Kaunas, Lithuania

KAUNAS (Yid. Kovno) Kaunas district, Lithuania. Jews first settled in the late 14th century, though official permission was granted only in the early 18th century. Among the first Jews were war captives from the Crimea. Non-Jewish residents opposed efforts by noblemen wishing to encourage Jewish settlement as a means of stimulating economic growth. When persecuted or expelled, the Jews fled to the suburb of Slobodka, across the Viliya River from Kaunas and controlled by the Radziwill family. Over time, Slobodka, referred to in Lithuanian as Vilijampole, became part of Kaunas, but its history as a Jewish settlement, with a synagogue from the 16th century, predates Kaunas's. Jews played a key role in Kaunas as customs agents and tax collectors. At the end of the 15th century, Avraham Yosefovitch, a Jewish customs agent, converted to Christianity and eventually became Lithuania's finance minister. Despite his conversion, he fought a 1495 edict expelling Jews. Eventually, in the beginning of the 18th century, the Jews won the right to live in Kaunas by agreeing to pay a special tax. Two rabbis served the community at this time, but left after a conflagration in 1731. The wars with Sweden in 1700-15 left part of Kaunas in ruins, which enterprising Jews bought and rebuilt. In 1753, the mayor expelled the Jews but the crown's representative in Kaunas allowed the Jews to settle on his property, which was under the king's authority. Twenty years later, after the Jews fled a pogrom in 1761, a royal court ordered their return to Kaunas, restoration of their property with compensation for damages and two weeks' imprisonment for the mayor. These events were recorded in a Kaunas Scroll, and read annually on Shushan Purim. Prominent in fighting the expulsion were Avraham and Moshe Soloveitchik, brothers who immigrated to Kaunas from Brisk (Brest-Litovsk) in the mid-18th century They were among those who bought ruined property for rehabilitation. Moshe was the progenitor of the famous rabbinical family. The Jewish population in 1797 was 1,508 (18% of the total). By 1798, Kaunas had become part of Russia and although Czar Pavel I ruled that Jews could conduct business throughout the city, this was only accomplished with bribes. In 1839, they won the right to participate in city elections and in 1861 they finally overcame years of opposition from Kaunas residents and obtained a ruling enabling them to leave the ghetto. Kaunas's first synagogue was established by Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik in 1772. For many years the Kaunas community was dependent legally on Slobodka for most of its religious functionaries and services. By 1790 the nucleus of an educational and social welfare organization had developed in Kaunas. By 1860 it had 39 employees. The Ohel Yaakov Synagogue, constructed in 1871, enjoyed a reputation among Christians and Jews for the high level of its cantorial music. Rabbi Yitzhak Elhanan Spektor (1864-98), highly respected in Kaunas as well as outside of Lithuania, supported the Hovevei Zion and Haskala movements and displayed a degree of leniency in regard to various halakhic matters. He also led the struggle against antisemitic Czarist decrees by smuggling out news about them to Western countries and requesting their intervention. The community's extensive social welfare system included a hospital. First established in 1807, it was later expanded and facilities developed for hospitalizing between 70-80 patients. In the latter half of the 19th century, the economic growth of Lithuania provided many opportunities for Jews to advance themselves. Many were merchants, trading in agricultural produce, wood, linen, grain, eggs, and cattle. Most of the larger factories were Christian-owned and refused to employ Jews. The economic situation of Jewish workers and artisans was not good and in the 1880s and the beginning of the 20th century many emigrated. Located near the German border, 19th century Kaunas was influenced by the cultural struggle taking place among German Jewry between the ultra-Orthodox and Haskala adherents. One of the first Haskala writers, Avraham Mapu (1808-67), was born in Kaunas and lived most of his life there. Slobodka became the center of traditional Jewish education, centered primarily around the Or Hayyim yeshiva, founded in 1863, and the Hefetz Hayyim yeshiva. The excessively strict demands of Musar adherents led to the establishment of the Knesset Israel yeshiva by Musar adherents followers while opponents of the movement established the Beit Yitzhak yeshiva named after Rabbi Spektor. The Zionist movement began to organize in Kaunas in the early 1880s. In 1908 the Zionists established the Avraham Mapu Library, one of the more important libraries in Lithuania, which existed until WWII. (After the Holocaust hundreds of books from this library came into the possession of the National Library in Jerusalem and the Dimona municipal library). Kaunas was also an important center of Bund activity after movement leaders in Vilna were arrested in 1895. The Jewish population in 1897 was 25,448 (36%), rising to 40,000 in 1914. In May 1915, during WWI, when Lithuania was under Russian rule, the Jews were expelled from Kaunas to the Russian interior, some going to Vilna. When the German army captured Kaunas in September 1915, those who returned from Vilna found their homes, stores, and communal buildings ransacked. From the war's end in 1918 and the establishment of independent Lithuania, until 1923, many returned from Russia. In 1918, following German withdrawal, elections were held in December and a 71-member city council was elected, which included 22 Jews. Jews continued to play a prominent role in public life in Kaunas until 1926, when non-Jews resorted to several measures to limit Jewish influence. Though Jews succeeded in many professions, they were very successful in commerce, particularly in textiles, building materials, lumber, and imports of industrial products. By the 1930s, their economic situation was beginning to deteriorate as a consequence of rising antisemitism and such measures, encouraged by the authorities, as a business boycott, the banning of ritual kosher slaughter and Hebrew signs, segregation of Jewish students at the university, and, in the mid-1930s, the introduction of quotas for Jewish university students and faculty. Emigration to Palestine, South Africa, and other countries as well as a low birthrate accounted for a declining Jewish population. The educational system included kindergartens, elementary and high schools, and teachers' seminaries. Beginning in the 1920s, the Tarbut network initiated the establishment of several Hebrew schools, including two high schools and a teachers' college. Some of the teachers and directors were later to become prominent in Palestine (Dr. Schwabe, Dr. Charne, Dr. Berman, and others). Yavne elementary and high schools followed afterwards. A Shalom Aleichem Yiddish school contained a kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and library. ORT operated a vocational school. There was a rich cultural life in Kaunas and several newspapers and journals, primarily in Yiddish, appeared regularly, including the Yidishe Shtime, a Zionist daily founded in 1919, and from 1933, Unzer Mament, published by the Revisionists. Two theaters operated in Kaunas and groups from abroad, such as Habima and Ida Kaminska's, also played in Kaunas. Kaunas and the surrounding suburbs maintained about 40 synagogues and yeshivot. In 1924, the Knesset Israel yeshiva transferred 100 students to Hebron in Palestine because of the Lithuanian government's refusal to exempt yeshiva students from the army. Social welfare services in Kaunas included the Bikkur Holim Hospital. Serving Jews and non Jews alike, it was one of the largest in Lithuania. In 1927, Dr. S. Lehman, director of a children's institution in Kaunas, led the emigration of about 100 children to Ben Shemen, Palestine, which became the forerunner of the Youth Aliya village there. The Zionist movement enjoyed widespread support and all the parties maintained branches in Kaunas. Many leading Zionist figures from Palestine visited Kaunas, including Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion, Bialik, Shneur, Tchernichowsky, etc. With the Soviet Union's annexation of Lithuania in 1940, businesses were nationalized, a step which hurt the mostly Jewish middle class. Zionist and Jewish activities and Hebrew education were banned; some organizations and activities were continued underground. Many Jewish enemies of the people were arrested and some were exiled. After the German invasion in June 1941, many Jews fled to Vilna and Russia. Lithuanian nationalists staged a pogrom in Slobodka, killing 800 Jews. Another 57 were butchered at the Lietukis garage. In the Seventh Fort (one of nine forts built around Kaunas by the czars), 6,000-8,000 Jews were incarcerated without food or water in July. All the men and 36 women were subsequently killed. On 7 August, the Lithuanians seized 1,200 Jews. Most were sent to the Pravienikes labor camp and shot. About 250 Jews were executed on 4 September 1941 following a failed attempt to escape the camp. All the Jews were given until 15 August to move into the Kaunas ghetto which was established in Slobodka. A committee was chosen to facilitate the orderly transfer of all the Jews to the ghetto. This was followed by the election of an Aeltestenrat (a so-called Committee of Community Elders which functioned as a Judenrat) and the appointment of an internal, unarmed police force. In 1941, the ghetto population numbered 29,760. The ghetto consisted of two parts, referred to as the little ghetto and the big ghetto. On 14 August 1941, the Germans carried out an Aktion, rounding up 34 young men who were then taken to the Fourth Fort and shot. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the German officer in charge of the ghetto, Fritz Jordan, randomly shot ten Jews returning from work. On 26 September, 1,845 men, women, and children were sent to the Ninth Fort and murdered. On 4 October, the Germans eliminated the little ghetto by shooting 1,608 residents. Those with Jordan notes – permits issued by the ghetto commander – were transferred to the large ghetto. From September 1941, thousands of Jewish men and women were taken to forced labor at the military air field in a Kaunas suburb. Others worked in brigades for the German army or in factories in town. In October 1941, the Germans carried out what came to be called the Big Aktion. Following a selection of all ghetto residents, including the elderly and sick, approximately 9,200 men, women, and children were taken to the Ninth Fort and shot on 29 October. From 16 November to mid-December 1941, approximately 20,000 Jews from other parts of Europe were killed at the Ninth Fort. A total of 30,000 Jews from Kaunas, Austria, Germany, and Czechoslovakia and from among Jewish Red Army soldiers and officers were eventually killed at the Ninth Fort, the largest killing ground in Lithuania. From August 1941 to 31 December, 13,421 ghetto residents were murdered. This left a ghetto population of 17,400. Although the period from 1 November 1941 to fall 1943, was referred to as the Quiet Period the murders continued. In May 1942, Jewish doctors performed hundreds of abortions following an order forbidding Jewish women to give birth or face execution. In fall 1942, the Germans seized approximately 750 Jews, primarily men, and sent them to the Riga ghetto. About 4,600 craftsmen worked in 44 workshops established to serve the German army. Conditions were relatively good and those in the workshops did not have to face the hardships their brethren encountered working outside the ghetto where they were abused and at times murdered. In September 1943, the ghetto became the Kauen concentration camp under SS jurisdiction. In October, 2,700 Jewish men, women, and children were rounded up, ostensibly to be sent to work in Ezereclai. Instead, trains were prepared to take them to Estonia; the elderly and children were sent to Auschwitz. Most sent to Estonia were eventually sent to death camps in Germany or shot. Many succeeded in avoiding the deportations to Estonia by hiding in underground bunkers. On 27 March 1944, the Germans mounted a Children's Aktion, entering the ghetto in the daytime when parents were at work and taking about 2,000 of the children and elderly to be killed. Prior to the Aktion, dozens of children were handed over to the custody of Lithuanian families, often with large payments, following reports on 5 November 1943 of the slaughter of children, the elderly, and the sick in the Siauliai ghetto. There were four underground organizations in the ghetto from its inception. Organized under a roof organization called the Vilijampole-Kovno Zionist Center, they acted in tandem with official Jewish ghetto bodies to obtain food and supplies and to arrange for people to enter the bunkers. They also established contact with partisan fighters outside the ghetto and with other ghettoes. On Christmas Eve 1943, all 64 prisoners including partisans escaped from the Ninth Fort. Nineteen reached the ghetto 2.5 miles away; 11 joined the partisans. Between December 1943 and March 1944, eight groups succeeded with underground help in escaping from the ghetto and making their way to partisan groups in the Rudnicka forest southeast of Vilna. The ninth attempt failed, when the driver of the vehicle carrying a group of Jews betrayed them to the Nazis. Of the 600 underground members, 350 succeeded in reaching the partisans; about 220 were killed in action. On 27 March 1944, the same day that the Children's Aktion took place, the entire Jewish ghetto police force was taken to the Ninth Fort where its three head officers were tortured and 40 of the 130 policemen were shot. Seven, under torture, revealed the locations of the underground ghetto bunkers. The police force and the Committee of Community Elders were disbanded. By 8 July, the Jewish population of the Kaunas ghetto and work camps was 7,000-8,000 and their transfer to Germany began. When the German commandant realized that thousands were missing, having gone into hiding, every house was fire-bombed, killing at least 1,500 within the bunkers. Ninety managed to escape. On 1 August 1944, Kaunas was liberated by the Red Army. About 3,000 Kaunas Jews survived the war, 2,500 were liberated in Germany and 500 had joined the partisans or hid out with Lithuanians. After the war, some Jews returned to Kaunas, establishing an orphanage, a school, and a synagogue, which were shut down by the Soviets in 1950. Other survivors went to Israel and other countries.