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Yanova (Jonava)
Yanova is situated in the Kovno region, in the center of
Lithuania, on the banks of the river Vilia. During the
Holocaust period, it had a population of 3,000 Jews.
Already on the first day of the War, the town swarmed
with hundreds of Kovno Jews who filled the roads passing
east through Yanova. Yanova’s Jews, too—especially those who
possessed horses and carts and members of the truck
cooperative—began preparing for flight.
On Monday, 23 June 1941, the local authorities were in
disarray and unable to control people who showed up for
work. They tried to organize men for digging trenches to
protect against bombs and tanks, but the shovels were thrown
aside, and everybody ran for his life. An indescribable
panic rose among the Jews: families and individuals, going
by car, bicycle, and on foot, all turned to the east. Since
morning, the road teemed with the retreating remnants of
Soviet military units. German war planes accompanied the
refugees with bombs and mortar shots. There were those who
tried to flee to Kovno in order to reunite with their
families, and those who remained to face whatever happened,
polemicizing that perhaps life wouldn’t be so bad with the
Germans.
The nationalist Shaulists and Young Lithuania began
organizing from the first night. They gathered in the church
belfry and in the secondary school, shooting at refugees and
Soviet soldiers. The decisive battle between the Soviet army
(which was stationed on the training ground known as the
"Polygon") and units of the Wehrmacht occurred on Monday, 23
June. The Germans attacked early, raining mortar shells on
central Yanova. Buildings were destroyed, and fires
proliferated in the center and the northeastern approaches
to town. The residents dispersed in all directions: to the
watermill, to the banks of the Vilia, to the cellars. The
first victims were those in the cellar of Lieber Farber’s
house; seventy Jews were killed or suffocated by a mortar
shell. Only the corpse of the burly Meir Vander could be
identified. The same night, German soldiers infiltrated the
town but did not touch the Jews. Several hundred Jews who
had escaped the fire gathered near the watermill. Germans
appeared from nowhere and maintained order.
On Thursday, 26 June, the S.S.
command released an order to
gather all the Jews in the market square. Lithuanian
collaborators—led by the agronomist Grigaliunas, Simas Dolgačius
(Simonas Dolgacas), the two sons of the builder Vansevičius,
as well as Pinkovskis, Monginas, and hoodlums from Young
Lithuania—set upon Jewish assemblies in the houses that
survived, in the southern part of town, in the synagogues,
and in the Tarbut School. They pillaged and plundered,
urging the Jews with blows to gather in the market square.
The entire community—men, women, and children—were ordered
to their knees, the rabbi Nachum-Baruch Ginzburg at their
head. Around them stood the Lithuanians with machine guns,
apparently ready for a mass slaughter. Suddenly, a cannon
shell flew by with deafening noise, hitting the two-story
cinema building. Panic and mayhem ensued. The assassins—and
the Jews after them—fled, dispersing in all directions.
On 27 June, a young Lithuanian woman named Maria
Maciulita, accompanied by a German, arrived at the home of
the teacher Shaul Keidansky, on Keidany Street, and accused
him of harboring Communists. In the house were all the
family members and Motl Fleischman. The German ordered them
to take shovels, go out to the yard, and dig a hole in the
ground. Then he made them stand next to the hole and shot
them. Motl Fleischman and Keidansky’s two sons were killed
this way. The father was ordered to cover them with earth.
As soon as he finished, he was shot as well. The news
shocked the town’s Jewry.
On 29 June, fifty strapping young Jews were arrested and
herded into the cellar of Hershl Opnitzky, in the New
Market. Each day they were led under watch to the Giralka
woods, on the east of town, for trench digging. A rumor was
spread about that the trenches were intended for holding
fuel tanks. The young men were never set free. They perished
later in the trenches they had dug.
At the beginning of July, Rabbi Ginzburg and other
community notables were invited to the headquarters of the
Lithuanian Activists, where they were informed that they
could avoid expulsion (and would be moved instead into the
ghetto for work) by paying a ransom of 150,000 rubles in
gold, jewels, and securities. The community collected a
great deal of money and gold but was unable to reach the sum
demanded of it. The Activists suggested that the rabbi
travel to Kovno and ask for help from the Jewish community
there in order to complete the stipulated amount. The rabbi
traveled accompanied by armed Lithuanians. Kovno’s rabbi,
A.D. Shapiro, alerted the "askanim" [community workers], and
they raised the missing balance. After the ransom was paid,
an illusory calm fell upon the town. The Jews were required
to wear yellow Star of David patches. They were sent to
perform various types of dirty and demeaning work and were
treated cruelly while working. Some never returned from
work. Jews were not entitled to receive bread. Only one
bakery survived intact in Yanova, and it baked for gentiles.
When Jews wanted to buy bread, they were told, "Go and ask
the Communists, they will give you bread."
On 8 July, most of the young men—about 600—were gathered
along with Rabbi Ginzburg in the barracks of Lipniak, were
they were incarcerated under heavy guard. They were told
that they would be led out to perform field work in the
village of Pogloz, seven kilometers from Yanova. They were
treacherously advised to write to their families and ask for
food, warm clothing, and especially money to be sent to them
by way of the note bearers. Their wives naively believed
what was written in the notes and sent the goods. Chaim
Blumberg, who was hiding with the farmer Raima, sent Raima
to the barracks to make contact with his brother Moshe and
get him out. Moshe refused to leave the barracks, saying he
was certain that they would be taken out to work.
At dawn on 12 July, the men were led out in groups of
200, under heavy Lithuanian guard, in the direction of the
Giralka woods. When the wives found out, there were some who
wanted to accompany their husbands. The Lithuanian guard
fell upon the women, beat and dispersed them. Only the
teacher Apatkina, wife of the chemist Eliezer Goldschmidt,
and Chana, who was married to the lawyer Arieh Stern,
infiltrated the column and marched with the men. They were
brought to the trenches that had been dug beforehand and
were forced to strip and hand over their clothes, money, and
jewels. Then gunfire opened upon them from all sides. It is
known that Dov (Ber) Fein, Berman, and Moshe Blumberg fled
the scene, running from the woods to the road. There they
were caught and killed. Zvi Friedman and Shmaryahu Shapiro
resisted mightily and were stabbed with knives. The
commanders of the slaughter were Dolgačius
and Monginas. Among the assassins were the sons of the
builder Vansevičius, Krečmeris,
Jonas Maculis, and local farmers. Before and after the
slaughter, the murderers were given liquor to "raise their
spirits." They were promised a distribution of the plundered
Jewish possessions.
The laborer Pilipavičius,
who lived not far from the woods, divulged after the war
that he outsmarted the German guard and peeped through a
crack in the tarpaulin fence erected by the Germans. He saw
the bodies lying in the trenches, hovering between life and
death, the piles of bodies rising and falling to the sound
of grunts and cries as new victims were hurled on top of
them.
Remaining in the barracks were only Rabbi Ginzburg,
Nathan Wolzkowsky, and the pharmacist Chaim Kagan, who were
spared so they could maintain contact with the survivors in
town and persuade them to join them—for the final diabolical
act.
From the the first week of August, the Germans released
proclamations among the farmers, stating that if the latter
did not turn in hidden Jews to the authorities, they could
expect a death sentence. For every Jew turned in, the
farmers were promised a gift of pork and flour corresponding
to the Jew’s weight.
A number of Jews reoccupied the Tarbut School and the
synagogues, which had survived the fire. The overcrowding
was intolerable. New proclamations soon appeared, ordering
the Jews—women, men, and children—to move into the barracks.
Lithuanian Activists hunted down Jews, forcing them into the
barracks.
On 13 August, the Jews were marched out under heavy guard
in the direction of the Giralka woods. The farmer Raima from
the village Loki related: "I saw how the women and the men
put down their bundles and suitcases and took off their
outer garments. Then the women were separated from their
children. Terrible cries broke out. The mothers refused to
part from their children, and the murderers pulled them away
forcefully by the arms and legs. Many children ran back to
their mothers and were greeted with gunfire. The Lithuanians
pushed their victims closer to the trenches and opened fire
from machine guns. The children were shoved into another
trench; many were thrown in while still alive and were also
subjected to intense gunfire. The farmer Kasparovičius,
who lived near the woods, lost his sanity after witnessing
the slaughter.
A group of rabbis and Jewish refugees from Poland hid in
the workshop of the carpenter Nachum Levin. They were placed
under the authority of the villain Monginas. He promised
Nachum that if they gave him their money, he would protect
them and spare their lives. Having taken their possessions,
he turned them in. They, too, were led to their deaths that
day.
Following the mass slaughter, Yanova was declared "Judenrein"
[cleansed of Jews]. The Activists’ leader, Grigaliunas,
reported the news to the German conquerors. That evening, a
large celebration was held for the participants in the
action. The next day, peasants were brought from the nearby
villages to cover the graves.
Several dozen families found a hiding place in the Jewish
village Alter Gostinetz, 13 kilometers southeast of Yanova.
Among them were the veteran Zionist activist Moshe Ivansky
and part of his family. At the end of July, Lithuanian
policemen arrived, took Ivansky, two other men and a woman,
and led them to the Giralka woods. There they were shot and
buried. The others—some 80 to 100 souls—were left in the
village so they could help the farmers in the fields.
Lithuanian Activists arrived from time to time, taking some
men out to work; the latter never returned. At the end of
September, peasants and wagons were brought. The women,
children, and the men were taken to the barracks in Yanova.
They were promised their lives. In the barracks were also a
few dozen Jews who had been intercepted on the roads as they
returned from Dvinsk [Daugavpils, Latvia], Azarni, and
Vilkomir [Ukmerge], having been overtaken by the Wehrmacht
before they could cross the border into Russia. Thus there
were about 150 people gathered in the barracks. On 4
October, they loaded their possessions and children on
wagons and proceeded to Kovno on foot, accompanied by the
Lithuanian policeman known as Labas. The same day, the Small
Ghetto action was carried out in Kovno’s ghetto. It appears
that the intention had been to include the Yanova Jews in
this liquidation at the Ninth Fort. However, the policeman
was an honest man; he treated his charges with understanding
and sympathy and did everything they asked, permitting them
to buy bread and foodstuffs in the villages, to collect
drinking water, and to rest on the way. As a result, they
reached their destination only at midnight, after the action
had concluded, and were temporarily saved from death,
remaining in the Kovno ghetto for the time being.
In 1955, a memorial to the victims of Yanova was erected
in the woods, and on it was carved in Lithuanian and Yiddish
the legend "Da seinen umgekommen Yanover Yidden durch
merder-faschisten" [Yanova Jews were killed here by Fascist
murderers].
It was a courageous act in a hostile environment, and a
blessing is due to the originators, Mordechai Brezin and
David Manosevich.
The book "Yanova" includes a partial list of the 1,268
souls who perished there during the Holocaust. According to
estimates, it represents only half the number of victims.
Sources
The list is based on calculations by Itzhak Burstein, based
on testimonials and memoirs contributed to the book "Yanova,"
published by Irgun Yotzei Yanova, Tel-Aviv, 1972.
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