RelatioNet KA DA 28 VI PO
Full Name: David Katz
Interviewer:
Full Name/s
Tamir Padlad & Naama Katz
Survivor:
Code: RelatioNet KA DA 28 VI PO
Family Name:Katz First Name: David
Town In Holocaust: Vilinus Country In Holocaust: Poland
Address Today: Ramat- Hasharon.
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 553,904 as of December 2005.
In 1323 the city was first mentioned in written sources. The sources were letters of Grand Duke Gediminas that were sent to German cities and invited German and Jewish community to settle in the capital city. In the following centuries, Vilnius became a constantly growing and developing city and in 1579 King Stephen Bathory established the Vilnius University. The university soon developed into one of the most important scientific and cultural centres of Vilnius. Political, economic, and social activities number in the town was growing as well. In 1769, the Rasos Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in the city, was founded. During Vilnius’s development, the city was open to migrants from both abroad and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Each group made its unique contribution to the life of the city. During the Russo-Polish War (1654-1667), Vilnius was taken up by Russia for several years. The city was destroyed, and its population was massacred. The city's growth lost its energy for many years, but the population recovered, and by the beginning of the 19th century Vilnius’s population reached 200,000 making the city one of the largest in Northern Europe.
During World War I Vilnius — as with the rest of Lithuania — was occupied by Germany from 1915 until 1918. The Act of the Restoration of Independence of Lithuania was proclaimed in the city on February 16, 1918. After the back down of German forces, Lithuanian forces were made to retreat by the Russian forces. Vilnius changed sides many times: for a while it was controlled by Polish self-defence units, who didn't want the city to be occupied by Russian-Bolshevik forces. Then the Polish Army regained control, then Soviet forces again. Shortly after the defeat of the Russian-Bolshevik forces in the Battle of Warsaw (1920), the retreating Red Army gave the city back to Lithuania. Poland also recognized Vilnius and the Vilnius region as a part of Lithuania with the Treaty of Suwalki signed on October 7, 1920. However, on October 9 1920, the Polish Army broke the treaty and took over Vilnius. On February 20, 1922, the whole area was made a part of Poland, with Vilnius as the capital of the Wilno Voivodship (Wilno being the name of Vilnius in Polish). By 1931, the city had population of 195,000 people, making it the fifth largest city in Poland. on September 19, 1939, Vilnius was taken over by the Soviet Union. On October 10, 1939, after a Soviet ultimatum, the Lithuanian government accepted the presence of Soviet military bases in various parts of the country in exchange for restoring the city to Lithuania. Though the process of transferring the capital from Kaunas to Vilnius started soon after, the whole of Lithuania was taken over by the Soviet Union in June of 1940, before the transfer was completed. A new Communist government was installed, with Vilnius as the capital of the newly created Lithuanian SSR. Up to 40,000 of the city's settlers were arrested by the NKVD [the Russian government ministry] and sent to coercion camps in the far eastern areas of the Soviet Union. In June 1941, the city was taken over by Germany. Two ghettos were set up in the old town center for the large Jewish population - the smaller one of which was vanished by October. The larger ghetto lasted until 1943.A failed ghetto rebellion, on September 1, 1943 organized by the Fareinigte Partizaner Organization (the United Partisan Organization, the first Jewish partisan unit in Nazi-occupied Europe), was followed by the final destruction of the ghetto. About 95% of the 265,000-strong Jewish population of Lithuania was murdered by the German units and their local cooperators, many of them in Paneriai, about 10 km west of the old town centre. In July 1944 Vilnius was retaken by the Soviet Army. Vilnius was added into the Soviet Union as the capital of the Lithuanian SSR shortly thereafter. Immediately after World War II, large numbers of Poles were expelled from Soviet-occupied Lithuania to Poland. Coupled with the migration of the Lithuanians into Vilnius, this development resulted in a change in the city's demographic fabric
Interview
"I was born in 1928, in a city called Vilnius. I had five brothers and sisters and all of us studied in a Jewish school, therefore I could talk Hebrew fluently. My father was a farmer and all the family worked hard in the fields, woods and in housekeeping. We were one big happy family, however, it all changed in 1941 when the Nazi army invaded Vilnius.
The Nazi soldiers treated all the Jewish community in the must terrible way. They humiliated us and took all the men for forced labor. I was only thirteen back then so luckily I wasn't taken away from my family. One day we saw the German soldiers taking all the old people and the children to a house down the street in which they murdered them and threw their bodies inside the house. After they killed every one of the Jewish people they took and threw their bodies in a house set it on fire. My father understood we couldn't stay in this place if we wanted to live.
It was in 1942 when my father, Y'a'akov, decided that all the family should run away to the forest, and that is exactly what we did. We lived in the forest for three years, which was very difficult for me and my family. We lived in holes in the ground. We didn't have sleeping beds so we all had improvised beds made out of wood and any materials we had. Disease was always around due to the bad conditions. The hardest things were hunger and the cold weather. The winter there is not like the one in Israel. The temperature there goes below zero, and we didn't have enough clothes to keep us warm. The hunger was unbearable, we had a small amount of food for seven people. Each of us was constantly hungry. The only thing which helped me survive this awful time was the hope that it would all end soon.
My wish came true in 1944 when the Russian army arrived in the city, therefore, we knew the German army had been defeated. We came back to the city to find that there were hardly any Jewish people from the community who had survived. All of our relatives were gone. My parents decided we needed to move away from this place, and that is what we did.
We moved to Poland, there I started studying teaching. During the time I worked as a teacher in a Jewish school in Poland I worked in the Israeli embassy. A fact which increased my longing for Israel. After a while I made the dream real and moved from Poland to Israel there I met my wife, Shoshanna and with her I built a family of which I am very proud."
posted by RelatioNet Katza @ 4:45 AM
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