Testimony of Esther Ton, born in Kursenai, Lithuania, 1919, regarding her experiences in Raseiniai, the Siauliai Ghetto and other places

Testimony of Esther Ton, born in Kursenai, Lithuania, 1919, regarding her experiences in Raseiniai, the Siauliai Ghetto and other places Her parents' home; move to Raseiniai; marriage, 1939. Red Army occupation of Lithuania; nationalization of Jewish property; escape to a village; air-raids, June 1941; murder of her husband; German Army occupation of Lithuania, 1941; life under German occupation including the imposition of restrictions and decrees; murder of her father; transfer of her mother and her sister to Zagreb; decree regarding wearing a yellow badge; concentration of the Jews in a storeroom; departs the storeroom with permission from the Lithuanian commander; murder of the Jews in the storeroom; burial of the murdered people in a mass grave; deportation to the Siauliai Ghetto; receives yellow certificates in the ghetto in the Kaukazas quarter; labor in a factory; "Aktion" against children, November 1943; search for hiding places for children outside the ghetto; entrusts her daughter to a farmer family in Pasvitinys, by means of Vladas Drupas (later recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations); obtains forged birth certificates for a mother and her daughter; rescue of children and their removal from the ghetto; receives information concerning the liquidation of the ghetto; escape; removes the yellow badge; turns to a priest named Lapis with a request for help; life with a Lithuanian family in a village; end of the war. Return to Siauliai; return of her daughter from the farmer family to the witness; participation in a demonstration in Moscow to request exit visas; aliya to Israel, 1971.