The Shtetl Crumbles

Erin Harper: 12 Years That Shook the World tells true stories from Holocaust history that may not be suitable for everyone.

[Theme Music]

Previously, on 12 Years That Shook the World:

Miriam Kabacznik: The Germans declared war.

Erin Harper: Over the summer of 1941, the Germans flip Eyshishok upside down. They take over Miriam’s house, attack Jews, and turn to local police to enforce orders. Zvi looks for strength in his father’s wisdom.

Zvi Michaeli: You are a proud Jew until now. Don’t give up.

[Men yell angrily]

Erin Harper: The Germans humiliate Jewish men and teenage boys, including Leon. They beat them, and force them to do senseless labor, trying to break their spirits.

Leon Kahn: I will survive you.

[Soft music]

Erin Harper: Jewish people are no longer allowed to leave Eyshishok. And now, rumors circulate. Rumors about entire Jewish communities being murdered.

Miriam Kabacznik: Couldn’t believe it. How can they kill everybody? It's impossible.

Erin Harper: Many Jews in Eyshishok discount the rumors. And now, they turn their focus to one of the holiest moments of the Jewish calendar: Rosh Hashanah. The Jewish New Year. Two days of celebration, song and prayer. For the Jewish people of Eyshishok, this could be a moment of joy amidst the chaos and the violence.

From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, I’m Erin Harper. This is 12 Years That Shook the World.

Episode three: The Shtetl Crumbles

[Pause]

Throughout Eyshishok, many Jewish women are busy baking bread, preparing apples and honey, and setting out candles to light. It’s September 21st, 1941.

[Pots and pans clang]

And Rosh Hashanah starts tonight at sundown. Miriam is outside cleaning in front of her house before the holiday begins. Here’s historian, Dr. Lindsay MacNeill.

Dr. Lindsay MacNeill: The first sign that something is really wrong in Eyshishok comes on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

Miriam Kabacznik: All of a sudden one friend of ours came to our house and started to cry. And: “Did you see what it's written on the walls?”

[Punctuated music]

Erin Harper: The Germans have just posted an order on the wall in the market square. It says: By sundown, all Jews must report to one of Eyshishok’s three synagogues near the center of town. But with this new order today — Miriam thinks something is seriously wrong.

Miriam Kabacznik: And this is a sign they’re going to do something to us. … We felt danger. We did not know what, but we felt danger.

Erin Harper: A new group of men arrives in Eyshishok. They’re Lithuanians, and they’re armed with guns. What Jews don’t know is that these men are working with a Nazi killing squad in the area. The Lithuanians seal off the town, and patrol the streets.

[Wind rushes]

Dr. Lindsay MacNeill: This adds a level of terror for the Jewish community. It is very clear that something very bad is about to happen.

After the order goes up in town, people are scrambling to figure out what to do. Whether to comply, whether to run. They're trying to figure out who they can turn to for help. And Miriam starts going from house to house, asking her neighbors: What should we do? What is the right decision?

Miriam Kabacznik: “What is your plans? Are you going to leave town? People are running away.” He said, “What do you mean? How can I move? Look, my daughter is pregnant. … I cannot go any place. Any day she's going to have a baby.”

[Footsteps running]

Erin Harper: Miriam runs to another house. But they have the same questions:

Miriam Kabacznik: “What do you mean, what am I going to do? Where can I go? … Whatever there will be, we have to face it.”

Erin Harper: Some Jewish people are speculating: Some think they’ll create a ghetto in Eyshishok to imprison Jews. Or maybe the Germans will rob Jews’ homes while they’re at the synagogues. Or they’ll send Jewish men away for forced labor.

[Doors squeak open and close]

But house after house, and family after family, no one Miriam talks to is planning to leave town. Like her neighbor said, whatever it will be, they’ll have to face it. Miriam eventually gets tired. She heads home to her mother, with no plan, other than to wait. Wait until tonight at sundown, to see what the Germans will do.

Leon’s family hears about the order, and they do have a plan. Everyone in the family— Leon’s parents, his grandmother, older brother and younger sister — had already agreed on what they would do. Here’s historian, Dr. Edna Friedberg.

Dr. Edna Friedberg: Leon's mother decides that she and the grandmother and their young daughter, Leon's little sister, will go to the synagogue. They're convinced, based on prior experience, that if they report there, only men and teenage boys would be sent to labor camps. That's what they can imagine is the most terrible thing that could happen. But that women and girls would be spared.

[Pensive music]

Erin Harper: And especially after what the Germans did to Leon: throwing him in an outhouse, beating him, humiliating him, and forcing him to do labor for the Germans’ amusement — there’s no way Leon, his father, or his brother will follow the order and go to the synagogues. They’re getting out of Eyshishok immediately. So the family splits: Leon’s mother, sister and grandmother head to the synagogues.

Dr. Edna Friedberg: Leon's father changes his clothes. He put on a type of coat and rope belt that was traditionally worn by Christian farmers in the area, and decides to try to get out of town, and he manages to do that.

Erin Harper: Leon and his brother Benjamin head out the back door, through the garden, and across a meadow towards the edge of Eyshishok.

Leon Kahn: My brother and I tried to run.

Erin Harper: But as soon as they reach the border, Leon looks up and sees two men with guns standing guard.

[Men yell]

Dr. Edna Friedberg: The town has been encircled by Lithuanian collaborators to try to keep Jews from fleeing.

Erin Harper: The armed men confront Leon and Benjamin, search their pockets for valuables, then hit them with their rifles. They tell them to turn around and go to the synagogues.

But the boys are not going to report to the synagogues. So, now they choose to hide inside the shtetl. They run home, to think. Quickly. Because now, it’s already the afternoon, and Jews are due at the synagogues by sundown.

Dr. Edna Friedberg: Leon and his brother Benjamin run to hide. They are here in their childhood home, the place where they have lived all their lives. They know every nook and cranny, and in and out.

Leon Kahn: My brother and I, when we were playing hide-and-seek with our friends, had a favorite place where to hide that nobody could find us.

Erin Harper: The barn. The barn behind their house. Leon and Benjamin used to lie on the roof of the barn to hide. Leon thinks no one would ever look there.

[Running through grass; Climbing]

So the boys run to the barn out back, and quietly climb up. They lie down on the roof — which is covered in thick layers of straw. They settle in, and stay silent.

[Pause; Birds chirp]

It’s now late afternoon, just hours before sundown. Zvi and his younger brother, David, are at home with their mother. She’s been cooking and baking for Rosh Hashanah— soup, chicken, and bread. Here’s historian, Dr. J. Luke Ryder.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: Lithuanian guards surround the shtetl and go from house to house.

[Pounding on a door]

And Zvi and his brother immediately know that they have to try to escape.

Erin Harper: But as they start to make their break, the guards stop them and force them back. Zvi and his younger brother David reluctantly make their way to the synagogues. Not knowing what they will find.

The sun is going down in Eyshishok, and the Rosh Hashanah holiday is about to begin. Miriam is at home with her mother still waiting to see what will happen.

Miriam Kabacznik: And my mother put the candlesticks on the table and she was going to light the candles. And it was getting a little dark, not completely dark.

Erin Harper: That’s when Miriam looks out the window and sees the armed men on patrol. The danger has arrived.

[Threatening music]

And in this instant, Miriam changes her mind.

Miriam Kabacznik: And I said, “Mother, let's run.”

Erin Harper: Miriam grabs a coat and a pair of shoes. She bolts for the back door.

[A door bursts open]

Miriam Kabacznik: I opened up, and I run.

Erin Harper: But as she rushes away from the house, Miriam realizes her mother isn’t following behind her. She doesn’t know where she went. But Miriam keeps going, and heads out into the dark.

[Quick footsteps]

It’s now sundown when Jews are supposed to report to the synagogues, following the Germans’ order. And many Jews are showing up.

Dr. Lindsay MacNeill: Most of Eyshishok’s Jews comply with the order. They gather at the synagogue complex where they are then forced into Eyshishok’s multiple synagogues and they are left there. They're not supposed to leave. They're surrounded by guards. More and more Jewish people are being crammed into these buildings.

Erin Harper: Within an hour, about a thousand Jewish people are already packed into the main synagogue, including Leon’s mother, sister and grandmother. Also, Zvi and his brother David. They spot their father Mane at the other end of the crowd. He had gone there much earlier to prepare for the holiday service. Zvi and David push through the crowd to get to him. Young children, the elderly, sick people, pregnant women. Familiar faces. People he has known his whole life, packed into what used to be their sanctuary.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: The time goes by and they really start to panic. More people are forced in and it becomes so cramped that some people have to stand. And after several hours, an area to the front of the synagogue is designated as a latrine. So the air in the space becomes not just stifled, but thick with the smell of sweat and excrement. So the atmosphere has really shifted from confusion to chaos.

[A frightened crowd yells and screams]

Zvi Michaeli: It’s panic. The yelling and the screaming, and the crying from the children. It was so terrible.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: And there's this real sense of calamity inside this place. And I think imprisoning the Jews of Eyshishok in the synagogue is humiliating of them, but it's also kind of robbing them of their senses and their physical strength. So after several hours, they're exhausted, they're hungry, they're desperate, and they're very, very afraid.

Erin Harper: Soon, the guards lock the doors to the synagogues, and stand watch. The Jewish people of Eyshishok are now trapped inside.

[Pause; Birds chirp]

Leon and Benjamin still lie on the roof of the barn behind their home — keeping absolutely silent. Just then, below them, a group of teenagers rattle the barn door.

[A door shakes]

The teenagers break the lock, burst into the barn, and cheer with excitement.

Leon and Benjamin lie still as the teenagers loot the barn below. The teenagers move on to Leon’s house, and rummage through the family’s personal items. Leon realizes these are kids he knows.

Leon Kahn: Those were neighbors from behind our garden … boys, mostly, that I went to school with.

Erin Harper: There’s nothing Leon and Benjamin can do. So they keep quiet, and wait for the thieves to run away.

Dr. Edna Friedberg: They stay for the rest of that day, overnight into the next day, terrified, without information, without knowing what's happened to their parents, to their grandma, to their sister.

Erin Harper: They lie in the dark, as their shtetl crumbles.

[Tense music]

When Miriam ran from her house, she went to the home of a worker in her family’s leather business, a Polish man. Miriam has a relationship with many of their Polish employees, so this is a man she’s known her whole life. Now, she’s asking him for help: she needs somewhere to sleep, and she has to find her mother.

Miriam Kabacznik: I want to go to town and find out where my mother is. He said, “I don't know and I want you out of here.”

Erin Harper: He’s afraid that he’ll be targeted if he helps Jewish people.

Miriam Kabacznik: His wife was going on, terribly. She said, “Because of you, we have to die. They'll shoot us.” … I said, “Don't worry we’ll see to disappear in the morning …. We don't want you to die because of us.”

Erin Harper: The couple reluctantly agrees to let Miriam stay until morning. But all night, she can’t sleep.

At dawn, Miriam leaves the workers’ house and runs to her family’s leather factory on the outskirts of town. Thinking, maybe she can get help from other workers, or find her mother, or a place to hide. But the same man shows up — the Polish worker who had just let her spend the night. And again, he tells Miriam to leave.

Miriam Kabacznik: We started to feel more and more that we are not wanted any place. We don't know what to do.

Erin Harper: Then Miriam remembers the farmer — the Polish Catholic man named Korkuć. He was the one who offered her help back when the rumors started.

Miriam Kabacznik: In my mind came about this man that told me we should run to his village … He just mentioned, “Run to me and I'll hide you.”

Erin Harper: Just then, she sees another Polish man she knows walk by. He knows how to get to where Korkuć lives. Miriam makes a deal with him. She gives him materials from the leather factory, and in exchange, he agrees to lead her to the village. They set out, away from Eyshishok.

[Footsteps run away]

After an entire day of being locked inside the town’s three synagogues, the now thousands of Eyshishok’s Jews are tired, hungry, and anxious. The guards are forcing more people inside: Jews from the surrounding area.

As the day goes on, the anxiety only grows. One of Eyshishok’s rabbis says a prayer to mark the New Year, Rosh Hashanah. Zvi says it’s touching — and it makes people cry. Hours and hours go by. It’s getting late.

[Low mournful music]

Zvi Michaeli: And while we were sitting, it was quiet down. People got tired, everybody tried to fall asleep.

Erin Harper: And out of nowhere, Zvi’s older sister Judith appears. Judith was wanted by the Nazis for being a registered communist. She had gone into hiding in a nearby town months ago and the family hadn’t seen her since. But when Judith heard what was happening to Jewish people in Eyshishok, she came back. Zvi and his father Mane don’t understand.

Zvi Michaeli: She said, “The fate, what’s going to be with you, is going to be with me.”

Erin Harper: Judith wanted to be with her family, no matter the consequences.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: So Mane and his sons know that Judith is marked for death as a Communist and she will very, very likely be shot.

Zvi Michaeli: I saw my father get old and gray in this moment for ten years. His face was changed from pain.

Erin Harper: His father Mane makes a plea. He says, get Judith out of the synagogue. Take her to the nearby town, called Radun. Get her back into hiding. Zvi accepts his father’s plea. He grabs Judith. But all the doors are locked. Then Zvi spots a window in the foyer of the synagogue. It’s cracked open, slightly. When the guards are not looking, Zvi and Judith quietly open the window and climb out. Zvi leads Judith on a walk more than 10 miles to Radun.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: Zvi heads back toward Eyshishok in hope of freeing his brother and father through that same window. So he thinks, well, if I got her out, and I got myself out, I can go back and I can get the rest of them.

Erin Harper: And just as he’s about to rejoin his family inside the main synagogue, Zvi is spotted by guards and he's thrown into a different synagogue, now separated from his family.

Jews spend another night in this chaos. Three days. It’s now been three days since the Germans ordered Jews to report to the synagogues.

Suddenly, on this morning the guards unlock the doors. They announce that they’re moving all Jews from the synagogues to the nearby field in the center of town. And the guards say, from there, Jews will be taken to a ghetto.

Pointing their guns, the guards line up the Jewish men, women and children in rows. Among them are Leon’s mother, sister and grandmother; Zvi and his family; and Miriam’s mother, who also ended up imprisoned in the synagogues. All weary and afraid. The guards begin to march them through the streets of their shtetl.

[Dogs bark]

Dogs circle the rows of Jewish families, so no one can step out of line.

Dr. Lindsay MacNeill: On the one hand, there is relief in this. There's fresh air which had been lacking in the synagogues. But you're also exposed to the eyes of your entire community. And this is not private.

Erin Harper: Non-Jewish neighbors from Eyshishok and the surrounding area show up. Some of these neighbors are laughing and clapping, as they watch the guards force Jewish people through town. Jews are pushed into a large field, surrounded by a wooden fence, with planks six-feet high. The guards close the gate behind them.

[A gate swings close, and latches]

Normally, this fenced-in field was a place where people in Eyshishok would play soccer, or buy and sell horses. But now, Zvi says it feels like a cage. Zvi catches sight of his family. He hadn’t seen them since he snuck Judith out of the synagogue. And, while Zvi is relieved to see them, he’s shocked by the state they’re in.

Zvi Michaeli: My father, I couldn't recognize my father… his face was changing in my eyes. The whole burden of the children was on him. My mother was also so broken. Everybody, everybody. Not the same people as they came in.

Erin Harper: Zvi looks out over the fence. On each of the surrounding rooftops is a guard armed with a rifle, keeping watch on them. Some of the other people in town approach the field, and talk to Jews through the fence planks.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: And a few of them actually encourage the Jews to run away.

Erin Harper: But many ridicule Jews trapped inside.

[Laughter]

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: Some of them are yelling taunts and jeering at them and saying truly chilling things like, “It'll be your turn soon.”

Erin Harper: Some are trying to convince Jews to give up any valuables they may have on them, like wedding rings, or other jewelry.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: Quite a few others are saying “You should hand over whatever it is you have to us, because you won't, you won't need it.” It's clear that the Jews are very, very much isolated from their former community now.

Erin Harper: Zvi thinks he doesn’t even know these neighbors anymore. Their voices. Their faces. Everything has changed.

[Apprehensive music]

It’s getting dark, and it starts to rain. Remaining imprisoned in the fenced-in field are Zvi, and his family; Leon’s mother, sister, grandmother, and more than three thousand other Jewish people. They have no food. No water. And although everyone is so exhausted, Zvi says, no one sleeps. They all just wait for the next day to come.

[Pause; Intense music]

It's now Thursday, September 25, 1941. It’s been four days since the Germans ordered Jews to report to the synagogues. And on this morning, the guards announce: They need a group of young, strong Jewish men and teenage boys.

Dr. Lindsay MacNeill: They pick them out of the crowd. They tell them that they are going to go build a ghetto or to do forced labor.

Erin Harper: The guards line up at least a hundred Jewish men and teenage boys. The guards lead them out, away from town. A short while later, Jews confined in the fenced-in field hear gunshots.

[Music swells]

Fear sets in. The guards call for another group of Jewish men. But this time, the guards bring a letter.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: The Lithuanians and Germans circulate this letter supposedly written by a Jew who had been led away and had supposedly been resettled in this ghetto. And the letter explains that the Jews who are imprisoned there on the field are also going to join this ghetto once it's prepared and they're going to be put to work. But it doesn't really work. The desired effect is calm, and the answer is panic.

Erin Harper: No one knows what to believe. They don’t know what’s real. The ghetto. The gunshots.

[Dogs bark]

Zvi watches his mother and brother David. They can’t stop crying. Everything is unraveling.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: The air around this fenced-in field is full of pleading and crying and dogs barking, and there's police screaming orders at the captives, flashing their weapons.

[Angry yelling]

And Zvi, one of his most vivid memories of this is that people seem to lose human form.

Erin Harper: Zvi feels everyone is humiliated and broken. Soon, the guards come back, line up a group of Jewish men, and march them away. Every hour or so, they return, and take another group of men, then another. Then another.

[A muffled crowd yells]

Some Jewish men volunteer to go. But when not enough men go willingly, the guards send the dogs out to chase Jewish men in line. They take whoever is closest to the gate. So Zvi and his family move farther and farther away, to the other end of the field. As they huddle together, Zvi’s father gathers his children. He has something to say.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: Zvi's father, Mane, he really tries to remain calm. And he seems in the same moment, though, to realize he's not going to survive. Whatever is unfolding, he won't be alive at the end of it, seems to be his sense. So he turns to scripture. He starts to talk about Jewish history. The trials of suffering and murder that Jews had endured in the past. But he also talks about the future.

Erin Harper: Mane says, even if the Germans are killing Jews here and now — the Germans won’t be able to kill all Jews from the shtetl of Eyshishok.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: They start to count all of the people who have emigrated to the US, to the Soviet Union, to South America. And they're comforted by the notion that these people will live on and Judith who has escaped from the synagogue will live on.

Erin Harper: Zvi feels some hope, knowing that somewhere, some Jews from Eyshishok would survive. Their traditions, and their stories would live on.

[Pause; Ethereal music]

This week, the Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators have unleashed terror on the shtetl. The shtetl is fractured. Leon and Benjamin: trapped on the roof. Their mother, sister and grandmother: imprisoned in the field. Miriam: on the run, separated from her mother.

And now, the guards return to the field. Most of the Jewish men and teenage boys are gone. There’s only one group left. In the group are Zvi, his father Mane, and his younger brother David. They’re next to be marched away.

Coming up on 12 Years That Shook the World:

Zvi Michaeli: The air became so heavy.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: His father leans toward him and repeats: “You will survive. You will survive. You will live and you will take revenge.”

Miriam Kabacznik: We prayed harder. We prayed harder and believed there will come a miracle.

Dr. J. Luke Ryder: They have this kind of romantic feeling for each other.

Leon Kahn: They started showing me how to use a machine gun and they started showing me how to use dynamite.

[Theme Music]

Erin Harper: From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, I’m Erin Harper. Joining me were historians at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dr. Edna Friedberg, Dr. Lindsay MacNeill, and Dr. J. Luke Ryder.

Our show is written and produced by me. Our story is researched by Meredith Gui, with additional research by Dr. Lindsay MacNeill, as well as Clare Cronin and historian, Dr. William Meinecke. We offer a special thank you to Dr. Simon Goldberg, and Hana G. Green.

This story is informed by the work of historian, Dr. Yaffa Eliach.

Some oral history interviews are from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s collection, as a gift from Jeff Bieber, including: Miriam Kabacznik Shulman from 1997, Leon Kahn from 1998, and Zvi Michaelowsky from 1997, and 1999. An interview with Miriam Kabacznik Shulman from 1996 is a gift from Randy M. Goldman. You can watch these testimonies online in the Museum’s collection.

Other Interviews of Miriam [Kabacznik] Shulman from 1998, Leon Kahn from 1996, and Zvi Michaeli from 1996 are from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education. For more information, visit sfi.usc.edu. Leon Kahn’s interview from 1982 is from the Montreal Holocaust Museum.

For a complete bibliography for our story, and for more resources, look for the link in the episode show notes or visit USHMM.org/12YearsPodcast.

This podcast is funded in part by support from the Crown Family Philanthropies, the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation, Walmart Foundation, and from the Judd, Randi, Stephen & Barry Malkin Families.

Music and Sound Design by SALT Audio. Lead Editor and sound effects by Aaron Kennedy.

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