The Book Smugglers, page 31
2. Elhanan Magid, in Tsvika Dror, ed., Kevutsat ha-ma’avak ha-sheniyah (Kibutz Lohamei Ha-getaot, Israel: Ghetto Fighters’ House, 1987), 142; Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 110, 112; anonymous letter to M. W. Beckelman, the JDC representative in Vilna, March 20, 1940, file 611.1, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York (hereafter cited as YIVO archives).
3. Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 112.
4. Ibid., 112, 118–19.
5. Alan E. Steinweis, Studying the Jew: Scholarly Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
6. Maria Kuhn-Ludewig, Johannes Pohl (1904–1960): Judaist und Bibliothekar im Dienste Rosenbergs. Eine biographische Dokumentation (Hanover, Germany: Laurentius, 2000). Regarding his Jerusalem years, see pp. 48–56. Patricia von Papen-Bodek, “Anti-Jewish Research of the Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage in Frankfurt am Main between 1939 and 1945,” in Lessons and Legacies VI: New Currents in Holocaust Research, ed. Jeffry M. Diefendorf, 155–89 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2004).
7. Kuhn-Ludewig, Johannes Pohl, 160–61, deliberates whether it was Pohl or Gotthard who came to Vilna in July 1941. Sutzkever’s various accounts mention both names. Kaczerginski and Balberyszski mention Pohl.
8. Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 143–47. Balberyszski was a close friend and associate of Prylucki’s who visited him and his wife during the period in question. See also Shmerke Kaczerginski, Partizaner geyen, 2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Tsentral farband fun poylishe yidn in argentine, 1947), 65–66; Shmerke Kaczerginski, Ikh bin geven a partisan (Buenos Aires: Fraynd funem mekhaber, 1952), 40–41; and Abraham Sutzkever, Vilner geto (Paris: Fareyn fun di vilner in frankraykh, 1946), 108.
9. Shmerke Kaczerginski, “Der haknkrayts iber yerushalayim de-lite,” Di Tsukunft (New York) (September 1946): 639.
10. Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 180–81.
11. Sutzkever, Vilner geto, 108 (Sutzkever reports that the German responsible for their arrest was not Pohl but his lieutenant, Gotthard); Herman Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, ed. Mordecai W. Bernstein (New York: YIVO, 1961), 73.
12. Shmerke Kaczerginski manuscript, “Vos di daytshn hobn aroysgefirt un farnikhtet,” file 678.2, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO archives; Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 180.
13. Raphael Mahler, “Emanuel Ringelblum’s briv fun varshever geto,” Di Goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 46 (1963): 25.
14. ERR collection, op. 1, d. 136, pp. 386, 396, F. 3676, Einsatzsztab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Central State Archive of Organs of Higher Power (TsDAVO), Kyiv (hereafter cited as TsDAVO).
Chapter 4. Intellectuals in Hell
1. Rokhl Mendelsohn, letter to Pinkhas Schwartz 1959, p. 7, file 770, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York; Rachel Margolis, interview by author, Yeruham, Israel, May 6, 2011. See the biography by his brother Pinkhas Schwartz, in Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, xi–xlv.
2. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, xxxii–xxxiv.
3. See Samuel Kassow, “Vilna and Warsaw, Two Ghetto Diaries: Herman Kruk and Emanuel Ringelblum,” in Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust through Diaries and Other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts, ed. Robert Moses Shapiro, 171–215 (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1999); and Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 294 (June 28, 1942).
4. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 54–55; Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, trans. Barbara Harshav, ed. Benjamin Harshav (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press and YIVO, 2002), 92.
5. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 54–55; Kruk, Last Days, 92–93.
6. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 60–63; Kruk, Last Days, 97–100.
7. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 67–69, 77, 80.
8. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, xxxv–xxxvi, 72.
9. Kruk’s retrospective report, “A yor arbet in vilner get-bibliotek,” October 1942, file 370, pp. 21–22, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO archives.
10. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, xxxxix, 81–82, 123–24; Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 443.
11. Grade, “Froyen fun geto,” June 30, 1961; Chaim Grade, “Fun unter der erd,” Forverts, April 1, 1979; Kaczerginski, Khurbn vilne, 5.
12. Kaczerginski, Ikh bin geven, 19–21; Grade, “Froyen fun geto,” June 30, 1961; Grade, “Fun unter der erd,” April 1, 1979.
13. Kaczerginski, Ikh bin geven, 23–24.
14. Kaczerginski gives conflicting dates for his period outside the Vilna ghetto. In Khurbn vilne, the time frame mentioned is September 1941 to April 1942 (see pp. 141, 197, 215); in Ikh bin geven a partisan, he mentions winter 1942 to spring 1943. The former dates are corroborated by Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 310.
15. Sutzkever, Vilner geto, 26–27, 55–58.
16. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 92.
Chapter 5. A Haven for Books and People
1. See the monthly library report for October 1941 published in Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 435–36.
2. Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 438–39.
3. Inventories of objects in the ghetto library, file 476, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO archives; on the display cases in the reading room, see Dina Abramowicz, “Vilner geto bibliotek,” in Lite, ed. Mendel Sudarsky, Uriah Katsenelboge, and Y. Kisin, 1671–78, vol. 1 (New York: Kultur gezelshaft fun litvishe yidn, 1951), 1675; and Ona Ŝimaite, “Mayne bagegenishn mit herman kruk,” Undzer shtime (Paris), August 1–2, 1947, 2.
4. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 138–40, 162.
5. Abraham Sutzkever, “Tsum kind,” in Lider fun yam ha-moves (Tel Aviv: Bergen Belzen, 1968), 44–45; English translation in David G. Roskies, ed. and comp., The Literature of Destruction (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1989), 494–95.
6. Sutzkever, Vilner geto, 72; Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 157.
7. Herman Kruk, “Geto-bibliotek un geto-leyener, 15.ix.1941–15.ix.1942,” file 370, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO archives; file 295, p. 18, records of Vilnius Ghetto, RG 26.015M, archive of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as USHMM).
8. Abramowicz, “Vilner geto bibliotek.”
9. Kruk, “Geto-bibliotek un geto-leyener,” 22.
10. Kruk, “Geto-bibliotek un geto-leyener,” 22–23; Shloime Beilis, “Kultur unter der hak,” in Portretn un problemen, 313–416 (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1964), 330–31.
11. Zelig Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto (fragment),” ed. Shalom Luria, with Yiddish translation by Avraham Nowersztern, YIVO bleter (New Series) 3 (1997): 82.
12. Kruk, “Geto-bibliotek un geto-leyener,” 23–25.
13. Kruk, “Geto-bibliotek un geto-leyener,” 14, 17, 18, 27–28.
14. op. 1, d. 256, records of Vilnius Ghetto, F. R-1421, Lithuanian Central State Archive, Vilnius (hereafter cited as F. R-1421 records).
15. op. 1, d. 246, F. R-1421 records.
16. op. 1, d. 304, 340, 341, F. R-1421 records.
17. “Di sotsyal-psikhologishe rol fun bukh in geto,” op. 1, d. 230, F. R-1421 records.
18. Mark Dworzecki, Yerushalayim de-lite in kamf un umkum (Paris: Yidish-natsionaler arbeter farband in amerike un yidisher folksfarband in frankraykh, 1948), 241; Kruk, “Geto-bibliotek un geto-leyener,” 6; letter to all building superintendents in ghetto no. 1 (evidently from late September or October 1941), file 450, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO archives.
19. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 99; Kruk, Last Days, 140 (with modifications).
20. Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 439; file 15, F. R-1421 records. The order was dated November 27, 1941.
21. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 97, 116, 129 (January 4, and January 7, 1942).
22. Bebe Epshtein, “A bazukh in der groyser shul. Derinerung fun geto,” file 223, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO archives. In a subsequent clandestine visit, Dr. Daniel Feinshtein discovered the private library of Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzensky in a corner of the women’s gallery of the Great Synagogue. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 150 (January 27, 1942), 152 (January 29, 1942), 161 (February 9, 1942).
23. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 126–28 (January 7, 1942).
24. Acquisition cards of the Vilna ghetto museum, file 283, pp. 4–5, file 366, nos. 1 and 67, F. R-1421 records.
25. On these institutions, see the library reports for September and October 1941, in Balberyszski, Shtarker fun ayzn, 435–38; and later reports in the Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, files 367 and 368, YIVO archives. On the museum, see files 453 and 472 in the same Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection; and files 265, 266, 349, 354, F. R-1421 records.
26. See the photo in the insert.
A Rescued Gem: The Record Book of the Vilna Gaon’s Synagogue
1. Shelomo Zalman Havlin, “Pinkas kloyz ha-gra be-vilna,” Yeshurun 16 (2005): 748.
2. Ibid., 750.
3. Endowment fund established by Moshe Dinershtein, 5th of Sivan 5673 (June 10, 1913), file 184.11, pp. 56–58, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, part 2, YIVO archives.
4. “Bet Midrash shel maran Ha-Gra zatsal, Vilna, Yetso,” dated 1st of Tamuz, 5686 (July 2, 1916), file 184.11, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, part 2, YIVO archives.
5. “Lezikaron olam,” dated Hodesh Menahem Av 5682 (August 1922), file 184,11 Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, part 2, YIVO archives.
Chapter 6. Accomplices or Saviors?
1. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 163 (February 11, 1942); Kruk, Last Days, 198. The names of the ERR team members are based on Abraham Sutzkever’s manuscript “Tsu der geshikhte fun rozenberg shtab,” file 678.1, and the anonymous account on the ERR, file 678, pp. 1–2, Sutzkever-Kaczerginski Collection, RG 223, YIVO archives.
2. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 178–79 (February 19, 1942), Kruk, Last Days, 212 (with modifications).
3. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 180; Kruk, Last Days, 213.
4. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 183.
5. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 178–81.
6. Ŝimaite, “Mayne bagegenishn,” 3.
7. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 182–83, 188.
8. Herman Kruk manuscript, “Ikh gey iber kvorim,” D. 2.32, Moreshet Archive, Givat Haviva, Israel. See also Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 190–91, and Kruk’s report of activities for July and August 1942, d. 501, F. R-1421 records.
9. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 190; Kruk, Last Days, 222.
10. Work at 3 Uniwersytecka Street continued sporadically until August 1943. See Zelig Kalmanovitch, Yoman be-geto vilna u-ketavim min ha-’izavon she-nimtsa’ ba-harisot (Tel Aviv: Moreshet-Sifriat Poalim, 1977), 101, 103.
11. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 200, 272; Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” 2–3; Kaczerginski, “Vos di daytshn,” 1–2; Rachela Pupko-Krinsky, “Mayn arbet in YIVO unter di daytshn,” YIVO bleter 30 (1947): 214–23. Kaczerginski estimated that twenty-four thousand books were destroyed by the Luftwafe unit. These accounts are corroborated by Johannes Pohl’s report to the ERR in Berlin dated April 28, 1942: ERR collection, op. 1, d. 128, pp. 182–83, TsDAVO.
12. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 200.
Chapter 7. The Nazi, the Bard, and the Teacher
1. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 240 (April 23, 1942); Kruk, Last Days, 268 (with modifications).
2. Kuhn-Ludewig, Johannes Pohl, 189. Himpel claimed, in an account written in 1959, that he persuaded Pohl to catalog the materials in situ, using qualified Jewish forced laborers.
3. Staff figures are taken from Kaczerginski, Partizaner geyen, 66; Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 87 (June 4, 1942); and I. Kowalski, A Secret Press in Nazi Europe: The Story of a Jewish United Partisan Organization (New York: Central Guide Publishers, 1969), 99.
4. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 21 (March 20, 1942).
5. Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” 9–10; and Pohl, letter to Berlin, April 2, 1942, ERR collection, op. 1, d. 128, pp. 163–64, TsDAVO.
6. ERR collection, op. 1 d. 128, pp. 193; 330–33, TsDAVO.
7. Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” 9; Kaczerginski, “Vos di daytshn,” 3. Kaczerginski states that Pohl’s estimate was $250,000; Pohl’s April 28, 1942, report to Berlin, ERR collection, op. 1, d. 128, p. 187, TsDAVO.
8. Pohl divided his time between Berlin (the ERR’s headquarters), Frankfurt (the Institute for Investigation of the Jewish Question), and the field. In May 1942, he was in Kovna (45,778 volumes in the synagogue library); in June, he was in Kiev (90,000 volumes); and in early November, he was in Kharkov, where forty thousand volumes of Hebraica and Judaica were found. He visited Vilna on the way to and from his trips to Ukraine. See ERR collection, op. 1, d. 50a, d. 119, pp. 220–21, TsDAVO.
9. Kaczerginski, Ikh bin geven, 17.
10. Ibid., 100–101.
11. The English translation is based on Roskies, Literature of Destruction, 479–82, with my own modifications.
12. Kaczerginski, Khurbn vilne, 179, 182–83, 197, 205, 239, 240, 244; Association of Jews from Vilna and Vicinity in Israel, accessed January 26, 2017, http://www.vilna.co.il/89223/ברנשטיין; YIVO Institute, “Yizker,” YIVO-bleter 26, no. 1 (June–September 1945): 5; K. S. Kazdan, ed., Lerer yizker-bukh: di umgekumene lerer fun tsisho shuln in poyln (New York: Komitet, 1954), 242; Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 211; Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” 2–3.
13. Yehuda Tubin, ed., Ruzhka: Lehimata, Haguta, Demuta (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1988); Kaczerginski, Khurbn vilne, 307; “Biographies: Avram Zeleznikow (1924–),” Monash University, accessed January 5, 2017, http://future.arts.monash.edu/yiddish-melbourne/biographies-avram-zeleznikow.
14. This portrait is based on Rachela Krinsky’s handwritten answers to questions submitted by her granddaughter Alexandra Wall written in 1997, “Answers to the Questionnaire,” and the memoirs of Rachela’s postwar husband Abraham Melezin, especially chapter 37, “Rachela,” in boxes 1 and 6 of the Abraham Melezin Collection, RG 1872, YIVO archives. Additional information was provided by Rachela’s granddaughter Alexandra Wall.
Chapter 8. Ponar for Books
1. Dworzecki, Yerushalayim de-lite, 167; Reizl (Ruzhka) Korczak, Lehavot ba-efer, 3rd ed. (Merhavia, Israel: Sifriyat Po’alim, 1965), 76; Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 238 (April 20, 1942).
2. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 242–43 (April 25, 1942).
3. On Sporket, see his ERR personnel file, op. 1, d. 223, p. 233, TsDAVO; Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 267 (May 15, 1942); Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 81 (May 17 and May 19, 1942); Kalmanovitch, Yoman be-geto vilna, 93 (December 1, 1942); Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” 3–4; and Kaczerginski, Ikh bin geven, 41. On Gotthard, see the ERR collection, op. 1, d. 128, p. 138, d. 145, p. 167, TsDAVO.
4. Pupko-Krinsky, “Mayn arbet,” 216; Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 92 (June 12, 1942).
5. Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” 3, 8, 9; Sutzkever, letter to Ilya Ehrenburg, July 1944, in “Ehrenburg,” Abraham Sutzkever Collection, Arc 4° 1565, National Library of Israel, Archives Department, Jerusalem (hereafter cited as Sutzkever Collection); Sutzkever, Vilner geto, 110.
6. “Aufgabenstellung des Einsatzstabes Reichsleiter Rosenberg,” cited in Kuhn-Ludewig, Johannes Pohl, 184.
7. Memo by Dr. Wunder on “Generisches Schrifttum,” Riga, May 27, 1942, op. 1, d. 233, pp. 276–78, TsDAVO.
8. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 282 (June 5, 1942); Kaczerginski, “Vos di daytshn,” 4, 6; Kalmanovitch, Yoman be-geto vilna, 76 (August 10, 1942), 78 (August 21, 1942).
9. Kaczerginski, Partizaner geyen, 68.
10. Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 88.
11. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 282 (June 5, 1942), 300 (June 9, 1942).
12. ERR collection, op. 1, d. 128, pp. 330–31, TsDAVO.
13. Kaczerginski, “Vos di daytshn,” 4; “Nirenberger protses,” file 124, “Tezn tsu mayn eydes zogn,” pp. 5–7, Sutzkever Collection. The disposal of the Torah scrolls to a leather factory is corroborated by Sporket’s correspondence with his superiors in Berlin; ERR collection, op. 1, d. 119, p. 189 (September 26, 1942), p. 191 (September 16, 1942), TsDAVO.
14. Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 93.
15. Kalmanovitch, Yoman be-geto vilna, 89 (November 15, 1942).
16. Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” 4–5. The work reports of the Polish Department of the Rosenberg Detail for July 5–10 and 12–17, 1943, signed by Nadezhda (Dina) Jaffe, document the transfer of the Zawadzki Publishing House, d. 507, F. R-1421 records.
17. Memo dated May 21, 1942, op. 1, d. 119, p. 215, TsDAVO.
18. Kaczerginski, “Vos di daytshn,” 5; A. Malatkov, “Geratevete kultur-oytsres,” Eynikayt (Moscow), August 17, 1944.
19. Sutzkever, “Tsu der geshikhte,” pp. 7–8. Pohl’s layout in his October 15, 1942, report describes the use of rooms prior to the influx of Russian and Polish collections. ERR collection, op. 1, d. 128, pp. 330–31, TsDAVO.
20. Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 88 (June 7, 1942); Kalmanovitch, Yoman be-geto vilna, 109 (July 5, 1943).
21. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 282 (June 5, 1942); Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 90 (June 8, 1942), 91 (June 10, 1942), 92 (June 12, and June 15, 1942), 95 (June 18, 1942), 103 (July 19, 1942).
22. Kalmanovitch, Yoman be-geto vilna, 82 (October 11, 1942), 85 (October 25, 1942), 91 (November 16, 1942); Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto, 457 (February 13, 1943); file 179, p. 1, collection of documents on Vilna (Vilnius) Ghetto, Arc 4° 1703, National Library of Israel, Archives Department, Jerusalem (hereafter cited as documents on Vilna Ghetto); Kaczerginski, “Vos di daytshn,” 3.
Chapter 9. The Paper Brigade
1. Kalmanovitch, “Togbukh fun vilner geto,” 100; Kalmanovitch, Yoman be-geto vilna, 87 (November 1, 1942); file 497, p. 1, file 499, pp. 4, 6, records of Vilnius Ghetto, USHMM.
2. Kaczerginski, Ikh bin geven, 41–42.
