortly after, shots from submachine guns, and then a short intermission and shots from rifles. So the Germans were shooting with the submachine guns and the Lithuanians with the rifles. At the base it was possible to hear the shouts of only one of the condemned. Later in the afternoon, two Lithuanian executioners, Walter (a Shaulist from the Klaipeda region) and Merkyszysz, spoke about something with Jankowski, who shortly afterward went to the base for clothes. When he returned, he related that there were only rags, horribly bloodstained. Jankowski gave 2,600 rubles for the lot. When Jankowski was on the base, Cz. Okuniewas substituted for him in the hut. Who were these condemned men? Evidently [they came] from the prison of the Lithuanian Gestapo rather than from Lukiszki. In the Gestapo on Mickiewicz Street there are cells in the cellars, and when it is decided not to send [prisoners] to Lukiszki but to Ponary the Lithuanian Gestapo force the condemned man to take off his good clothing and instead give him horrible rags, clogs; the rags are completely devoid of buttons. Such rags were lying in the hut and were acquired by Jankowski. At the end of February, the Lithuanian police took 3,000 [rubles] from those from [the villages of ] Wielki Ligojn and Maly Ligojn, Gudelek, Miedzyrzecz, who did not go to the forest to work.39 The policemen [came] from Polukno. [The money] was collected from more than 100 people—otherwise “the Germans will shoot.” 39. The money was a fine for not showing up for compulsory labor.

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Saturday, March 27

At 11 two vehicles appeared: a passenger car and a truck. Soon rifle shots were heard, meaning the Lithuanians are shooting. The truck goes away alone, which means for a new group. There was a break in the shooting; only three individual shots were fired. Evidently someone was wounded and still alive, so he was finished off. Again the truck, again shooting from rifles. Then the two vehicles return. That means the end of the execution. Quiet; one shot is fired; after a time another. Quiet. Two Lithuanians go out on the road, speak with Jankowski. Only the next day, in the hut at Jankowski’s, did I find out that they were Jews, and only “old women and children.”

Events in and Around Wilno, April 4–5, 1943 The events described by Sakowicz below refer to the liquidation of four small ghettos in eastern Lithuania near the border with Belorussia—Swieciany, Mikhalishki, Oszmiany, and Soly—on April 4–5, 1943. The decision to liquidate these ghettos was made in the wake of increased activity by Soviet partisans nearby. In mid-March, the Wilno and Kovno Judenräte and the Jews of the four ghettos were told that the inmates would be moved to Wilno, Kovno, and several labor camps. To persuade the Jews that they were not going to be killed, the task of overseeing the transfer was assigned to the chairman of the Wilno Judenrat, Jacob Gens, and Jewish police in Wilno. Their job included deciding which evacuees would be sent to labor camps, which to the

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Wilno ghetto, and which to the Kovno ghetto. The transfer was carried out in freight trains. Between March 26 and April 2, about 1,250 people were removed from the four ghettos—mainly skilled craftsmen and their families. In addition, 1,460 young men who were fit for work were sent to the labor camps scattered throughout the Wilno region. The balance, more than 4,000 people (half from Swieciany and the rest from the other ghettos), were told they were going to the Kovno ghetto. The train with the Jews from Mikhalishki, Oszmiany, and Soly left the Soly railway station on the evening of April 4, arrived at Wilno in the early evening, and was hooked up with several cars containing Wilno Jews who had registered to move to Kovno. The freight cars were locked from the outside. In Wilno, Gens joined the Jewish policemen who were to accompany the train to Kovno; they traveled in the first freight car. The train left Wilno before midnight, ostensibly en route to Kovno but in fact bound for Ponary. When it arrived at the station, the train was surrounded by Lithuanian policemen; Gens and the Jewish policemen, realizing that the Sipo had deceived them, were arrested and taken to Wilno. It was only at dawn, as the cars were unlocked and they were led to the shooting pits, that the Jews discovered they were in Ponary. Many attempted to flee but were shot as they ran. Only a few managed to get away. The train from Swieciany left the Nowe Swieciany (Svencioneliai) station on the night of April 4. The next morning it reached Wilno, where five cars carrying men for the labor camps and two cars containing people destined for the Wilno ghetto were

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uncoupled. The train stayed in the station for several hours while everyone on the train from Soly railway station was liquidated in Ponary; then it, too, proceeded to Ponary. When the Jews discovered that they were in Ponary, they dashed from the cars in mass flight, resisting the Germans and Lithuanians with fists, knives, and a few pistols they had brought with them. Most were shot, but a few managed to escape. All told, nearly 4,000 Jews were killed at Ponary that day. Sakowicz provides many details of this Aktion and its atrocities, calling it Judgment Day.

APRIL 1943: JUDGMENT DAY March 25, 26, and 28

Gestapo men walk around Ponary. Everyone is terrified. One of the Germans went to the station asking how many freight cars the reserve track could hold. In Ponary they suspect that asking for such information is a cunning trick to conceal the real purpose of their arrival.

Sunday, April 4, 5 P.M.

Lithuanian police from Wilno arrived on four trucks. They were dressed 1. still in “Smetona”40 uniforms: navy blue or green coats and caps with red trim; 2.in black coats and black soldiers’ 40. The uniforms worn by the army of independent Lithuania, named after the country’s president (1926–40), Antanas Smetona.

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caps ( pierogi ),41 that is, German clothes; 3. in Gestapo uniforms. They brought two cases of vodka with them. In the automobile were German Gestapo people, among them the bespectacled main shooter. General panic [among local people], warnings to one another, hiding of “suspicious” objects, etc. Some of them [the local people] do not stay overnight but leave Ponary. Gestapo men went to the base. We see them examine the nearest pit; they go on into the base to examine something else. Lithuanians stroll about Ponary; the large number (percentage) of police officers among the arrivals draws attention. The Lithuanians kill time in Ponary sightseeing, strolling, and attempting to converse with the inhabitants, though mainly without results, because in response to a question in Lithuanian the answer in Polish is “I do not understand.” At last, like the aftermath of a thunderclap: Jews are to be brought by train from Wilno on the reserve track and shot. It’s already dark and I stand near the gates and hear the arrival of the locomotive, which brings the empty freight cars; it stops on the reserve tracks to Landwarow for a while. Quiet. Shortly afterward a train comes from Wilno and passes Ponary.

[Monday, April 5]

1. At last it [the train] arrived from Wilno and did not pass the house. So it remained in Ponary, because the sounds of the 41. So named because of their resemblance to pierogi, dumplings.

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train’s maneuvering could be heard. The policemen start a bonfire. Quiet! After midnight they go to sleep. 2. I wake up very early; quiet, already light. It is 5:20 in the morning. At about 6 the Gestapo arrive by vehicle. They open four freight cars and order the Jews to get out, but they don’t move. Earlier, they were all surrounded by a thick fence of Lithuanians and Gestapo. There are approximately 5–6 people in a row. They move. 3. The Jews are nervous, but they go. But when they came through the gate with the barbed wire and caught a glimpse from afar of the pits they understood what awaited them. The younger ones, even women, rushed to escape. A volley is fired. Five Jews [run] in the direction of the track—come up against the barbed wire; a German is after them and a few policemen; heavy fire; 3 fall, and 2 get through a hole in the wire; but one immediately falls, hit before he even crossed the track. The second crossed the tracks to the forest facing me, but he began to limp and fell near a tree. 4. The rest of the Jews, mainly children and women, moved on. Facing the first pit a part of the procession is halted. A part— half of them—went on. When they reached the place where there is a thick forest, some courageous ones from this group again escaped. The first group in front of the first pit is ordered to undress. Weeping, groaning, pleading, falling to the feet of the Lithuanians and Germans, who kick them and shoot the most importunate. But after they have been beaten, they undress about ten meters from the pit. Those who have poor clothing do not undress. They are

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driven to the pits and Lithuanians began to shoot from the side. Then a man, already half undressed, at a German’s order, dragged a woman to the pit, evidently fainted or dead of a heart attack. When the woman was thrown into the pit, the man who threw her turned around. The Lithuanians shot him in the head from a short distance; the way in which the skull burst into pieces could be clearly seen, and the person, cut down, fell. At the same time, the rest are being beaten. Already 5 people, a woman and 3 little girls, have been placed at the end of the pit with their legs inside it; from the back a Lithuanian with a revolver shoots, and all of them disappear in the pit. Again a few dozen people are beaten with rifle butts and quickly driven to the bottom, to the pit. From the edges of the pit the Lithuanians shoot at them. At that moment further shooting begins—as can be seen, the second half of the group is being shot. On the edge of the pits, 7–8 men and women are positioned. From the back a revolver is placed practically at their heads, and a Lithuanian shoots. One after the other falls, cut down into the pit. At the same time, some of the Lithuanians, [after] the liquidation of the majority of the first group, march back to the train for more victims. At last 3 men in their underwear remain in front of the pit along with the clothing scattered about the sand. A policeman, taking advantage of the inattention of the German, kicks some clothing into the bushes. The German issues an order and three Jews quickly run toward the clothing, from which we see that they drag out (it can be clearly seen) a woman. This maneuver is repeated twice. At last they themselves jump into the pit. Three shots are fired. The end. No, not the end. The Lithuanians throw the clothing onto a

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pile; suddenly one of the Lithuanians pulls out a child from under the clothing and throws him into the pit; again a child, and again another. In the same way—to the pit. One of the Lithuanians stands over the pit and shoots at these children, as we can see. What is this? The desperate mothers thought that in this way “they had saved” the lives of the children, hiding them under the clothing. Evidently they expected that when the clothing was collected the children hidden in that way might be saved. Unfortunately. A few minutes’ break and then comes a new group, which had been lying eighty to a hundred meters from the pit near the barracks, faces to the ground. And that group is divided in half. Again the torment begins: they must undress; weeping, moaning, pleading. A woman shows the Lithuanians a child, evidently an infant; one grabs the woman and pushes her into the pit with the child. At last a large group of men and women, not undressed and thus in miserable clothes, is driven to the pit. Shooting begins from above. At last 7 women in their underwear are positioned above the pit and shots are fired. Again from the other side of the pit 10 men and women are positioned, again shots. On the square 4 men remain in their underwear. They [the murderers] order them to place their clothing on the pile. Again a child. A Lithuanian directs them to throw him into the pit. The Jew picks him up and rushes with the child into the forest. They run after him; shots are fired. The Jew disappears into the thicket; shots can still be heard. Shortly afterward the Lithuanians return. Did he escape? One of the Lithuanians says something to the remaining three men—Jews accompanied by

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two policemen go into the forest. At this time the third group appears, preceded by furious shooting; the same starts again; undressing. A woman (it can be clearly seen) spits into the face of a German; at the same time a Lithuanian beats her with a rifle butt; the woman falls. On order of the German two Jews pull her into the pit. The shots do not hit her. At this time Jews, accompanied by three policemen, come out of the forest; two are carrying a Jew, the third a child. Together they go to the pit. Three shots are fired. Shortly afterward, 40–50 people rush to the pit, driven by rifle butts. Again shooting from above into the pit. Again the same. A man resists, shouts something, points to the children. A shot is fired—the man falls. A woman gets up, goes alone and crouches on the edge of the pit. She is followed by a teenaged girl in a red sweater shouting “Mama” who crouches next to her. A German then indicates 4 people and from behind shoots each in the back of the skull from a distance of two to three meters. Again they drive a few dozen people to the pit, holding back 4 men in their underwear. The Lithuanians standing over the pit start shooting. The end. A German gives an order and the 4 remaining run to the pit. No shots are fired. The German standing over the pit gesticulates, says something to the 4 in the pit. He lights a pipe, looks about, again shouts something toward the pit. Evidently those in the pit are busy with something. Maybe they are stacking the murdered bodies, leveling them, making piles? At last the German gives the Lithuanians the sign and four shots are fired. A new group, the fourth, and the same, more or less in the same order, to another seven groups; all together eleven groups. At about 11 o’clock everything quiets down. Would that be all?

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Not at all. Because the train remained empty and a locomotive arrived to haul it away. All the property of the murdered was off-loaded from the [train] wagons earlier and put on the ground. It made an enormous mountain of things—food, pillows, mattresses, baby carriages, baskets, suitcases, kitchen equipment, sacks with potatoes, of which there were the most, loaves of bread, clothes—all the stuff mixed together. It seems that from 7 o’clock until 11, forty-nine freight cars [of Jews] were shot; this was the composition of the first freight train. And so in less than four hours, about 2,500 people were murdered,—actually, even more. Very few escaped, some 50 people. The fact that such a small proportion were saved can be explained mainly because only individuals escaped. For example, when a group of 200–250 of the condemned are being led [to the pits], only 4–5 would suddenly start running to escape. However, 50–60 Lithuanians would go after them, creating a commotion. As a result, the escapees are shot without any great difficulty, particularly because practically all commit the same error: they run through the open ground, which is not forested. Nervous (evidently), this causes them to lose their smekalka,42 to begin the escape attempt when the procession nears the forest. It is not yet the end. A new train arrived with victims. Apparently the new arrivals immediately understood which “Kovno” they had been taken to and what awaited them shortly. 42. Orientation, quick wits (Russian).

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Consequently, they changed their escape tactics, which generally yielded better results than with the first train. When the railroad cars were opened and the condemned pushed out onto the tracks in front of the cars and arranged in groups, they immediately (practically all) rushed to escape in different directions. Chaos erupts, shooting, the shouts of the escapees and the trackers. The majority escapes across the tracks in the direction of the road, etc. The Lithuanians shoot. One of the policemen falls, struck by a bullet, and they take him away. It turns out that another policeman aimed at a Jew and hit his colleague, who got in the way. A Jewish woman in a beet-red sweater escapes, followed by a little girl. The woman got past the dangerous open place in front of the station and turned onto the little street. At that moment a shout was heard behind her and then the shout of the child, “Mama, Mama.” She turned around and ran back, practically tripping on a policeman. A shot is fired—she falls dead. The majority ran in the direction of Nowosiolki. The largest number of dead lay there on the street, but there too the greatest number escaped. From that group, barely a few dozen people crossed beyond the wire [of the base], mainly women and the elderly. They are executed in front of the pit; a woman in a long, dark coat crying something, shouts in the direction of the German. A Lithuanian shoots from two to three meters behind her, and the woman falls. The rest run away slowly and heavily, and a few Lithuanians charge them and beat and beat them on their heads with clubs. Some of them jump to escape into the pit blindly, like madmen. Numerous shots are fired; a woman, smeared with blood, in her underwear, creeps out of the pit with a dreadful shriek; a Lithu-

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anian stabs her with a bayonet. She falls and a second one finishes her off with gunfire from nearby. The rest are driven to the pit and placed in front of the pit; about 15–20 people. I see children, all in their underwear; shots are fired. From the gate a new group,perhaps 400 people,appears,quite closely surrounded. Apparently the Lithuanians, learning from the escape of the first group, are guarding the second one carefully. All lie down in front of the pit with their faces to the ground. They count off several dozen people and lead them to the pit. They are saying something. At last one of the Lithuanians says something to the condemned, who begin to undress. A woman with a child in her arms and with 2 small girls hanging onto her dress: a Lithuanian begins to beat them mercilessly with a club. A Jew without a jacket throws himself on the Lithuanian to defend the woman being beaten. A shot is fired—he falls, practically at the feet of his Jewess. A second Lithuanian seizes the Jewish woman’s child and throws him into the pit; the Jewish woman, like a madwoman, runs to the pit, followed by her 2 little girls. Three shots are fired. Oh horror! That group—women, men, and children—all are stripped naked! By themselves they obediently run to the pit—shots are fired. Again, those who lie down are divided into two groups. They drive them [toward the pits]. The shouts of the Lithuanians—“Faster, faster”—are heard. They crowd around in front of the pit and again are stripped naked. Five Jewish women with children in their arms are sitting at the edge of the pit; a blonde in gray underwear; her hand shields the little heads of the children. Shots are fired. Three Jews are not shot; from the place

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where the people are undressed they are dragging a woman to the pit. Evidently she died suddenly. They return, carrying a woman by the arms and legs, then a man, then they return. A Lithuanian orders them to lie face down. The rest of the group gets up; two women do not get up and lie there. A Lithuanian kicks them in the legs. Nothing. Other Jews carry them. All are stripped naked. They shoot. Three Jews stand up, tidy up the place, and then they themselves die. Among the clothing the Lithuanians find 2 children—to the pit. The Lithuanians go for more victims, in two lines. After several dozen minutes of furious shooting, a Jew, young, well built, runs in front of Czesnik’s house, pursued by a police officer. A shot is fired, the Jew limps, the Lithuanian overtakes him at the summit [of the hill]. That one, lying on the ground, raises his hands to plead. The Lithuanian says something. He nods in assent and produces a black packet from his bosom. The Lithuanian takes it, looks it over, and puts it in his pocket. He asks the Jew something. The Jew shakes his head and the Lithuanian, practically from “zero distance,” shoots. The Jews falls. On the dead man is a student card with a photograph in the name of Judel Szapiro, the son of Benjamin—a third-year student of the Swieciany Middle School, dated March 18, 1941. All told about 20 people escape. A little farther on is a man with a child in his arms, thirty to thirty-five years old, with his wife and two teenaged daughters. A shot is fired. The father falls, the mother seizes her husband, shouts something, forgets about escape; the children are next to her. Two Lithuanians overtake them—all are killed. Two other Jews escape straight to the forest, shots are fired after them; they fall down and remain lying down. Although they were wounded they have already

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disappeared—evidently they played dead and under cover of night got up and escaped. In this place, where they [the Jews who played dead] lie near Kondratowicz’s house—a puddle of blood and the working papers of Wulf Liszanski from the Swieciany ghetto. Further on in the bushes lies the passport N504494 of Boris Szapiro (apparently Judel’s brother?). Just before the hillock near [my] house a young Jew falls. A Lithuanian runs to him and beats him vigorously with a rifle butt on the head. His skull breaks open. The next day there are a lot of brains on the spot. Together with Genia Ciesiulowna we bury the brains and find the identity papers—Hirsz Berkowski from Gudogaj. At the same time, in front of the house, a Lithuanian chases yet another, shoots, and he falls. He jerks—a death rattle; then peace. The Lithuanian who stood over him puts down his gun, bends down, and removes the dead man’s shoes. There were nine groups from the second train, mainly (four groups) stripped naked. At about 4 in the afternoon, the end. Four Jews were left. They tidied up the clothing under the direction of the Lithuanians: they broke open bales and poured some kind of white powder into the pits. Then with shovels they put a little earth on them, and at last, when they finished, they got into the pits and were killed. Apparently they worked for more than an hour. Quiet. From the tracks five Lithuanians appear. They go to the forest facing the house and come upon a Jew who was lying wounded in the thigh. They kill him. After an hour a Jew, ten to twelve years old, crawls from the hillock—the poor boy, he doesn’t walk, but crawls. He crawls to the dead Judel Szapiro and then to our courtyard. Walerianka water [he asks]: “Mama

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with my sister over the pit said to me ‘son—escape.’ And I ran away. I’m injured in my leg. Bread.” [He left] from the main road to the byway. He is from Oszmiany. A woman with a child [traveled] from Wilno to Kovno.43 At the station in Wilno to the railroad cars that brought them to Ponary. Here cries, and then they [were] separated and brought to Wilno to the Gestapo. About 200–250 people are going [to the pits], mainly children, a few women of young age. The women carry many infants. [One man is] holding a hand on his right thigh; evidently he was wounded there. Another, a young man, quickly ran through the sawed-down forest and escaped. They are mercilessly prodded by the rifle butts of the Lithuanians. A woman, dressed in dark clothes with a light kerchief on her head, fell to the ground; apparently she fainted. Immediately the 4 closest men were ordered to pick her up and carry her. The sound of the shooting made a horrible impression on the rest of the condemned, who were no more than some ten to fifteen meters from the shooting; thus they see what is happening to their loved ones and what awaits them. Three men and 2 women, one with a child in her arms, run to escape. A Lithuanian overtakes one of the women and hits her on the head with a rifle butt. The woman falls. The Lithuanian seizes the child and carries him by the leg. He approaches the pit and throws him in. 43. This sentence is not clear. It seems that this story is about a non-Jewish woman and her child, who mistakenly boarded the train that brought the Jews to Ponary. There she discovered her error and was taken back to Wilno.

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At that moment 3 men fall—1 killed, 2 exhausted and psychologically broken by the events—caught and driven to the pit with rifle butts. At this time, chaotic shooting echoes from the direction of the railway station; with interruptions it suddenly quiets down; only a few individual shots are fired. Aha, a new group of condemned are going to their deaths. Hearing the shots, they understand what is going on and try to escape from the place, straight from the railway cars. Soon afterward, the new group passes through the wire gate, where I see they are carrying 11 people—either wounded or killed trying to escape. Because the murder of the first group is still going on by the pit, on order of a German the condemned are placed face down to the ground to await their “turn.” When he got off the train,one Jew stuck a knife in the head of a German, who fell to the ground and was taken by car to Wilno. The Lithuanians killed the Jew with rifle butts—that was the second train. In addition to this a second Lithuanian was wounded.

Judgment Day—Notes [Written by Sakowicz few days after April 5]

I’m still on duty in front of my gate.From the Ponary station there is light from a fire; that’s the Lithuanians who are bivouacked there. Again a train from Wilno passed through without stopping. This continued; several more trains passed through. Many escaped to Rajstel. A Jewish woman hid in the sewage pipe near the entrance, but Wysocki turned her in; another Jew fell into the hands of the Lithuanians (from the bridge), near Ludwinow.

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One more “Judgment Day” from April 5 (I wrote it on May 5)

It turns out that in the guardhouse on the bridge (main highway) there was, among others, a Shaulist named Kiewelis, originally from Jewja (Wiewis). He had 4 Jews on his mind who that day by a miracle had escaped by car from the base. Among others, when he caught sight of 2 of the escaping Jews, Kiewelis (he was alone in the guardhouse), in spite of the cold and snow, jumped up with his rifle, in his underwear and bare feet, overtook them, and from his knees shot the 2 Jews near Ludwinow. He forbade the villagers to come near the dead men until he got back; he took off by himself and returned dressed. He undressed the Jews, but before that, naturally, he searched the pockets thoroughly, and then with a hammer brought for the purpose knocked out the dead men’s gold teeth in front of the villagers. When someone said that it was a lot of gold, the Lithuanian replied that he would not sell it, because “it is for myself.” When he finished, he caught sight of lawyer Sikorski on his way to Ponary from the Waka estate near Landwarow. He ordered him to show his documents and then tore them up and ordered him to walk in toward the bushes. When he had walked three or four steps, he shot him in the back and killed him before the eyes of herdsmen from Ludwinow. Then he took a briefcase and his wallet from the dead Sikorski. In exchange for allowing them to take his shoes, he ordered the villagers to bury him immediately. However, the murder was revealed thanks to the dead man’s wife and witnesses from the village. Several days later, at night (in Ludwinow), Pawel Zajaczkowski from Ludwinow struck Kiewelis in the head with a wheel. Kiewelis fell to the ground; oddly, the perpetrators were not identified.

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On Thursday, only one pit, to which I have already referred, was filled in, but not the other. Evidently the second pit will be needed in the future. Jews, accompanied by a few Lithuanians, filled it in. A murdered man was on the other side of the track, right next to the wire beside the house. He lay there until Wednesday; he was taken by the Jews—police. A Lithuanian sold the shoes off his feet.

“Judgment Day”

The man who escaped through the guarded forest and then, having been wounded in his leg, became weak and was later killed, was named Daniszewski Wigdor [Awigdor]; this can be seen from a small card which contains a stamp, “Judenrat– Ghetto Aschmena” [Jewish Council in Oszmiany], dated October 28, 1942. The card was in a torn, empty wallet; after the murder the Lithuanians searched through the dead man’s pockets and wallet.

Events in Wilno, April 6–May 1943 On the morning of April 6, 1943, Martin Weiss, the Sipo officer responsible for the ghetto, demanded that the Judenrat provide 25 Jewish policemen to accompany him to Ponary, where they would bury the dead. The ghetto was panic stricken; no one believed that the policemen would return alive. In fact, they were

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returned to the ghetto that evening, after they had collected and buried between 300 and 400 bodies strewn in the fields—the corpses of those shot while trying to run away. This was the first time the Germans had allowed Jews to see what was being done at Ponary and return to Wilno. The same day, the Judenrat was ordered to send men and wagons to collect the personal effects and food of the victims and bring them back to the ghetto. This went on for several days; the items were turned in to the ghetto welfare department.44

44. One of the Jewish policemen who was sent to Ponary described what he saw there: “Several kilometers before Ponary the car stopped and we were ordered to continue on foot. Around us we could see peasants hurrying home with booty on their backs: the abandoned possessions of the murdered victims. . . . When we entered deeper in the woods, a horrifying spectacle was revealed to our eyes. . . . The whole area was strewn with corpses and pieces of human bodies. . . . Weiss lead us to a huge pit that was full of half-naked bodies. . . . We were ordered to cover the bodies with earth. . . . One of our policemen stopped his work and said the kaddish [the prayer for the dead]. . . . Finally Weiss led us on a tour of the whole area. He gave us explanations as if he were a guide at an exhibition: ‘This is the grave of the Jews who were kidnapped in 1941. . . . The second grave is from the provocation Aktion. . . . And these are the graves from the actions of the “pink pass”— “yellow pass” and Yom Kippur.’ Over one grave Weiss said: ‘This is Jeszcze Polska Nie Zginela’ [the first words of the Polish national hymn]. . . . He also pointed out the grave of Lithuanian priests and the graves of Russian POW’s. . . . At the end of the tour he ordered us to gather up the scattered and mutilated corpses and threw them into a third pit” (Chaim Lazar Litai, Destruction and Resistance [New York, 1985], 58–59).

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Tuesday, April 6

The next day the Jewish police [arrived] with the Jews. The whole of Tuesday, the effects were taken in cars and the Jewish police collected the dead and, in the evening, the effects. In Ponary they do not drink unboiled water—because of the blood? The belongings [left by the victims] are stolen. The better things go the Germans and the Lithuanians, the less valuable things to the Jewish police [to take] to Wilno. On Tuesday a German shot [and wounded] Kiejzik’s fiancée. He stole the things on the wheelbarrow.

Saturday, April 17

About 20 people were brought from the prison in Wilno and shot. There were torn banknotes of 20 rm, 5 rm, etc.45

April 21

The pit was finally filled. Jews worked the whole day.

Wednesday, April 28

At about 1 p.m. they brought by one truck various people, mainly from the countryside, among them a few Jews, and shot them in the pit that was not filled (that is, the small pit near the Rudzinskis’). 45. Reichsmarks.

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MAY 1943 Monday, May 3

A sensation. It was essentially this way: a truck with Gestapo, usually used to bring the condemned to the base, came from Wilno; it was 11 in the morning. A beautiful day, sunny but windy. The truck, traveling along the Grodno highway, stopped 200–250 meters from the serpentine stone. Shooting began. One man was killed in front of the truck. They rushed into the forest to chase someone; constant shooting. The road workers hid in the ditches and heard one of the shooters say in Russian, “Vot svoloch, udral.”46 Then they came to the workers lying in the ditches and asked in Russian what they were doing and whether they saw someone escape. Then they brought the dead man to the truck, obliterated the signs of blood with their feet, and drove to the base, from which many shots sounded. Soon after, a second truck with Gestapo. They demanded that everyone on the road produce his documents. A manhunt throughout the forest until the evening. Under the pretext that I was going to the cooperative in Waka, at 8 in the evening I traveled by bicycle on the Landwarow highway. Throughout the forest near the highway the Germans did the questioning, the Lithuanians did the shooting. There are different versions of this event. Since April 1, 1943, all Lithuanians from the base have been wearing Gestapo-style uniforms. Their first appearance in the new German uniforms was on “Judgment Day.” There is the truck which, as I mentioned on another sheet, stopped at the be46. “But the bastard escaped.”

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ginning of the Grodno highway, where some mysterious shooting took place and someone escaped. It then arrived at the base via the strategic highway to the pit near Rudzinski’s, where earlier, on April 5, Judgment Day, Jews were shot. Here, after throwing the man killed on the highway into the pit, they began to lead additional victims from the truck. They applied hitherto unrecorded precautions; they were led one at a time, with their hands tied behind their backs, and next to them two Lithuanians, each holding the condemned by the arm; after reaching the edge of the pit, the condemned was thrust into the pit with a strong push. On the opposite edge of the pit stood three Lithuanians with rifles who opened fire on the condemned man. They brought, I believe, a total of 11 people, mainly young, and the condemned were not undressed. Two to three hours later the Lithuanians had already sold the clothes. Among them were sheepskin coats (note, in May!). Evidently they were people from the countryside or from the forests.

Tuesday, May 4

Today again at around 2 p.m. (lately they do not deliver in the morning) one car arrived; again shooting, the condemned was bound as on the previous day. The Lithuanians say that they have a lot of work still to do because they are to transport Jews from abroad. Supposedly at the Fourth Fort in Kovno, Jews brought from France, Belgium, etc., have already been shot under the pretext that they are taking them to Sweden.

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Wednesday, May 5

Today again one car, again with the same precautions taken before the executions. Curious, the crows are constantly circling the pit, ravens, which—it can be seen clearly—lower themselves into the pit. As can be seen, they do not cover the murdered, the pit thus will be needed again.

Thursday, May 13, 1942 [1943]47

At about 12 in the afternoon, accompanied by a passenger car, a truck arrived at the pit near the Rudzinskis’with the condemned and Lithuanians. They executed him. Then a second and a third vehicle. The condemned [were] stripped to their underwear, except for 2, who were in dark clothes. One could see that one of them wearing green clothes was led somewhere to the bushes, and then a shot was fired. In the number of executed (about 70) there were 6 women, several Jews and Jewish policemen, and 2 clergymen (from Troky; were they tried in Troky?). In any event, the next day, on [the edge of ] the pit, Jan Sienkiewicz from Chazbijewicze found two thick, leatherbound, Polish48 prayer books. That day the Shaulist Gajlonis, very similar to a Chinese man, brought a partly spoiled cassock to the railway hut, to Trzeciak from Czarnobyl, and demanded 47. When the diary was deciphered, the date was transcribed as 1942, but this seems to be a mistake. The passage appears in the text between passages written on May 5 and May 18; in addition, the Thursday mentioned by Sakowicz as the day when he wrote the passage would have been May 13, 1943. 48. That is, Christian.

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rm. Trzeciak gave him 30 rm. Characteristically, the cassock is heavily perforated [full of holes]. That evening the Shaulists went drinking in Chazbijewicze, on the next day as well. Brisk business.

Written on May 18, 1943

Actually, that shooting (to which I referred) on the Grodno highway49 near the serpentine stone happened as follows: a truck without a covered bed—there were only side-boards—arrived from Wilno. On the serpentine stone, two individuals, incarcerated at the base, escaped. The truck went on (it was 11 in the morning). Only when it entered the Grodno highway, some two hundred meters past the chapel, did it stop. Five individuals in civilian clothes jumped out of the truck, armed with rifles and revolvers. With them got out, or rather was thrust out, some poor wretch, who was immediately shot on the road. Then they began to shoot alongside the road and in the forest next to the road. They were drunk. They rushed to the road workers with questions about whether they had seen the escapees. They asked in Russian. Then they took the dead man and drove to the base. After them came a second truck with Gestapo agents. They asked the workers where the first truck had stopped. Then they drove to the base. Heavy gunfire could be heard there, after which the truck with the Gestapo agents returned, as well as the first truck, empty, without the five armed individuals. I suspect that those 49. See the entry for May 3, 1943.

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from the first truck faked the escape of 2 condemned men—letting them escape on the serpentine—and then went as far as the Grodno highway, where they pretended to pursue the escapee. The Germans, Gestapo agents, discovered this and the five were shot at the base. At any rate they then arranged a manhunt, etc.

Friday, May 28, 1943

At Lukiszki, someone in a prison cell could not take the torture and hanged himself. They brought him to the base. A long (almost two-week) interruption in the shooting. Near the brick factory, Gestapo, five in civilian clothes and eleven in uniform, conducted an ambush at about 11 in the morning. With the help of a fourteen-year-old informer on a bicycle they seized an armed man traveling on a bicycle—young and tall. He was coming from Wilno. Gepisci?50 —[they] hid themselves in the brick factory. What is going on?

Saturday, May 29

The first car [auto] at about 11:15, the second at about 1 p.m. The condemned lay [in the car] and Lithuanians with weapons ready stood over them. A regular Gestapo truck [auto] with a tarpaulin-covered bed, green, which regularly “goes back and forth.” The day was very nice, sunny, warm. 50. Probably a reference to an agent of the GPU, the Soviet secret police, who was in hiding.

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On the next day in the “hut”Wysocki demanded 500 rubles from M. Ligijn for three nightshirts in good condition; the peasant offered 300 rubles. The transaction was not completed. Since May 20 there have been no Lithuanians on the bridge (on the main highway) over the railroad track, but rather Germans and Ukrainians—actually not Ukrainians but Russians, former prisoners of war, who came to work for the Germans for “bread.” Now they guard the tracks. This worked out better because the Lithuanians do not rob on the road—(Lithuanians from the base) they are afraid of the Germans. In Ponary after “Judgment Day” most people do not drink unboiled water because they are afraid that there is blood in the water. Have I already written that?51

Events in Wilno and Environs, June–July 1943 The labor camp referred to by Sakowicz in this section as a “peat bog near Ternian” is Biala-Waka, near Rudnicka (Rudninku) Forest. About 300 Jews were interned there in the summer of 1943. Six of them managed to steal rifles from the Lithuanian camp guards and escape to the forest. Sipo from Wilno arrived at the camp on June 28 or 29, conducted a roll call, seized 67 of the workers, and shot them at Ponary in retaliation for the escape. The Biala-Waka camp was liquidated later; some prisoners escaped and others were taken to the Wilno ghetto. 51. Sakowicz had already noted this in the entry dated Tuesday, April 6.

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The paragraphs introduced by “P.S.,” on July 15, which refer to Jews in the forest and the German dragnet, are not corroborated by Jewish or German sources. Sakowicz’s report here is not an eyewitness account but only a report of rumors he had heard, and, as is the case with rumors, they were exaggerated. One cannot miss Sakowicz’s antagonism toward the Jews; although they were seeking refuge and shelter in the forest, he calls them bandits. He did not understand or did not want to understand that the only way to survive in the forest, as partisans or in family camps, was to take food and clothing at gunpoint from the local population, especially villagers in the area. The places mentioned by Sakowicz are the forests of Rudnicka and Nacza and villages near the town of Ejszyszki. Nacza Forest provided shelter for Jews who had fled from the ghettos of Radun, Ejszyszki, Voronovo, and Lida in the spring and summer of 1942. Most of them were caught by German sweeps, but some joined the partisan units that were beginning to organize in the forests at the end of 1942 and the spring of 1943. Members of the underground unit called Jechiel’s Combat Group left the Wilno ghetto on June 24, 1943, and joined the partisans in Nacza Forest. En route, the 10 fugitives crossed through Rudnicka Forest; they may be the people described by Sakowicz who relieved the peasant of his wagon, food, and shoes. The hunt conducted by the Germans and Lithuanians on July 12, which Sakowicz mentions in his diary, took place in the forest northeast of Ejszyszki; it seems plausible that its victims were Jews in the family camps there. At this time there still were no

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Jewish partisan bases in Rudnicka Forest; the first Jews from the Wilno ghetto did not reach that forest until early September 1943.

JUNE 1943 Tuesday, June 8

Today at about 10 o’clock approximately ten single gunshots sounded, then two volleys. What is going on?

Thursday, June 24, the Festival of Corpus Christi

They brought them in two trucks. A smaller volley or individual shots, I counted [ . . . ] thirty-five pieces. For 300 rubles they sold a coat and beret for a three-to-five-year-old girl, as well as a sheet. A Shaulist named Jonas, nicknamed Joska, sold them. Note: For two months they have been shooting them individually, that is, one at a time over the pit with hands bound. They shoot them in the back of the skull.

Tuesday, June 29, Saints Peter and Paul’s Day

For the escape of 6 Jews from the peat bog near Ternian they eliminated every second man of the group remaining; they were not killed outright but were brought from the peat bog on the main highway to the base at about 10 o’clock. From Wilno only

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Gestapo agents came. The condemned were brought in four trucks.

JULY 1943 Friday, afternoon, July 2

In the morning at about 7, a Gestapo passenger car appeared unexpectedly at the base, and there they shot only one person. Why did they come for only one? They buried him themselves, without the help of the Lithuanians. Note: July 2, Friday, is a holiday—Visitation Day

Sunday, July 4

The Shaulists drank and fired shots. Bullets are whistling over me. I walked to the tracks to see the chicken. Sieniuc was there, and we crouched on the ground [ . . . ]

Wednesday, July 7

At about 2 p.m., one truck appeared, and individual shots were fired in the farther pit, somewhere closer to the strategic highway. The truck returned at 3; wind, but no rain. When the Lithuanians (executioners) returned, they threw off the tarpaulin covering the truck and laughed, and after work they ate something with gusto. A few days later, when I was in Wilno, I was

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told that on this day Wyrwicz, among others, was executed. It is difficult, however, to find out anything because the Shaulists guarding the base, reckoning that it would be a peaceful day, went to the countryside, to Nowosiolki and Chazbijewicze, so there is no one from whom one can find anything out.

Monday, July 12

Unexpectedly, around 5 in the evening a truck arrived. The weeping of women, children, just two revolver shots, then one volley, and it’s all over. Who—I do not know. The “partisans”52 say that it is Jews, but that is not true. I believe that it is the Lithuanians executing Poles, and women and children.53

Thursday, July 15

At about 10 o’clock one truck and one volley and it’s all over. The Shaulists are very secretive. P.S. More or less until this year (1943) the Jews banded together in the forest behaved correctly. Now, however, in 1943 they have become bandits, attacking individual houses in the villages and 52. Here partisans refers to the Shaulists. 53. According to Polish underground sources, 27 women were shot in Ponary on July 17 and 30 prisoners from Lukiszki on July 28. The nationality of those executed is not mentioned (Wardzynska, Sytuacja, 64).

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even whole villages (Zwierzyniec). They also carry out attacks on the roads. On Sunday, July 11, 1943, Jews stopped and robbed a wagon in Rudnicka Forest on the way through Rudniki. They stole shoes and food and are ruthless. The villagers escaped and begin to defend themselves, turning Jews over to the Lithuanians. On Monday, July 12, there was a manhunt in the forest near Sienodwor and Nowickiszek. About 30–40 Jews were killed and several Bolsheviks. Several hundred people were hiding in this forest, and there were seventy to eighty Lithuanians and Germans from Ejszyszki with several submachine guns. Both the Jews and the Bolsheviks were well-armed; they had submachine guns and such like. Despite their numerical superiority the Jews and the Bolsheviks fired a few shots and escaped in panic. This can, perhaps, be explained by the fact that all those Jews and Bolsheviks were mainly escapees from Nacza Forest, where last month they were hunted down by a large number of Lithuanians and Germans from Wilno with three armored cars and several airplanes that bombed the forest. They assumed that it would be the same here, especially because the forest is small; thus they panicked and rushed to escape in several directions: (1) to Butrymance, where they came upon an ambush, dying [and killed]; the majority, however, went to (2) Stryliszki, or (3) directly to Jurszyski. Some remained here in the forest; I saw them when I was traveling that way, naturally pretending that I do not see anything, and (4) directly to Rudnicka Forest. They escaped without their caps, some even in their underwear, taking caps from those whom they chanced upon, and where possible taking their clothes from them. They also car-

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ried out robberies, escaping, among other places to Stryliszki. The manhunt occurred at about 5 in the evening. The attacks by Jews were not dictated by necessity, that is, a lack of money. No, during the manhunt the Lithuanians found considerable sums of money on the bodies. Which is why the villagers prefer to go via Rudna, not on the road, because there are no Germans, but the result is the same. The villager pays, he must pay the Germans levies [ . . . ] In the forest there are cows and other cattle.

July 1943

“Myszka”54 —small, gray, with floppy ears and a long tail. The bitch barks terribly in the evening, even until late, but can be seen in the morning as she returns from the base. Och! The children of Jankowski and Rudzinski know Myszka because they heard cattle at the base; often they frightened her away from the pit. She digs up earth in the pit and then tears up the remains of the clothing of the victims and eats them. She tears up breasts, stomachs, legs— whatever she digs out: faces, cheeks. She is a small monster. But Sieniuc is proud of possessing such a little monster. And Sieniuc is himself of Jewish descent. Perhaps the bitch buries his very close relatives. Vileness or base instinct shields Sieniuc and the actual owner of the bitch, Kwiatkowska, from this horrible state of affairs. When they don’t unchain her at night, or in the day there are some obstacles [to entering] the base she will seize chickens: the little monster even pounces on a big rooster or goose, bigger than she. Com54. A dog; the name means “little mouse” in Polish.

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plaints are in vain. Others do not complain because they are afraid of “Balabosta.”55 For several days we have been seeing through the window whole trains with village men, wives, and children. On the platforms are wagons, wheels; one can see thills, axles, and other poor property; some of the windows are barred, the doors closed. Supposedly these are deportees.56 Oy, won’t it be like with the Jews, “to work.” Then they burn them alive.

July 24, 1943

A car and a truck arrived at the base at 10. Rifle shots and two revolver shots. Curious that the shots sounded throughout the forest, as if someone had escaped. It’s likely that they were Jews who were shot as punishment for the fact that some of the group escaped to the forest. In general there is great excitement in the ghetto; they speak about the impending murder of everyone.57 Which is why they escape. At the base there was much weeping. Wojcik, who is often at the Shaulists’ drinking parties, bought the clothes. Shooting in the distant pits.

55. Yiddish for “housewife”: commonly used in Polish in the Wilno region. 56. The German army suffered defeats on the central front in July 1943 and was forced to retreat in the Oriol and Kursk regions. In the process it forcibly evacuated all the local residents. 57. In late June and early July 1943, all the labor camps in the Wilno area were liquidated. Close to 700 of the inmates of three camps—BialaWaka, Kena, and Bezdany—were murdered. News of these murders caused unrest in the Wilno ghetto (Arad, Ghetto, 368–69).

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Monday, July 26

At about 12 o’clock a car and a truck arrived. Quite a number of Lithuanians and three Germans. The car stopped at the pit near the Rudzinskis’. A novelty: a wolf dog with the Germans. From the car a woman was led out and 2 little girls about seven to nine years old, no more.The German says something,the woman holds out her hands and also says something, weeping. At this a Lithuanian leaps out and begins to beat the woman with a rifle butt.The little girls are terrified, in tears; they take their dresses off over their heads,the woman as well.The German places the children on the edge of the pit, the woman is led to the pit and shot in the neck. The woman falls.The Lithuanians shoot the children with rifles. Again a woman from the car, again undressed, with only her shirt left. The woman tears the hair from her head. A Lithuanian lugs her to the pit, places her on the edge—a volley, the woman disappears. Again a third woman, again a volley. Three men are taken from the car, a volley. Again a few men—a volley, but before this they are stripped. At last one can see that the pit is filled up on this side. Therefore Lithuanians with weapons stand here, and on the opposite side are the victims, who cannot now be seen,as they are cut off by trees and sand.Germans train a dog to catch victims. They order him to escape, and the dog chases the victim. The Lithuanians see this and laugh.

Thursday, July 29

One car; they shot rifles throughout the forest. They buried [the victims] somewhere in a pit deep in the forest. The Lithuanians

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laugh and say that they trained a stupid dog, because like a child he doesn’t bite but only seizes the escapee by the clothing.

Friday, July 30

A truck came with telephone poles. Four Jewish men and 3 Jewish women got out of the truck. After carrying the poles to the designated spot, the Jewish men and women were shot. What are the four poles needed for? Supposedly there will be a telephone, or electric current—well, we shall see shortly. I saw the first pit, facing the house. It was not filled (still one to two meters deep). Could it still be usable?

July and August 1943

That Myszka digs up corpses does not surprise anyone because they buried them badly (it’s a waste of time to bury deep). In general everything is only just covered, even when they were killed last year.So there is a horrible stench at the base.Everywhere one can see pieces of discarded clothing,men’s,children’s,women’s, various bits of the wardrobe, underwear, women’s slippers, men’s caps, gloves, shirts, socks, some books, handkerchiefs, a coat, and everything, or almost everything, unraveled by a hand searching for “treasures” hidden in the clothing. The route of Myszka’s wanderings and returns is always the same: she goes through the hole in Sieniuc’s fence toward the top [of the hill], then she wanders onto the railway track. She

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can be seen when she runs across the track; then she disappears from sight and after a while reappears at the base, on the sandy yellow road that cuts through and disappears among the trees. Occasionally, she brings something when she returns. Once— it was in August 1943—she carried an intestine but, terrified, dropped it down before Sieniuc’s plot. Children placed it on Sieniuc’s fence.

Events in Wilno, August–September 22, 1943 On June 21, 1943, Heinrich Himmler, the German minister of the interior and head of the SS, issued the following order: “All the Jews still remaining in the ghettoes in the Ostland area [the Baltic states, including western Byelorussia and the city of Minsk] are to be shut in concentration camps. . . . Inmates of the Jewish ghettoes who are not required are to be evacuated to the East [code words for extermination].” 58 On August 6, August 24, and September 1–4, the Germans rounded up more than 7,000 men and women in the Wilno ghetto considered fit for labor and shipped them to concentration camps in Estonia, leaving about 11,000 to 12,000 Jews in the ghetto. The events described by Sakowicz for August 1943 refer to these Aktionen. On the morning of August 6, thousands of Jews left the ghetto to go to work. About 1,000 of them were suddenly 58. Nuremberg Document NO-2403.

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surrounded by German and Estonian police when they arrived at the Porubanek airport for work. The Jews began to flee through the barbed wire fences; some attacked their assailants. About 20 of the escapees were killed on the spot. Many others were injured. The rest were captured and taken to the train station, where they were put on freight cars. Meanwhile, about 100 workers at the munitions base in Burbiszki were seized by German soldiers on their way to work. A few managed to run away. Dozens were shot by the soldiers. After they arrived at the train station, Jews once again attempted to escape. (After the incident of the Kovno train, the Wilno Jews no longer believed German claims that they were being sent to labor camps.) About 1,000 men were shipped to Estonia that day; although most of those who fled tried to get back to the ghetto, German and Estonian guards were waiting for them and recaptured most of them. The events described by Sakowicz in his entries of August 6 and August 7 are based on rumors and not events he witnessed. “Nowe Swieciany,” which he refers to, was a railway station serving trains going to Latvia and Estonia. On August 11 the Germans, who needed more laborers in Estonia, sent back one of the recent deportees, a man named Heymann. He brought letters from the workers saying that they were in the Vaivara camp and asking their families to send warm clothing and food. This persuaded some of the Jews in the ghetto that the deportees had actually been sent to work and not to their deaths. The Germans demanded that the Judenrat supply another 4,000 to 5,000 workers for Estonia. The Judenrat was able to assemble only about 1,500, including families who volunteered

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to go join workers who had already been deported. This transport left for Estonia on August 24. The shooting of small groups of Jews and non-Jews in Ponary continued.

AUGUST 1943 Friday, August 6

In the afternoon a rumor circulated throughout Ponary like lightning that in Wilno, Jews are again being loaded at the railroad station under the pretext of being sent to work. Shortly afterward [we learned that] a total of 3,000 Jews in Wilno had already been loaded, and we can expect that tonight or in the early morning that train will be in Ponary. At the same time comes news that they are shooting Jews in Burbiszki, Porubanek, and near Czarny Bor, that the ghetto has already been liquidated, and that around the Wilno station Jews are escaping, that they are being killed, etc.

Saturday, August 7

In the morning I wake up and look [outside]. At the Ponary station there is no train at all. Aha, thus not in Ponary. Then I find out that the train with the Jews has in fact been sent toward Nowe Swieciany. It is said that these Jews were shot in the forest near Bezdan. As to Porubanek, Burbiszki, and Czarny Bor, as I was able to find out, there was only one group of Jews, employed in Porubanek, who escaped to the forest. There were shots;

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some were killed, some escaped. Workers from the brick factory in Dolna saw a group of Jews in the forest tending their wounds. In general the Jews foresee their imminent end, so whoever can, escapes from the ghetto.

Sunday, August 8

That day and in the evening drunken policemen and the two who guard the base robbed everyone on the road. They pull the carts to pieces searching for moonshine.

Monday, August 9

This never happened [before].I already wrote about the Jews sawing wood at the base. Now they brought 6 Jews with a bow saw and, pointing to the blocks lying on the ground, ordered them to saw. When the saw got halfway through an explosion occurred. It appears that this was an experiment, with explosives placed inside the poles. So perished 6 Jews. They were simply ripped apart.

Tuesday, August 10

At about 10 o’clock a truck arrived accompanied by a passenger car, coming from the direction of the Grodno highway and stopping by the pit next to the Rudzinskis’. They unloaded all of them at once. Over a dozen; many rushed to escape. Scattered shooting: the bullets whistled through the forest, where I was

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sawing wood with Kulakowski. We hid behind the meter-high woodpiles; other workers stopped their work and fled. The truck left; only the passenger car remained. Aha, this means they will bring more. And that’s the way it was—after an hour the truck returned. This time single shots because they led them from the truck one at a time. Shots come at set intervals. After every shot Kulakowski says: “Eternal rest.” Then silence. Apparently there were Jews and several non-Jews.

Friday, August 13

One of the policemen says that near the hut he finished off a Jew, who lived for three days longer. Sieniuc’s dog brought his guts from the base. Again ravens.

Saturday, August 14

At about 9 they brought one truck to Rudzinski’s pit. They unloaded them one at a time and then fired. Various victims: two women, several Bolsheviks, the rest civilians from Lukiszki Prison. There was not a single Jew. Now, that is, for the past month, policemen also do the shooting.

Friday, August 20

It’s been more than ten days now that three Jewish wagons and more than 10 Jews have been carrying away stumps from the

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base to the road, where a Gestapo truck picks them up. On Sunday, August 15, a German patrol on the railway tracks stopped a woman (a light overcoat with a dark dress), thirty years old. They handed her over to the Lithuanians, who shut her for the night in Rudzinski’s storehouse, and on Monday morning handed her over to two Gestapo who arrived by truck with the stumps. According to a railroad worker, the Gestapo took her to Wilno. Czoja59 says that she was taken to the base and executed. I believe that she was a teacher from Iwje.60

August 21

Huge clouds of flies reign; they have come here for food. Perhaps they spend the night on the slopes of the pit. The tracks of birds are interwoven with tracks of animals—dogs. In the pits, fleshless legs stick out, skulls, eyes, remains of clothing, or, rather, underwear, and many signs of earth dug up by dogs and birds. It was August 21, 1943. The fact that there are not frequent German patrols on the railroad tracks has emboldened the Lithuanians to carry out robberies on the road. But now robberies take place at night and in the daytime, if they are not drunk from moonshine. They beat and abuse, they turn over wagons carrying wood; perhaps there is something to be found under the wood. [ . . . ] On Sunday, August 8, 1943, together with Jankowski they [stopped many wagons] and robbed them [while they waited] in a line of wag59. A name of somebody Sakowicz knew. 60. A small town in Belorussia, south of Wilno.

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ons [near a checkpoint] that had been set up. When they finished their “work,” broken bottles, spots of milk, pieces of wood, broken wooden whips, crushed mugs, and crushed aluminum pots appeared on the road. Now (in August) there is usually one uniformed policeman patrolling (and this facilitates the plunder because the policeman’s uniform has an official appearance); the second man is a Shaulist in civilian dress (a new acquisition) or another policeman.

Wednesday, August 25

Near Rossa61 in Wilno, in the former Wizytek monastery, Jews were held. The Lithuanians claim that they would shortly be brought for execution.This had to do with the shootings on July 26, 1943.62 They brought a second car and again there was shooting. It could not be seen who the passengers were. (I do not know whether I wrote that at the beginning of July a group of Jews thinned out the forest at the base while the Lithuanians con61. A cemetery in Wilno and the name of the surrounding neighborhood. 62. Twenty-one members of the Faraynikte Partizaner Organizatsie (United Partisan Organization; FPO) escaped to Naroch Forest on July 24, 1943. As they passed through Nowa Wilejka they were joined by fourteen young men who had fled from the labor camp there. Near the forest they fell into a German ambush; nine were killed or wounded.The Germans managed to identify some of the victims. The Sipo entered the ghetto and arrested 32 of their relatives and the overseers in their workplaces, took them to Ponary, and shot them on July 26 or 27.

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stantly threatened them with execution.) In the afternoon the Shaulist Grygsztas (to whom all the clothes were given in exchange for covering the dead) sold all the clothing “wholesale” for 10,000 rubles; he regretted that there was nobody in the Wojcik house, because there would have been an immediate sale. Sienkiewicz from Chazbijewicze (the son of the man shot at the base; in general young Sienkiewicz is now on good terms with the base) bought the clothes. Shortly afterward a train arrived from Wilno (it left Wilno at 5:30 p.m.) and another Shaulist in the hut lamented that he let “such good merchandise” slip. He went to the base and returned after a while bringing a few shoes, a few pairs of galoshes, trousers made from a checkerboard cloth (that is, white and black checks), stockings and four children’s stockings to the hut. He wanted 1,500 rubles for the lot. He was glad that Grygsztas had only covered the upper parts [of the bodies]; even the knees were protruding, so it was easier to undress them. P.S. A man (a victim) fell getting out of the car. The Lithuanians killed him with rifle butts and dragged him to the pit. It was written in Goniec Codzienny63 on Tuesday, August 24, that Dr. Alfred Meyer, Rosenberg’s64 deputy, was in Waka on Monday, August 23, 1943. They traveled on the Grodno highway. In the afternoon, after lunch, they were escorted by trucks with soldiers. One could see that the base on the road also interested them. They stayed a short time (enough); shortly 63. A Polish-language German newspaper. This portion of the entry was written after August 25. 64 Alfred Rosenberg, Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories.

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thereafter they again returned [to Wilno] in the glittering limousines.

SEPTEMBER 1943 Saturday, September 4

A peaceful day. The Shaulists went to the bridge over the Waka River to shoot fish. At about 4 p.m. the truck we knew appeared. It turned left on the familiar road toward the base and stopped before the pit near Rudzinski’s. A few Lithuanians (Shaulists) jumped out, took out a body from the vehicle, threw it into the pit, quickly covered it, and left. Who it was is unknown—perhaps a suicide from Lukiszki or from the Gestapo building or perhaps someone tortured to death during an investigation. He was thrown in naked.

Thursday, September 9

At about 10 in the morning a truck passes and turns toward the base. In the open truck (not the one which usually comes and has a tarpaulin roof), fitted with two benches—along the entire side of the vehicle are benches with handrails—Lithuanians sit; between the benches, on the floor, are badly dressed women, some of them exhausted. Near the driver the familiar Gestapo officer makes clear by his presence the destination of the drive— the base. The vehicle turns, followed by a passenger car, and stops near Rudzinski’s pit. Two Germans talk among themselves at the side; they light cigarettes. Some of the Lithuanians

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jump down from the truck; a few remain on the truck. Some of the women begin to wail. The Lithuanians shout and say something. The women, wailing, undress. Some of them hesitate; a Lithuanian beats them over the head with a club. Several are already in their underwear and stand on the truck. The Lithuanian makes a motion with his arm, says something, and the women in the underwear begin to say something. What cannot be heard, but the Lithuanian strikes the club over the heads of the women in the underwear. They cover their heads with their hands, shout, and some pull off their underwear; the rest, beaten, do the same. They are stripped naked; Lithuanians exhibit something among themselves, touching the naked [women] with their fingers. On order of a German, several women (perhaps 5–6) get down from the truck. Lithuanians with clubs and one of them with a club hustles them to the back and pushes them into the pit; when all of them are in the pit they shoot from above. The rest in the truck, beaten mercilessly, wail and are pushed down into the pit. Again shots and quiet. The truck leaves. Next to the pit two remain (a policeman and a civilian), who fill in the pit a little. Who were they? Jewish women or not? At about 5 in the evening, on the pretext that I am going to the village for grass for the geese, I approach the hut. Jankowski is there, with the policeman and the civilian. And also, as it turns out, a Shaulist, who is at the base for the first time and at an execution for the first time. He is a bit drunk. A conversation begins. It turns out that all together 17 women were shot, including 3 girls—Poles, about fifteen to sixteen [years old], ill, they say, with syphilis; the rest are Jewish women caught while attempting to escape from the ghetto, including 9 from the newly

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organized ghetto at Rossa.65 The Lithuanian curses because a hand is protruding from the pit; he pounded it with a pole, but nothing happened, so he left it that way because it’s too big to cover with earth. But it’s good [he said] that at least they stole a few rags from the truck. There was a new rule: the condemned had to disrobe in the truck and go to their deaths undressed.

Saturday, September 11

In the afternoon a passenger car with Gestapo appears at the crossing. They get out and stroll about. What is going on? Shortly afterward, several passenger cars appear from Wilno, escorted by trucks with soldiers. It [the group] passes the base. They look around and gesticulate at something; it’s clear that it concerns the base. Gestapo agents continually guard the crossing. After an hour, more or less, the passenger cars arrive again. Senior German officers can be seen inside them. They return to Wilno.

Wednesday, September 15

Goniec Codzienny noted that Generalkomissar von Renteln66 stayed with his staff in Wilno and in Waka.

65. Sakowicz is mistaken. There was no ghetto in Rossa. The site merely served as a selection point at which the immediate fate of Jews who had been transported there was determined. 66. Theodor Adrian von Renteln, Generalkommissar (governer) of Generalkommissariat Lithuania, 1941–44.

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Friday, September 17

At about 8 in the morning I find out that a few minutes earlier a truck, closely covered, arrived at the base. I go to the crossing. A Gestapo agent is standing near the gate at the base. Silence at the base. Shortly afterward a volley is fired (where Rudzinski’s pit is). Again silence, again a volley; time passes. All together five volleys. I can hear that the motor is running; aha, this is a sign that it is over and they are returning. Shortly afterward the truck passes the crossing; from the back you can see that the Lithuanians are looking at the effects of the condemned. They [the murdered men] were covered in a very perfunctory way, so that their torsos were clearly visible under a thin layer of yellow sand. The pit was still not full, perhaps 2, perhaps 1.5 meters were lacking to reach the surface. In Wilno they said that nobody was shot, that this is only what was written on posters! That is untrue! After a while two Shaulists return from the base. They begin to talk. It turns out that they shot “Polish lawyers and doctors”!67 They shot them two at a time, undressed. Their demeanor was exceptional. They did not cry and did not beg; they only took leave of one another and, crossing themselves, perished. Practically all the rags went; among other things there remained “elegant high boots” and a few other bits, This according the information from a Shaulist, the nephew of Kulaskis from Skorbucian, a trusted Lithuanian, a regular recipient of the 67. According to Polish underground sources, 10 Poles were shot on September 17, 1943, in retaliation for the killing of a Lithuanian police inspector who was active in the struggle against the Polish underground by Armia Krajowa members (Wardzynska, Sytuacja, 62–63).

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effects of those murdered, whose brother was executed. The following was written in the newspaper the next day:68

Sunday, September 19

Today in the railroad hut Zylis—a Pole with a Lithuanian name—was on duty. A very sympathetic man. Even though he has already had sufficient time to get used to the sight of bloody murders before today, the sight of the captives and then the shootings bothers him. When he looks at the Shaulists moving about, his eyes betray him—the immense hatred and contempt for the murderers, the executioners. When I met Zylis in the hut, the Shaulist Chozanda or Chozandas (the same one who plundered the wagons on their way to Wilno brilliantly pretending that he was a German and not a Lithuanian). Not only did his German (Gestapo) uniform support the ruse, but also his knowledge of German. Against this background there were funny cases. It should be known that Chozanda plundered everything, without exception; without scruple he stole from his own Lithuanian countrymen. He stands at the crossing and stops a wagon in which a Lithuanian man and woman are traveling near Olkieniki. Chozanda inspects the wagon and shouts in German to frighten them. The Lithuanian woman, assuming that he is a German, says to her 68. The newspaper Sakowicz refers to is Goniec Codzienny, for Saturday, September 18, 1943, but it is missing. In the newspaper was an announcement by German authorities about the execution of a certain number of Poles as a retaliation for killing a Lithuanian policeman (see note 67). Sakowicz must have added this to the entry later.

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companion in Lithuanian, “What will happen when the ‘German’ examines [my] paunch and finds the flitch of bacon under the sheepskin coat?” A Lithuanian (perhaps her husband?) says that she should sit still and be quiet. The “German” continues his inspection of the wagon and at the end orders the woman to get out of the wagon and then, handling her rudely, finds the pork. In July this same Chozanda took from the villagers, among other things, 40 liters of moonshine. Today Chozanda frightened the dog that dug up the newly murdered [bodies]. This happened by accident. Chozanda shot at the crows sitting on the tree over the pit, and the roar scared the dog out of the pit. The Shaulists who came to replace the guard always say that the hostages, and in general all Poles, maintain themselves very “bravely”; they don’t cry like the Jews, who kiss the feet [of the murderers] and plead for the their lives to be spared.

Wednesday, September 22, 1943

Today in the evening, at about 6 p.m., Tretjakas, Tretiak, Tretiuk.69 perished. A famous figure, he lived in the village of Czarnobyl with his mistress. He was quite a powerful man, with a black beard,which is why he was called “the bearded one.”Before, as a pupil of the local Lithuanian forester in Gob70 he was a gamekeeper. During that time he abused the local population horribly, knowing that they would not complain about him to 69. Sakowicz evidently did not know the man’s exact name. 70. This name is also given as Gobsty.

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the Lithuanian authorities because the foresters would defend him, after all. He even mistreated those caught in the forest without wood. Later he would go to the secret police, that is, the Lithuanian Gestapo. Worse still for the people. “The bearded one,” who lived with a local woman, learned all the secrets of the surrounding villages. Thus he knew who was distilling moonshine, who had lots of money, who was in a dispute with the authorities, and so on. And this information he used for his own benefit. When he caught moonshiners, in addition to handing over their whole output, they would pay permanent tributes. There were plenty of moonshiners, so the tribute was substantial. The tributes became especially high when a decree was issued imposing the death penalty for distilling moonshine. They paid more in order to save their lives.If someone killed a pig he would also pay a tribute, often exceeding the value of the pig, because there was a decree that forbade the slaughter of pigs. In addition, Tretiak hid rich Jews in the houses of peasants. He simply distributed 2–3 Jews with the villagers and then regularly took money from the Jews. When the money ran out, Tretiak appeared with a rifle and took the Jews, and they were never seen again. One [person] said that he led them to the base, to Ponary; others, however, declared that they saw him go into the forest, from which he emerged alone after a while. But several Jews living under the “protection” of “the bearded one” (but originally from this area) certainly understood the danger that threatened them, or perhaps they anticipated it; in any case, when Tretiak came with the rifle they were already gone. They hid in the forest and later joined up with the bands.

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And so began the hunt for Tretiak, who also disappeared, but was well armed and still at large in the area. Several times “partisans,”71 consisting of Bolsheviks and Jews, raided his place at night, but they never found Tretiak. At last, on Wednesday, September 22, when people were still working in the fields, there was a raid by a band led by a Bolshevik dressed as a Lithuanian policeman. With the words “The scoundrel fell,” they captured Tretiak and, escorting him three to four kilometers, shot him on the way. His body lay there for about two days, until his family took it. But new complications arose. Tretiak’s companion [mistress] submitted a statement accusing the local population of collaboration with the bandits. Fearing that the Germans would seize them all and burn the whole village, the people of Czarnobyl carried all their property to another village. Some of them returned after a few days. The police made many arrests. What happened next is not known. Tretiak’s companion is also hiding, fearing that the bandits are also looking for her at night. The population, on the other hand, trying to save itself, sends a memorandum to the authorities portraying Tretiak not as a security authority but as a regular bandit, citing the cases of the Jews whom he hid and then murdered and revealing other cases of murder,bribery,and so on. But on this occasion other matters also were revealed.A few local girls, to keep from being conscripted to work in Germany, had given their identity papers to Jewish women, who are now working in Germany under their names,saving their lives.In any event a general anxiety prevails, even though Tretiak is already dead. 71. Sakowicz wrote partisans in quotation marks because he usually referred to Soviet partisans and Jews in the forests as bandits.

Events in Wilno, September 23–October 1, 1943 In September 1943 the German authorities liquidated the Wilno ghetto. In preparation for the liquidation, which took place on September 23–24, on September 14 Jacob Gens was summoned to the Sipo headquarters in Wilno and murdered. Then, on the morning of September 23, Sipo entered the ghetto and informed the Judenrat that it was being abolished; the inhabitants would be moved to labor camps in Latvia and Estonia. German and Ukrainian security forces surrounded the ghetto. The Jews were ordered to pack their belongings and told that everyone must report to the ghetto gate by noon. Any people who stayed behind would be killed in their houses. Most people, believing that they would be sent to labor camps, obeyed the order. But hundreds (perhaps as many as 2,000) guessed that they were going to be killed and went into hiding. That afternoon, thousands of people began moving toward the gate of the ghetto. The Sipo stood by the gate and counted the Jews passing through and directing them toward Rossa Square. There, at a German checkpoint, accompanied by blows, screams, and tears, the men were sent in one direction and the women and children in another. Although it was raining, thousands were held through the night in the open air, closely guarded by Ukrainian detachments. The next day, September 24, the men were taken to the train station, packed onto freight cars, and shipped to Estonian labor camps. The women and children met a crueler fate. On the afternoon of September 24 they were ordered to pro117

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ceed toward the gate of the nearby monastery, where Germans and Lithuanians made a Selection: young and healthy women were sent to one side; the rest of the women and all the children to the other. The Jews knew that they were being divided into “essentials,” those who would live, and “nonessentials,” those who would die. Many women begged the Germans to let them accompany their children to the side of the “nonessentials.” Some women tried to hide their infants in the parcels they carried. That evening, between 1,400 and 1,700 women were transported to the Kaiserwald concentration camp near Riga in Latvia. The “nonessential” women and children, numbering between 4,000 and 5,000, were put on a train for the Sobibór extermination camp in Poland. Some people managed to jump off the train before it reached Sobibór. A few hundred, the elderly and ill and some of the women and children, were taken to Ponary and murdered. About 2,500 Jews were left in Wilno, mainly craftsmen and their families, working for the German military in the Heeres Kraftfahrpark (HKP) and Kailis labor camps and two smaller camps inside the city. More than 1,000 Jews hid in the empty ghetto or elsewhere in the city.

SEPTEMBER 1943 Friday, September 24

Today, at about 10 in the morning, a bus arrived and stopped near Rudzinski’s pit (where the hostages where killed). With ri-

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fle butts the Lithuanians hasten the stripping of the victims to their underwear, after which they are driven into the pit and shot from above. The shooting, quite disorderly, in which a German with a revolver also helped, lasted only a short time. Soon afterward the bus left, but some of the Shaulists remained, so there will be more victims. Characteristically, while waiting for the second bus, there was absolutely no attempt to cover up the first group of those killed with earth. When the second bus arrived, many Jewish children and several men climbed out. The children undressed, and the Lithuanians used sticks to calm those who were crying. The men [Jews], however, threw out a body from the bus, which they then threw into the pit; they in turn began to undress to the accompaniment of shouts and blows from the Lithuanians. Then what happened before was repeated; they were driven to the pit and shot. Late in the evening Kulaski (Kulaskis) brought the things to Skorbucian. When he caught sight of me traveling toward him, he got off his bicycle and, under the pretext of repairing the bicycle, turned away. I pretended that I did not notice.

Saturday, September 25

Today, at night, [a train] with Jews passed through Ponary, but I couldn’t tell in what direction it was going. There were already rumors that on Friday it had been standing on the siding in Wilno. It is even said that “its destination is Ponary.” And so there are fears of an April massacre.72 This time not. The train traveled on and only stopped for a moment before the 72. That is, similar to the Judgment Day massacre of April 5, 1943.

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bridge in Ludwinow. When it passed through Ponary, some of the Jewish men and women leapt from the cars. One of the Jewish women jumped so badly that she broke both legs and remained on the tracks. Germans who were busy patrolling the tracks in connection with the explosion of mines near the tunnel found her. These Germans also seized three other Jewish women, who had successfully jumped from the cars but did not immediately know which direction they should go to escape and unfortunately fell into the hands of the Germans, even though it was dark. They were held in the barracks near the tunnel. Wilno was contacted, and an order arrived to turn over the captives to the Lithuanians at the base. These, however, stopped a wagon on the road, brought it to the barracks, loaded the Jewish women on it, and took them to the base, where they were murdered. Naturally, before that they were stripped naked, even the one with the broken legs. Chozanda was among the Lithuanians. The clothing was exchanged for moonshine.

Monday, September 27

A Lithuanian from the base says that there will be a group to be shot today.They sit in the hut. At about 10:30 a bus appears, but not the usual one; the bed is covered with a tarpaulin on which “Deutsche Reichsbahn” is written in big letters and “N15239.” Near the driver sits a German railway man, but next to him, to my astonishment, I catch sight of the Gestapo agent who usually directs the shootings. The vehicle, tightly covered at the back, passes the hut, enters the base, and stops near the gate. A Ger-

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man jumps out of the vehicle and opens the gate, and the vehicle enters. The German closes the gate quietly and carefully, then gets back in, and they go on to the pit. They lead them out, one at a time, to the pit, and shoot (as in the drawing of Katyn); all together twenty-six shots are fired; then, in the space of ten to fifteen minutes, seven more shots, one after the other. What this means I do not know. Although I saw the execution from Rudzinski’s (near the fence), unfortunately, this time the vehicle stood beside the trees, so the vehicle itself obstructed my view of the shootings of the condemned. Supposedly they were not Jews, but Poles from the Gestapo prison. It lasted one hour.

Wednesday, September 29

Today a truck arrived, one; again they were from the Gestapo prison. The Lithuanians say that there were 25 people, mainly Poles. The truck didn’t come until about 3 p.m. The change of hour and truck (Reichsbahn) is evidently for deception, because the partisans73 are nearby. Recently they were in Wojdaty and burned the factory; I believe it was on the nineteenth of this month.

OCTOBER 1943 Friday, October 1

Today is a holiday, the feast of Our Lady of Rozaniec [Rosary?]—a holiday especially venerated by Poles, whose queen is 73. Here the reference is obviously to Soviet partisans.

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the Holy Mother of God. The Lithuanians and Germans observed the holiday in Ponary by shooting. In the labyrinths, cellars, and other underground hiding places of the Wilno ghetto, a number of Jews were discovered hiding to save their lives. They were brought [to Ponary] and again [there was] shooting. It is interesting that the Lithuanian Gestapo agents doing the shooting are dressed in civilian clothes, just as they were the first time, in 1941, when those firing were not in uniform. Two trucks with 50 people each were brought. The method of shooting remained the same. The victims had to undress and then get into the pit. The Shaulists shot from the edge, that is, from the top. A method that has a horrible result: to save themselves some of the victims pretend to be dead, but this does not save them for they suffocate under the weight of the bodies of the next ones [ . . . ] or Shaulists shoot at them when they begin to move. During the execution (shooting) one Jewish woman, as recounted by a Shaulist, shouted from the pit with all her might: “Don’t shoot us, because there will be revenge.” The Jewish woman’s outcry made the executioners again suspect that there were Jews hiding in the forest. So 4 Jews were left with the second truck and told that if they revealed a hiding place their lives would be saved. The Jews revealed a hiding place. In the evening Kulaskis carried a sack to Skorbucian.

Events near Ponary: October 1943–April 1944 The entries in Sakowicz’s diary written from early October 1943 until the last entry, November 6,1943, relate chiefly to the continued executions of Jews found in hiding and the activities of Soviet

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partisans, including Jews, whose bases were in Rudnicka Forest. Most of those who hid in the ghetto or the sewers were rooted out in searches conducted by the German security forces in October and November 1943 and later or were forced to abandon their hiding places when they ran short of food and water. Many hiding places were discovered by Poles and Lithuanians, who went into the ghetto for various jobs or to ransack it for abandoned property, and reported the Jews’ presence to the Germans. Those who were captured were detained in cells in groups of 50 to 100 and then taken to Ponary and shot. Some Jews found hiding were tortured or promised their lives in exchange for revealing the hiding places of other Jews; probably some of them did. Over the coming months almost all the Jews in hiding were caught and shot at Ponary. Meanwhile, as part of the German campaign to hide the traces of the mass murder (code-named Operation 1005), about 80 Jews were held at Ponary. Almost all were former residents of the ghetto who had been caught after the liquidation. These men, wearing leg irons, were housed in an underground bunker, a pit six to eight meters deep and fifteen meters in diameter. Access to the bunker was by a ladder, which was hauled up after the prisoners were inside. The bunker was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and a minefield. These last survivors were put to work opening the mass graves and removing the corpses, then stacking them in large piles and burning them. Knowing they would be killed when they completed the job, the prisoners sought ways to escape. They managed to dig a tunnel, thirty to thirty-five meters long, running from the pit under the barbed-wire fence and minefield.

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The dirt was scattered in the cells in the pit. The excavation, carried out at night using bare hands and spoons, went on for three months. The mass escape took place on the night of April 15, 1944. Using a file they had found somewhere, the men removed their legirons. About 40 managed to get through the tunnel before the guards discovered the escape and opened fire. About 25 of the escapees were caught or killed; 15 got away, most to Rudnicka Forest, where they joined the partisans. To replace the escapees, the Germans brought 70 men from the Kailis camp to continue the work of burning the corpses. All were shot before the Germans withdrew from Wilno. Soviet partisan activity in Rudnicka Forest began in the summer of 1943, when a group of parachutists set up a base in the area. A vanguard of pro-Communist Soviet-Lithuanian partisans arrived in Rudnicka Forest at the beginning of September. The first to arrive in the forest from Wilno ghetto were seventy members of Jechiel’s Combat Group, who left the ghetto at the beginning of September. The FPO members who left the ghetto on the day it was liquidated arrived in the forests in late September and early October. Others, who had been in hiding or working in the Heeres Kraftfahrpark or Kailis labor camps in Wilno, arrived during October. A total of about 250 men and women from Wilno, mostly teenagers and young adults, reached the forest. Here they organized four partisan units (otriads) as part of the Soviet-Lithuanian movement commanded by the Lithuanian Jew Henrik Zimanas (nicknamed Yurgis), a parachutist who

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had been sent from the Soviet Union to organize them. During October and November, Jews constituted a substantial proportion of the Soviet partisans in Rudnicka Forest. Sakowicz’s disapproval of them is reflected in his reference to them as “bandits.”

OCTOBER 1943 October 2

When I went to Nowickiszek, near Ejszyszki, the way through the [Rudnicka] forest was full of cartridges from the shooting between the Bolsheviks and the Germans. A German officer was killed on the bridge [over the] Mereczanka. They shot him when he went by in his car. The Lithuanian post on the bridge at Solczy escaped to Ejszyszki; they are afraid of partisans. This was a great relief to speculators. Germans in Titiancy also began to reinforce the walls of their barracks with earth. On the road in Titiancy and Polukno, before the Ortskomendantur,74 they set a checkpoint and inspect cars. This had not happened previously.

October 1943 [this entry was written by Sakowicz after October 2 ]

On the Grodno highway curious events September 16 to 17.On the Grodno highway they [Soviet partisans] burned the bridge over the Lukna near Madziuny. It is curious that the Germans did not come the two kilometer distance from Polukno. They 74. The quarters of the German military commander.

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are frightened. On October 2 the band stole for a second night (October 1 and 2); they take the wagons with the merchandise and drive to the forest. This night, October 2, Polstoki, Wojsiaty, Jacewicze, Podborze [were robbed]. When they stole in Polstoki (Zaniewski family—wealthy farmers),one of the girls,born in Puszkarn,currently working in Polstoki,recognized a bandit— a “good” Lithuanian acquaintance from the village of Kursze. When the bandits came into the courtyard, they spoke among themselves in Lithuanian. Among the bandits were Bolsheviks who emphasized that they were from the wostock,75 and they only take food—bread, lard, that’s all. But for what do they need clothing, especially women’s clothing and other items, like rings? That is the way Bolsheviks steal: only food [ironically], no other stuff.

Monday, October 4

At about 10:30 in the morning, the Deutsche Reichsbahn truck N 5800 DR arrived (this one was here for the first time), followed by a limousine with Gestapo officers, N71579–Pol., a beautiful new limousine. Fifty victims brought from the ghetto were unloaded and, after all had been driven to the pit and shot, it turned out that the 4 who gave away the hiding place had also been shot. At about 11:30 [the truck] went to Wilno again. That day three truckloads were shot; they didn’t get to the fourth. 75. Russian for “east.” Russians and other Soviet citizans who came from more eastern regions of Soviet Union (based on pre–September 1939 borders) were called Vostochniki: people from the east.

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It seems that separating 4–5 Jews and temporarily offering them their lives yields good results for the executioners. According to the Shaulists, there is supposed to be an unexpectedly large amount of work [coming]. In the evening at about 7, Kulaskis on a bicycle with a sack bargained [for the “merchandise”] near the hut of Kuczok. That evening they drank so much that Jankowski did not hear the mine explosions at about 9:45 near Wodziag—this is before Landwarow. In Ponary there is fear, because on the night of October 3–4 there was an explosion near the main [road].

Wednesday, October 6

For a day there was a break; today, again, intensive speed—until now there has never been an execution carried out by moonlight. However, it must be said that in this case the Lithuanians have proven good psychologists of the Jews sentenced to death with their tactic of searching for Judases who, for the doubtful possibility of saving their own lives, have betrayed their brethren’s well-concealed hiding places. Now the Lithuanians confirm the effectiveness of their tactic when they bring a [new] group. They separate 3–4 Jewish men and women and shoot the rest before their eyes. When it is the turn of these 3 or 4 they tell them “you will live,” but they must reveal hiding places. When one of them reveals one, he goes to the city, to the ghetto, but immediately returns and dies. At the same time a new “troika” of Judases is chosen, as in a cycle, with excellent results for the executioners and a fatal ending for the Judases. And so, by general reckoning the mass execu-

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tion of Jews in Ponary is over; the rest were taken to Latvia or Estonia and only the Jewish skilled workers, whose execution should not be expected soon,remained in Wilno.It turned out differently [from expected]; the Jews’ hiding places were found out. Today at the base a great movement, in total about 400 Jewish men, women, and children were executed. The execution began quite late: only at 4 p.m. did the first large Deutsche Reichsbahn truck arrive. They are enormous trucks that have not traveled on this stretch of death until now. Apparently the Gestapo requisitioned these trucks from the railroad. This evening a total of eight trucks arrived with the condemned, that is, two trucks of victims at a time. The Lithuanians joked that the Jewish men, women, and children were loaded like potatoes, one on top of another. And the execution continued under the light of the moon, still [going on] at 7 o’clock. Beautiful, quiet, and warm weather. They were unloaded in front of the pit, ordered to undress, and driven to the pit naked and shot from above. They were driven to the pit 15–20 at a time so the next people could see how they themselves would die. Many items remained from the dead, and since the morning of that day the “merchants” have been sitting around the hut, with the sorter Kulaskis from Skorbucian at their head. In light of the fact that the executions continued into the evening, transactions were not carried out, but the whole band of merchants and Shaulists drank the whole night long. The drinking bouts now take place inside the barrack at Rudzinski’s. Today Ogorczonek, in disgrace with the Lithuanians, had to vacate his apartment and move to Ponary. The Lithuanians recount that the naked Jewish women in

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the moonlight looked funny: all of them were dejected and horribly tired. Today the whole day the remnants of the clothes scattered about the forest were burned, a great smell of burnt wool.

Thursday, October 7

Since morning, near the crossing, a market for the effects of yesterday’s victims. They await new victims. There certainly will be, because yesterday’s “Judases” revealed new hiding places. Because the Jews sit in specially prepared hiding places, often within walls in the cellars, time is lost reaching the hidden people. This is why executions take place not in the morning but in the afternoon. The first truck, with the Gestapo command in an open passenger car, N35979, which usually travels behind the truck, arrived at 4 p.m. (Note: the second day, that is, yesterday and today, shooting was not in the pit near Rudzinski, where the hostages and the priest perished, but in the pits en route from the main road; from which they also come.) That day a total of three large trucks arrived, one after the other. It is interesting that there is no sustained rifle fire, but rather sporadic rifle shots. The same system as yesterday: undressed and driven to the pits with rifle butts.

Friday, October 8

Today there were two trucks; system of shooting—like yesterday. The shooting in the pit en route from the main highway be-

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gun at 2 p.m. The Gestapo command, two officers and four Lithuanian civilians, arrived in limousine N28693.

October 6, 7, and 8

Three nights in a row the bandits rob the village of Strakiszek; the population is in tears. That night Stary and Nowy Miedzyrzecz, Pilalowka, Dobrowola, and Wielki and Maly Ligojn were also robbed and several dozen wagons left for the forest with looted property and provisions. A sensation. October 7 at night fire destroyed the bridges in the forest over the Mereczanka and over the Solcza, where there was a Lithuanian post that had escaped earlier. They say that it was partisans: seeing that there was heavy artillery on the highway that leads to Wilno, they decided that it was essential to cut that artillery off and they burned the bridge so that other units would not be able to use the road.

October 10

Evidently there are battles going on near Wielikie Luky, because there are many wounded on the trains.The Germans carry them back themselves. They are actually evacuating everything from somewhere, even semaphores and airplanes.

October 11

Today two German barracks were destroyed by fire (at night) in Gobsty, the work of Bolsheviks. In the forest, quiet. Railroad

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guards have escaped from their work in Rudnicka Forest, abandoning their posts. A whole area in the forest, ten kilometers long, has been cut off from the German world as a result of the burning of the bridges. The Judas tactic yields good results: today again more than 300 Jews were killed—all together eight large trucks. The constant shootings, practically every day, have caused the Lithuanian who trade effects with the sorter Kulaskis from Skorbucian to be at the crossing permanently, day and night. They drink entire nights away; in the hut Kulaskis has a canister with moonshine. They are low on cigarettes, for which they pay 120 rubles for twenty, if there are any. In private trade, twenty cigarettes cost 60 rubles on average, or half as much. The pace of executions in Ponary is, among other reasons such that the Lithuanians [have to] bury the dead.However,one cannot imagine that the Germans would do this “black” work. The Lithuanians want to put less earth over them; this depends mainly on there being relatively flat surfaces rising up after the shootings at the bottom, so the victims must lie in the pit, not creating hills. So on this open ground the Lithuanians use a new method of murder: they lead the victims to the pit and after placing them in the more or less appropriate place, they shoot them. And so, for several executions there have been no volleys, but rather individual rifle shots, intermittent shots, designed to finish off those who were not killed: the wounded victims. From the other side, however, individual victims are led from the truck, preventing escape attempts and thus “troublesome” cases of shooting someone outside the pit and, because of this, dragging [the person] to the pit, do not occur. When victims were brought they were regularly accompa-

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nied by an open limousine, N75659, with Gestapo agents, with whom, among others, sat Chozanda or Chozadas with a rifle.

Tuesday, October 12

I believe that the “ghetto” has been finished. Today, since morning, the Shaulists have been waiting for Jews, “the ones who sew the sheepskin coats,” that is, from the Kailis leather factory. The Gestapo feel the lack of vehicles. That is why it is also not known whether there will be shooting.In the afternoon it was explained that the vehicles aren’t here,and so those who sew the sheepskin coats will not be shot today. It would be different with the first group of skilled workers. Curious what has become of Feigus.76 They are certain that before winter they will be needed as skilled workers. The front has been shortened, so not as many sheepskin coats are needed now.

Wednesday, October 13

In addition to what I wrote the day before yesterday: Correction: The individual shots, not volleys, which have gone on from the beginning of this month, are for the following reason: the Jews already know what Ponary is; they know that their passive behavior at the base is a certain path to death.However, the majority of those who in the previous months saved 76. A physician in the Kailis camp. He and his family were murdered in Ponary on July 5, 1944.

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themselves by escaping returned from the base to the ghetto. Only a small number went to the forest. Those, however, who returned to the ghetto are living evidence that at every opportunity even those without hope shouldn’t passively submit to the executioners. Therefore when the truck arrives at the base and the Jews are led out from the truck, they start to escape all together, not singly as, for example, the Poles do. The Lithuanians chase, shoot, and, where a bullet hits, there lies a body in the forest. Then the executioners have trouble bringing the bodies to the pit. In order to avoid that, they started leading only a few people from the truck at a time. In addition to this, leading them one by one presents the possibility of placing the victims in the pit more or less in the correct order so not to create a pile of bodies in one place in the pit, which makes a lot of work filling it up. Where the bodies are spread out, it isn’t necessary to work for a long time in the pit. The Shaulists are waiting for something, because there will be a group. How many is not known, but I believe that it “will be those who sew the sheepskin coats.” And the merchants also wait. They are not disappointed. At about 12 in the afternoon a truck, tightly covered, N28693, and after it a limousine, N72621–Pol. In the back of the truck Lithuanians sit next to one another with their backs to the outside so that they conceal the victims. Uniformed Lithuanian policemen, such as we see on the streets directing traffic, others in Gestapo dress or civilian clothing. In the limousine is the Gestapo command. Shooting continues in the farther pit, the one close to the main highway. In general since the beginning of October they shoot not in the pit near Rudzinski’s but near the main highway,

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even though the pit near Rudzinski’s is not full. They also travel now, not as they did previously but on the strategic highway. Individual shots. After forty-five minutes the vehicles return to Wilno, and come back; again shots. At about 4 p.m. the end. There was a scare on the highway: eight empty cars with machine guns stopped near the crossing, and two passenger cars with Gestapo officers arrived at the station in Ponary. It could be assumed that they were about to carry out a manhunt in Ponary, but no—it’s some column that went to Grodno, not knowing that there are no bridges, so it has now returned.

Thursday, October 14

The first truck arrives at 4 p.m. and the next after 5:00. It was already dark; the sky was covered with heavy rain clouds, so there is no moon. At the base individual shots are fired frequently; suddenly several shots, one after the other and, as the echo betrays, not from one place. Aha, the victim is attempting to escape and they are chasing him.

Friday, October 15

Today also two trucks, the first at 3 p.m., the second at 5 p.m. Individual shots. I measured the speed of the shots with a watch, near the highway. In the space of a minute, three to four shots, at irregular intervals, but after the shots in the space of a minute, as I have observed, there are pauses—one to two minutes, then again three to four shots, then one to two minutes’ interruption.

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Suddenly,frequent scattered shots moving away: aha,an escape! Then silence for five to six minutes, then again individual shots. Today a truck with Germans was welcomed to Ponary. They were quartered in practically every household, occupying the best rooms (“the dance of the youth, who must after all have fun, is over?”). These are units assigned to the struggle with the partisans. Mainly older men, coughing, sneezing. They arrived from the area around Polock, they were also near Briansk, and they hunted partisans near Sarny, where they were also forced to use gases. In general, when they speak about partisans they do not hide that they are afraid. The Germans look around everywhere, etc. A man lives within hermetically sealed walls, but it seems as though he lives in a wire cage or in a house with glass walls, for what the resident does at home can be seen from outside. At the base on the road near Rudzinski’s pit lies a sack stuffed with white things.Near the sack on the earth white spots; it is underwear, prepared for transport to be sold.

Monday, October 18

I mentioned at some point Stenka K[wiatkowska],77 who traded in the bloody effects; in addition, she appropriated for herself the effects of two Jewish families and is also the owner of the vampire-bitch Myszka. And so, as the women of Ponary say, Stenka met with a punishment from God: several dozen days ago Stenka was delivered of a baby boy. This morning, however, the neighbors heard Stenka’s spasmodic weeping. What hap77. See the entry for July 1943, where the name is spelled “Stenia.”

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pened? It turns out that Stenka’s son is dead. Therefore there were various guesses at first: that it was the bitch that bit him; later, that the child was strangled; and so on. A few hours later it was revealed that the child choked. Everyone repeats that it was a punishment from God. The Shaulists recount that last week, among others, more than 20 Jewish men and women were shot. They were trying to save themselves and had escaped from the ghetto and hidden in the building on Smolenska Street among the Jews employed at the Kailis leather factory. Today they again brought a group to be shot. One truck: thirty-two separate shots were counted. They were shot in the pits closer to the strategic highway. In Ponary, that is, in the forest, the Germans are building a barbed-wire fence, supposedly to impede the partisans in their unhindered access to the tracks. Today, at night, Dr. Tatarul and his daughter were murdered in Nowosady, and his wife, badly wounded, lay without medical help for two days. Who murdered them, I do not know.

Saturday, October 23

[As I am] returning from Madziun, on the highway near Gudelek (three hundred meters) lies the body of a man. A boy explains that twenty or thirty minutes ago the man went in the direction of Wilno; two bicyclists coming from the direction of Polukno overtook him, opened fire, and quickly turned back. The body was already shoeless. I didn’t meet any bicyclists, so they must have turned off into the forest. The police arrived; the body lies for now in Gudelky, awaiting an investigation. In the pocket the police found a document; it is Aleksander

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Maczus from Wilno. He had three suits on him and several shirts. What is this? Perhaps some reckoning between people “from the forest”? On Monday, October 18, 1943, Blinow, who hid from the conscription and joined the [partisan] bands, was found in the forest near Lukanc, shot and near death. On Wednesday,October 20,the band surrounded the house of L. Zacharzewski in Lukanc. They killed a woman from Madziun who happened to be there and burned the house,immolating the dead woman, together with her 2 small children and the 2 small children of L. Zacharzewski, who sat hidden in the pigsty with his wife during the raid and saw everything.Zacharzewski is in hiding, since he is suspected of the killing of Blinow. The raids of the bands are increasing. Two garages were burned near the barracks in Gobsty, the last barrack near Gobsty was destroyed by fire, and the turpentine factory nearby was also destroyed by fire. The Ortskommandant’s office received a written notification “from the forest” that [partisans] had burned the barracks in Polukno. The Ortskommandant’s office in Polukno has entrenched itself, the police as well—they don’t go out on the highway. On Saturday, October 23, at night, and on Friday the 22nd, all the telephone poles from Gobsty to Ropia were cut down on both sides, interrupting telephone communications from Ejszyszki and Olkieniki to Wilno. Over and over the Germans mistakenly travel the road to Grodno by car and then have to turn back because there is no bridge. Today a whole long column returned. Disorder. The villagers cut down the forest in broad daylight; days at a time they work in the forest, and in the villages, like mushrooms after rain, whole new buildings rise up, beautifully covered with shingles.

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Monday, October 25

At about 9 in the morning, suddenly furious shooting at the base. Rapid shots, scattered, coming not continuously from one point over the pit as usual, but spread out from different points in the forest, even very close to the fence; repeatedly bullets whistle over the highway. Women who brought milk to Ponary could not cross the road near the base, so they returned to Ponary. That’s the way it was with one truck carrying victims, who ran away throughout the base. Unfortunately, I believe that none of them saved themselves.Who they were,I don’t know for certain, but I believe that they were Jews, the rest of those hiding in the ghetto. Why did they not escape earlier?

Tuesday, October 26

Today on the highway near Ropia again a body, again killed by the same two bicyclists. The hour of the murder, about 4 in the afternoon in daylight. Administration of the Wilno Ghetto78 Health Office Bath and disinfection card This card certifies that Dawid Markeils . . . [the rest is missing] 78. To receive their puny food rations, ghetto residents had to prove that they had visited the bathhouse and their garments had been disinfected; this was part of the campaign against disease and epidemics. Sakowicz included this document, which he found or received from one of his neighbors, in his diary. The sentence on the back of the card was evidently written by Sakowicz.

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Facsimile of the certificate Sakowicz included with his diary pages

[Written on the back:] Found on the road near the base from the direction of the main highway. Shot [the owner of the card] in October 1943.

Monday [Thursday], October 28, 1943

Today again an entire day of quiet, if single shots by drunken Shaulists on the base and on the highway near the railroad crossing are not counted. In general the Shaulists were successful this month. On just one day—the 17th of the month on the road near the bridge at Chazbijewicze—they stole seventy liters of moonshine from two villagers. Therefore they drank cupfuls. Everyone is drunk! And so executions take place while drunk. Today, when it was already the gray hour of 4 p.m., a truck arrived unexpectedly, mainly with Jewish women and children.

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They were shot in the pit near Rudzinski’s. They stripped the condemned to their underwear. Two Jewish women in their underwear (shirts) miraculously fled, but one was caught by coincidence when she went down the highway. Apparently the horrific experiences over a short time—a few hours—blunted her sense of direction; she went down the road, happy that she was not in the truck. A German came and held the strange woman in the shirt; it turns out that she is a Jew, young; he turned her over to the Lithuanians, and they killed her. The second one, when she emerged from the pit, went to the first building she encountered, a barracks near the crossing, where the Shaulists usually sit now. She went asking for shelter for the night. She met a Shaulist and naturally the end is known—the base. Twice a motorcycle with a sidecar arrived, bringing Jewish women who lay in the sidecar like meat, and on them a Lithuanian sat as if on a pillow. What is going on? It turns out that when the Jewish women were detained, they jumped from the car onto the pavement. In Dolna, 2 Jewish women lay with broken legs. They were all collected by the motorcycle, and the wailing women were thrown into the sidecar like meat. And because they weren’t meat and there wasn’t enough room, he sat on them, since in any case they would be shot soon. At the base shooting finishes off the wounded.

Friday, October 28 [29], 1943

In the winter of 1942–43 many Jews were employed in the exploitation of the forest in the region of Gob near Czarnobyl. The conditions of their work were horrible. Nothing strange [about

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this] if we take into consideration the attitude of the Lithuanians and the Germans toward the Jews. Naturally the [small amount of] nourishment that they received, set as it was by the Lithuanians and the Germans, was deadly; despite this the Jews did not die of hunger, and in general looked well. Above all, this was thanks to the Gob farmers who fed the Jews. They did not hide their appreciation, declaring that the time would come when we (the Jews) remembering that goodwill, shall repay it with interest. When the work in the forest was finished and the Jews (as superfluous) had already been threatened with the base, the Jews fled to the virgin forest, thanks to the farmers from Gob. About a half a year has passed since that time. On October 28, at night, a band robbed the farmer Wiernakowicz from Gob; three pigs were taken, seven lambs, clothing, linen, flour, kitchen utensils, shoes, etc. Who did it? The Jews who sawed wood in the forest in Gob?

NOVEMBER 1943 Wednesday, November 3

After a long intermission again a truck full of Jews, mainly children and women. They were shot in the pit near Rudzinski’s. The victims had already undressed in the truck and were naked—to the pit. The Lithuanians shot from above, as if at pheasants. Near the pit a barrel with chloride stands now. Now the barrel always stands ready. The badly wounded, pretending to be killed, have chlorine poured on them. The Lithuanians say that the Jews often begin to jump up when the chlorine is shoveled on them. But those who “jump up” are finished off.

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Thursday, November 4

The railway hut is full: there is Kulaskis, the great comrade of the Shaulists, Sienkiewicz from Chazbijewicze whose father was executed by these Shaulists at the beginning of the executions, and others. It turns out that the policemen guarding the bases have concealed goods to sell. At a late hour two policemen come from the side of the base and on the stairs at the Rudzinskis’ they have laid out men and women’s underwear, some dresses, children’s clothing. I couldn’t watch this for long because I was afraid of being suspected; they look on me with suspicion.

Saturday, November 6

Practically all of Gob, and actually all the richer farmers in Gob, were thoroughly robbed last night. Six wagons, loaded with locally slaughtered pigs, lambs, and, in addition, clothes, shoes, and the like, left in the direction of the forest. The band appeared at 6 in the evening. In addition, some of the farmers were grievously beaten and several dogs shot. It is interesting that the Bolsheviks, who that night appeared at the farms, declared at the beginning that “by order of the Soviet authorities they demand that the following be furnished immediately, etc.”—after which they named, among other things, small items, such as wristwatches, and when the farmer would try to explain that he didn’t have any, he was asked, “Then where is that [high quality] Cyma silver watch”? How did they know that? Very simple: their guides were the

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Jews who were sawing in the forest. Now they went together openly. Six horses returned later. I forgot: at Wierhonowicz’s on October 2, two wagons were loaded. One of the Jews told Wierhonowicz that the cow would be taken another time (he pointed to her in the pigsty); until then the cow should be fattened. Wierhonowicz is feeding the cow better now.

Epilogue The last entry in Sakowicz’s diary is dated November 6, 1943. The murders in Ponary continued after that date. According to his family, Sakowicz continued to keep his diary until the day he was shot and mortally wounded while riding his bicycle from Wilno to his home in Ponary on July 5, 1944. He was buried in Wilno on July 16. It is not clear who shot him. The Red Army was approaching the city, which it invested on July 7– 8 and occupied on July 13. The city and its environs were a battlefield, so it seems likely that Sakowicz was accidentally shot during an encounter between Soviet forward elements or partisans and German forces. It is less probable that he was intentionally shot by Lithuanian collaborators, as his wife claimed. The Lithuanians were in headlong flight, and it is unlikely that they had time to think about setting an ambush for Sakowicz. The fate of the missing diary pages is unclear. Sakowicz may have hidden them separately from the rest, and they were never found. It is also possible that they were concealed with the other pages but destroyed by Lithuanian or Soviet elements who had possession of the diary at a later stage because they contained a se-

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vere indictment of the Lithuanian people for participating in the atrocities in Ponary or against specific Lithuanians who were involved in the murders. The murder of hundreds of Jews discovered in hiding places in Wilno after the liquidation of the ghetto and of elements of the non-Jewish population hostile to the Germans continued at Ponary until the last days of the German occupation.79 All or some of these executions were certainly described in the missing pages of the diary. On July 2–3, 1944, the last 2,000–2,200 Jews of Wilno, who had been employed in the Heeres Kraftfahrpark and Kailis labor camps and the military hospital, were murdered in Ponary. One other incident that bears mention involves the Jews who were employed to burn the corpses at Ponary and their escape on the night of April 15, 1944, described above. Sakowicz’s diary would certainly have referred to this event, which had repercussions throughout the area. Himmler’s objective with the operations of Sonderkommando 1005, including burning the corpses in Ponary, was to hide the crimes of Nazi Germany, as he stated in his speech to senior SS officers in Poznan on October 4, 1943: “This is a glorious page in our history but it never has been or will be written down.” 80 In his diary Sakowicz did write down these crimes; history and humanity will remember him for this.

79. According to Wardzynska, Sytuacja, 53–54, Polish underground sources maintained that on April 18 and 20, 1944, 100 Poles were shot in Ponary. 80. Nuremberg Documents PS-1919.

Index

Ambrazevicius, Juozas, 4 Antisemitism, Lithuanian, 2–3 Arad, Yitzhak, xiii–xvi Armia Krajowa (Home Army), 44 Beatings, 43; of children, 36, 39, 42, 77; with clubs, 16, 110; of elderly, 49; of evacuees from eastern ghettos, 72, 79; with rifle butt, 39, 42, 55, 79, 99; of women, 29, 35–36, 77, 99, 110 Belorussians in Wilno, 3 Berkowski, Hirsz, 79 Bezdany labor camp, 98n57 Biala-Waka labor camp, 91, 98n57 Bialostocki, Z., 17 Blindfolded victims, 9, 19 Blinow, 137 Booty taking: by Germans, 19; gold teeth, 82; Lithuanian collaborators’ trade, 10 –11, 13, 19, 28, 35, 36–37, 40, 49, 50, 52, 53, 57–58, 61–62, 79, 82, 83, 87, 88–89, 93, 108, 131;

message hidden in clothing, 53; precious stone hidden in clothing, 48; by villagers, 14, 15–16, 19, 20, 29–30, 85 Bowszyszki, 59 Briansk, 135 Brick factory, shootings at, 90 Bridges, burned by partisans, 125, 131, 137 Brizgys, Vincentas, bishop of Kovno, 59–60 Burbiszki, 102, 103 Burial: alive, 24, 49; by Jewish police, 83–84; by Lithuanians, 131; sand cover, 12, 36; stench from pits, 47 Burning of corpses, 123, 124, 144 Bus transport, 20, 53, 118–19, 120–21 Butrymance, 96 Catholic church, condemnation of Lithuanian collaborators, 59–60 Central State Archives of Lithuania, viii

146 Chazbijewicze, 42, 88, 95, 108, 142 Child victims, 28, 34–35, 67, 99; beating of, 36, 39, 42, 77; deportees to concentration camps, 117–18; escape attempts, 24– 26, 37, 38; evacuees from eastern ghettos, 72, 73, 77, 78, 80; in hiding, 42; numbers of, 18, 26, 27, 31, 32, 42 Chozanda, 113–14, 132 Ciesiulowna, Genia, 79 Civil government in German occupation: German, 14; Lithuanian, 4, 5, 6 Clothing, victims’: burning of, 129; children hidden under, 73, 78; discarded at shooting site, 100; precious stone hidden in, 48; priest’s cassock, 88–89; returned to ghetto, 84, 85. See also Booty taking Communist cadre victims, xiii, 7, 9, 14, 15, 27, 33–34, 59 Concentration camps, deportation to, 101–4, 118 Conscription protests, Lithuanian, 58–59, 65 Criminal Aktion (Untervelt Aktion), 41 Crows, at shooting pit, 88 Czarnobyl, 114, 116, 140 Czarny Bor, 103 Czoja, 106 Dobrowola, 130 Dogs: digging up of corpses, 97–

Index 98, 100–101, 105, 106, 114, 135; victims chased by, 99– 100 Drunkenness, of Lithuanian collaborators, 104, 106, 110, 128, 131, 139 Education system, under Soviet occupation, 1–2 Einsatzgruppe B, 6 Einsatzkommando 3, 15 Einsatzkommando 9, 6, 7, 8–9, 10 Ejszyszki, 125, 137 Ejszyszki ghetto, escape from, 92 Elderly victims, 49, 53, 67. See also Old People’s Aktion Escape attempts, 13, 18–19, 38, 64, 65, 104, 134, 138; by children, 24–26, 37, 39; by deportees to Estonian concentration camps, 102, 103–4; dog chase in, 99–100; by evacuees from eastern ghettos, 71, 73, 75, 78– 79, 79–80, 81–82, 83; to forest, 92–93, 133, 141; from ghettos, 92; on Grodno highway, 55, 56 (illus.), 86–87, 89–90; from labor camps, 91, 93–94, 107n62; by Poles, 54; from railroad train, 120; by tunneling, 123–24; by women, 24–26, 28, 34, 37, 81. See also Hiding places Estonian camps, deportation to, 101–4, 117 Explosives, 104

Index Feigus (physician), 132 Filbert, Alfred, 6 Fine, on Jewish community, 14– 15 Gajlonis (shooter), 88–89 Garfunkel, Leib, 60n36 Gens, Jacob, 5, 67, 117 Gepisci, 90 German occupation: anti-Jewish actions of, 5–6, 14–15; deportations to Estonian concentration camps, 101–4; German civil government, 14; German military administration, 4; ghetto, establishment of, 22– 23; invasion of Wilno, 4; liquidation of Wilno ghetto, 117–18; Lithuanian civil government, 4, 5, 6; Lithuanian pogroms under, 4–5; police units in, 6–7; Polish underground and, 44; security police (Sipo), 15, 23, 41, 47. See also Ponary mass murder Ghettos: escapees from, 92; evacuees from, 67–81 Ghettos, Wilno: bath and disinfection card, 138, 139 (illus.); clearing of area for, 22–23; Criminial Aktion, 41; deportation to concentration camps from, 101–4, 118; hiding places in, 118, 122, 123, 133; liquidation of, 33, 67, 117–18; Old People’s Aktion, 46–47; partisans from, 124–25; passive mass re-

147 sistance in, 31; personal effects of victims returned to, 84; removal to, 26; transfers between, 27; work certificates in, 31–32; Yellow Schein Aktion, 32; Yom Kippur Aktion, 30, 33. See also Judenrat (Jewish council); Police, Jewish Gob, 140–41, 142–43 Gobsty, 137 Goniec Codzienny (newspaper), 108, 113 Great Provocation, 23, 29 Grenades, killing with, 18, 43 Grodno highway, 13, 38, 55, 86– 87, 89–90, 104, 108, 125, 137 Grodzienka road, 11, 12 Grygsztas, 108 Gudelek, 66, 136 Gudogaj, 79 Guoba, Jurgis, 64 Heeres Kraftfahrpark (HKP), 118, 124, 144 Hermanawiczus, 62 Hiding places: betrayal of, 122, 127, 129; discovery of, 42, 122–23; in forest, 51; in ghetto, 117, 118, 122, 123, 133; on Smolenska Street, 136; under Tretiak’s protection, 115. See also Escape attempts Himmler, Heinrich, 101, 144 Hingst, Hans, 14, 23, 29 Hunt, staged, 39, 48, 50

148 Infants, 28, 34–35, 73, 80, 118 Intellectuals: escape attempts, 13; Polish, 44; roundups of, 7; transport of, 12 Iskauskas, Antanas, 26 Iwje, 106 Jacewicz, 126 Jäger, Karl, 15, 24, 27, 31, 32, 33 Jagiellonow, 13 Jankowski (neighbor of Sakowicz’s), 28–29, 35, 47, 57–58, 66, 67, 110, 127 Jechiel’s Combat Group, 92, 124 “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” Wilno as, vii, xiv, 1 Jewish community of Wilno: antisemitism and, 2–3; deportees from, 3; emigration from Lithuania, 2; fines on, 14–15; German occupation actions against, 5–6, 14–15; ignorance of Ponary murders, 9 – 10; as “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” vii, xiv, 1; knowledge of Ponary murders, 24, 25–26, 84n44; Lithuanian attacks on, 5; population of, 3, 4; refugees in, 1, 2; staged attack by Security Police (Great Provocation), 23, 29; under Soviet occupation, 1–2, 3. See also Ghettos, Wilno; Jewish victims; Judenrat ( Jewish council); Police, Jewish; Ponary mass murder Jewish Museum, in Vilnius, vii, viii

Index Jewish partisans, 92–93, 95–97, 116 Jewish State Museum of Lithuania, viii, ix Jewish victims: from abroad, in Kovno, 87; bishop of Kovno’s condemnation of killings, 60; children (see Child victims); Christian helpers of, 20–21, 141; in concentration camps, deportation to, 101–4, 118; crimes against German decrees and, 43–44; with criminal background, 41; elderly, 46– 47, 49, 53; evacuees from eastern ghettos, 67–81; explosives, execution with, 100, 104; in Great Provocation, 23–24, 29; in hiding, 42, 51, 115, 117, 118, 122; infants, 28, 34–35, 73, 80, 118; intellectuals, 7, 12, 13; Judenrat members, 24, 117; in Lukiszki Prison, 11, 17, 23, 26, 27, 32, 33, 41; numbers of, 13–14, 15, 24, 26–27, 29, 31, 32, 42, 69, 75, 128, 144; from outside Wilno, 22; phases of extermination, xv–xvi, 11; resistance of, 19, 31, 69, 74, 77; Sakowicz’s view of behavior, xv, 114; social class of, 7, 12; Soviet officials, 9; of Tretiak (villager), 115, 116; women (see Women victims). See also Beatings; Booty taking; Burial; Escape attempts; Hiding places; Ponary

Index mass murder; Roundups; Shootings; Transports Jewja (Wiewis), 82 Juchniewiczes’ house, military post at, 12 Judenrat (Jewish council), 10; abolition of, 117; burial of dead and, 83; collection of personal effects, 84; in deportation to Estonian concentration camps, 102–3; establishment of, 5; execution of members, 24, 117; fine on Jewish community and, 14; negotiations with Sipo (security police), 47; in transfer of evacuees from eastern ghettos, 67– 68; work certificates and, 32 Jurgielewiczes, 59 Jurszyski, 96 Kacherginsky, Shmerke, vii Kaddish (prayer for the dead), 84n44 Kailis labor camp, 118, 124, 144 Kailis leather factory, 132, 136 Kaiserwald concentration camp, 118 Karaites, 18, 20 –21 Kassel, Dawid, 16 Kena labor camp, 98n57 Kiejzik, Piotr, 14, 15–16, 19, 20, 21, 29–30, 42, 50, 85 Kiewelis (shooter), 82 Klukas, Wladyslaw, 62 Kondratowicz (neighbor of Sakowicz’s), 79

149 Kovno: ghetto, 68; killing of Jews from abroad in, 87; Lithuanian provisional government in, 4, 6; pogrom in, 4 Kovno, bishop of, condemnation of Jewish executions, 59–60 Kruk, Herman, 10, 24–25, 30, 46–47 Kulaskis, 112, 119, 127, 128, 131, 142 Kwiatkowska, Stenia or Stenka, 48, 97, 135–36 Labor camps: deportation to, 117; escape from, 91, 93–94; execution of evacuees, 98–99; liquidation of, 98n57 Landwarow highway, 86 Lenkitajtis, Stasys, 45 Lewicka, Luba, 57n35 Lida ghetto, escape from, 92 Ligijn, M., 91 Liszanski, Wulf, 79 Litai, Chaim Lazar, 84n44 Lithuania: archives in, viii, ix; independence of, ix. See also German occupation; Lithuanian collaborators; Lithuanians; Soviet occupation; Wilno (Vilnius) Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), antisemitic propaganda of, 2–3 Lithuanian collaborators: badges worn by, 50; beatings by, 29, 72, 77, 79; bishop of Kovno’s condemnation of, 59–60; booty trade, 10–11, 13, 15–

150 Lithuanian collaborators (continued) 16, 19, 28, 29, 35, 36–37, 40, 46, 48–49, 50, 52, 53, 61–62, 79, 83, 87, 88–89, 93, 108, 131; burial of dead by, 131; document inspection by, 12; drunkenness of, 104, 106, 110, 128, 131, 139; murder of villager, 82; police, 6, 8, 26, 41, 142; Polish villager’s view of, 113; robberies by, 50, 104, 106–7, 113–14, 139; roundups in ghetto, 30, 31, 41; Sakowicz’s terms for, vii, viii– ix; shooters (Shaulists), 12, 21, 22, 28, 29, 33, 37, 39, 45, 50, 51, 57, 66, 67, 72–73, 76–78, 79, 80–82, 86, 99–100, 122, 133; tasks of, 9; in transport truck, 51; uniforms of, 33, 37, 39, 69, 86, 122 Lithuanian legion, conscription for, 58–59 Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, ix Lithuanian provisional government, 4, 6 Lithuanians: antisemitism of, 2– 3; blackmail of Jewish families, 16; conscription protest of, 58–59, 65; excursions to view massacre, 17; in Great Provocation, 23; police, 6, 8, 26, 66, 69–70; Sakowicz’s view of, xv, 60; victims, xiii, 27, 30, 65, 84n44; in Wilno population,

Index 3–4. See also Lithuanian collaborators Lithuanian Territorial Corps of the Red Army, 4 Lithuanian underground, attack on Soviet forces, 4 Lohse, Hinrich, 14 Ludwinow, 81, 82 Lukanc, 137 Lukiszki Prison: Criminal Aktion detainees in, 41; phase of Ponary mass murder, 11; Polish prisoners, 44–45, 54, 57n35; removal from ghettos to, 23, 26, 27; suicide at, 90; Yellow Schein Aktion detainees in, 32, 33; Yom Kippur Aktion detainees in, 30 Machine guns, 18, 38, 43, 65, 66 Maczus, Aleksandr, 136–37 Madziuny, 125 Male victims, number of, 15, 26, 27, 31, 32 Maly Ligojn, 66, 130 Margolis, Rachel, vii–xii, xiv Mass resistance, 31, 69 Meyer, Alfred, 108 Miedzyrzecz, 66 Mikhalishki ghetto, evacuees from, 67, 68 Moonshiners, 115 Museum of the Revolution, Vilnius, ix Nacza Forest, 63, 92 Naroch Forest, 107n62

Index Nowickiszek, 96, 125 Nowosady, 136 Nowosiolki, 76, 95 Nowy Miedzyrzecz, 130 Ogorczonek, 128 Okuniewas, Cz., 66 Old People’s Aktion, 46–47 Olity, 63 Olkieniki, 137 Olszewska, Mrs., 42 Operation 1005, 123 Oran, 63 Ordnungspolizei (Order Police), 7, 8 Oszmiany ghetto, evacuees from, 67, 68, 80, 83 Partisans: Lithuanian, 4, 64; United Partisan Organization (FPO), 107n62 Partisans, Soviet, 67; arsons of, 121, 125–26, 130–31, 137; in Belorussia, 58; bridge burned by, 125, 131, 137; capture of Tretiak, 116; escapees with, 124; feared by Germans, 135; Jews with, 92–93, 95–97, 124–25, 141, 142–43; killings of Germans, 44, 63, 125; manhunt for, 96–97; robberies by, 97, 126, 130, 141, 142–43 Personal effects, victims’: banknotes, 85; documents, 79; ghetto bath and disinfection card, 138, 139 (illus.); gold teeth, 82; hidden in clothing,

151 48; Polish prayer books, 88; returned to ghetto, 84, 85. See also Booty taking; Clothing, victims’ Pilalowka, 130 Plechavicius, Povilas, 58 Podborze, 126 Podbrodzi, 14 Pogroms, 4–5 Poland, Lithuania under, 1, 3 Poles in Wilno: Lithuanians and, 5, 113; population of, 3. See also Polish victims Police: drunken, 104; German Order Police (Ordnungspolizei), 7; German Security Police (Sipo), 15, 23, 41, 47, 107n62, 117; Lithuanian, 6, 8, 26, 41, 66, 69–70, 112n67, 113n68, 115, 133, 142; shootings by, 105 Police, Jewish: burial of victims, 83–84; establishment of, 5; execution of, 88; personal effects returned to ghetto by, 85; during roundups, 41, 46; in transfer of evacuees from eastern ghettos, 67, 68 Polish edition of Sakowicz’s diary, ix, xiv Polish government-in-exile, 44 Polish underground, 44, 57n34 Polish victims, xiii, 33, 46, 48, 49, 52, 95, 121, 144n70; brave demeanor of, xv, 112–13, 114; burial of, 84n44; in Lukiszki Prison, 44–45, 54, 56, 57n35;

152 Polish victims (continued) numbers of, 45; priest, 88–89; retaliation for policeman’s killing by, 112n67, 113n68; underground members, 57n34; women, 110–11 Polock, 135 Polstoki, 126 Polukno, 125 Ponary: Germans quartered in, 135; Jewish families in, 16, 19– 20; location of, xiii; mine explosion at, 127; pit excavations at, x, xiii; water contaminated with blood, 85, 91. See also Ponary mass murder Ponary diary: buried by Sakowicz, viii, xiv; in Central State Archives of Lithuania, viii; deciphering of, viii–ix, xiv; first entry, 7–8, 11–13; in Jewish Museum (Vilnius), viii; last entry, 143–44; missing pages of, xi, 143–44; 1941 entries, 11– 41; 1942 entries, 43–57; 1943 entries, 58–144; objective tone of, xv, xvi; personal viewpoint in, xv, 60, 92; Polish edition of, ix, xiv; rumors reported in, 92, 102, 103–4; secondhand information in, xv, 42, 45, 48; time span of, ix, xi; types of observations in, xi Ponary mass murder: background of victims, xiii; beatings (see Beatings); booty of victims (see Booty taking); burning of

Index corpses, 123, 144; escape attempts (see Escape attempts); German killing brigades in, 6, 8–9, 15, 21, 63–64; Jewish community ignorance of, 9 – 10; Jewish community knowledge of, 24, 25–26, 84n44; Jewish victims of (see Jewish victims); Lithuanian observers of, 17; Lithuanian participation in (see Lithuanian collaborators); Lithuanian victims of, xiii, 27, 30, 65, 84n44; phases of, xv–xvi, 11; Polish victims of (see Polish victims); roundups (see Roundups); Russian victims (see Russian victims); shootings (see Shooting pits; Shootings); start of, x, 7–8, 11–12; transport (see Transport). See also Ponary diary Ponas family, 16 Porubanek, 102, 103 Pospieszki, 46 Prison: of Lithuanian Gestapo, 66, 121. See also Lukiszki Prison Prisoners of war (Soviet), execution of, xiii, 33, 46, 49, 52 Radun ghetto, escape from, 92 Railroad: catastrophe, 63; deportees to Estonian camps on, 102, 103, 117; eastern ghetto evacuees on, 68–71, 75–76; escape from, 120; village evacuees on, 98

Index Rajstel, 81 Rauchenbauer, Henryk, 42 Ravens, at shooting pit, 14, 88, 105 Red Army victims, xiii, 33, 46, 49, 52 Renteln, Theodor Adrian von, 14, 111 Resistance, 19; by evacuees from eastern ghettos, 69, 74, 77, 81; in ghetto roundups, 31. See also Escape attempts Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, 1 Riflemen. See Shootings Robbery: by Lithuanian collaborators, 50, 104, 106 –7, 113 – 14, 139; by partisans, 97, 126, 130, 141, 142–43 Ropia, 137 Rosenberg, Alfred, 108 Rossa, 107, 111 Rossa Cemetary, xi, 107 Roundups: for deportation to Estonian concentration camps, 101–2; of elderly, 46; of men, 6, 7, 8, 11; of men with criminal background, 40–41; Yellow Schein Aktion, 32–33; Yom Kippur Aktion, 30–31, 33 Rudnicka Forest, 63, 91, 92, 96, 123, 124, 125 Rudniki, 59 Rudzinskis (neighbors of Sakowicz’s), 18, 48, 85, 87, 88, 99, 104, 106, 121, 142 Rudziszki, 63

153 Russians: collaborators, 91; in Wilno population, 3. See also Partisans, Soviet; Soviet occupation Russian victims: burial of, 84n44; communist cadres, xiii, 7, 9, 14, 15, 27, 33–34, 59; prisoners of war, xiii, 33, 46, 49, 52 Sakowicz, Kazimierz: antagonism toward Jews, xv, 92, 140 – 41, 143; attic observation post of, x; background of, ix–x; cottage in Ponary of, x; death and burial site, xi, 143; local inquiries made by, x–xi; motivation of, xiv; personal viewpoint of, xv, 60. See also Ponary diary Sakowicz, Maria, x, xi Sarny, 135 Security Police (Sipo), 15, 23, 41, 47, 107n62, 117 Shooting pits: chlorine barrel at, 141; clothing discarded at, 100; dogs’ excavation of corpses in, 97–98, 100–101, 106; excavated during Soviet occupation, x, xiii; filled, 47, 83, 85; flies surrounding, 106; ravens and crows circling, 14, 88, 105; sand covering in, 12, 36; stench from, 47, 100; waiting area, 9. See also Burial Shootings: from behind, 18, 74; of bound victims, 87, 88; at brick factory, 90; in ditches, 43; of escapees, 18, 38, 55, 64,

154 shootings (continued) 65, 71, 74, 75, 76, 78, 82, 86– 87, 89–90, 104, 138; of evacuees from eastern ghettos, 71– 73, 76–78; of evacuees from labor camp, 98–99; by Germans, 6, 8–9, 15, 48, 63–65, 66, 89–90, 94, 119; during ghetto roundup, 31; in hunts, staged, 39, 48, 50; by Lithuanian collaborators, 12, 21, 22, 28, 33, 37, 39, 50, 51, 66, 67, 72–73, 76–78, 79, 80–82, 86, 99–100, 119, 122, 133–34; with machine guns, 18, 38, 43, 65, 66; methods and procedures, 9, 122, 131, 133; by moonlight, 127, 128–29; of partisans, 96; by police, 105; of skilled workers, 132, 144; speed of shots, 134–35; standing on corpses, 28; on trampoline over pit, 43; of undressed victims, 21, 43, 62, 71–72, 77, 78, 79, 99, 110, 111, 119, 128–29, 140, 141 Sieniuc, 94, 97 Sienkiewicz, Jan, 88, 108, 142 Sienodwor, 96 Sikorski (lawyer), 45, 82 Sobibór extermination camp, 118 Solczy, 125 Soly ghetto, evacuees from, 67, 68 Sorok-Tatar, 42 Soviet occupation: ban on Jewish

Index organizations, 1; deportation of anti-Soviet elements, 3; education system under, 1–2; excavation of Ponary pit, x, xiii; Jewish officials in, 2; Polish underground and, 44 Soviet Union: Sakowicz’s view of, xv. See also Partisans, Soviet; Russians; Russian victims Stary, 130 Stary Macele, 59 Strakiszek, 130 Stryliszki, 96 Sutskever, Abraham, vii Swieciany ghetto, evacuees from, 67, 68, 78, 79 Szapiro, Boris, 79 Szapiro, Judel, 78, 79 Szapiro family, 16, 19–20 Szawle (Siauliae), pogram in, 4–5 Szligielmilch (neighbor of Sakowicz’s), 35 Tankun, Waclaw, 40 Tatarul, Dr., 136 Ternian, 93 Titiancy, 125 Tory, Avraham, 60n36 Transports: bus, 20, 53, 118–19, 120–21; document inspection, 12; in motorcycle sidecar, 140; processions of women and children, 17–18, 27–28, 34–36, 37–38. See also Railroad; Truck transports Tretiak (“the bearded one”), 114–16

Index Trojak, Judith, 25–26 Troky, 88 Trotzki, Shaul, 5 Truck transports, 39, 40, 46, 50, 52–53, 85, 86, 95, 121, 134; Deutsche Reichsbahn truck, 126, 128; with limousine following, 129, 132, 133; tarpaulin roof, 54–55, 109; victims on floor of, 51 Trusewiczowa, 59 Trzeciak, 88–89 Ukrainians: collaborators, 91, 117; in Wilno population, 3 Underground, Polish, 44, 57n34 United Partisan Organization (FPO), 107n62 Untervelt Aktion. See Criminal Aktion Vilna. See Wilno Vilnius. See Wilno Voronovo ghetto, escape from, 92 Waiting area, at Ponary, 9 Water contamination, in Ponary, 85, 91 Weiss, Martin, 83, 84n44 Weslawski, Stanislaw, 57 Wielikie Luky, 130 Wielki Ligojn, 66, 130 Wierhonowicz, 143 Wigdor, Daniszewski, 83 Wilno (Vilnius, Vilna): German civil administration of, 14; German invasion of, 4; Ger-

155 man military administration, 4; Jewish Museum in, vii, viii; Lithuanian civil administration, 4, 6; political history of, 1; population and ethnic composition of, 3–4. See also German occupation; Ghettos, Wilno; Jewish community of Wilno; Soviet occupation Wilno-Kovno highway (“strategic highway”), 49, 59, 61, 64, 87, 94, 134, 136 Wisincza, 63 Wizytek monastery, 107 Wojcik, 98, 108 Wojdaty, 121, 126 Women victims: bayoneted, 77; beatings of, 29, 35–36, 77, 99, 110; chased by dog, 99; deportees to concentration camps, 117–18; escape attempts, 24– 26, 28, 34, 37, 110, 120, 140; evacuees from eastern ghettos, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77–78, 80; in hiding, 42; numbers of, 15, 24, 26, 27, 31, 32, 42; resistance of, 74; from small towns, 21– 22; smuggling offenders, 57n35; transport of, 17–18, 27–28, 34–36, 37–38; undressed, 21, 62, 77, 78, 99, 110, 111, 128–29, 140 Work certificates, 31– 32 Wulff, Horst, 14 Wyrwicz, 95 Wysocki (neighbor of Sakowicz’s), 35, 81, 91

156 Yellow badge, 5 Yellow Schein Aktion, 32–33 Yellow work certificates (Gele Shaynen), 31–32 Yom Kippur Aktion, 30, 33 Ypatingi Buriai, 7–8, 15 Zacharzewski, L., 137 Zaidelsan, Haim, vii

Index Zajaczkowski, Pawel, 82 Zarzeczy, 14 Zimanas, Henrik (“Yurgis”), 124–25 Zionist youth movement, 2 Zwierzyniec, 96 Zylis, 113