Day 13: A slower pace today

Yesterday, we decided to have a bit of a break. We caught up with Isroel in the morning just to round off our interview - verify some facts and so on. When we got back, Jesse and Dan were packing and getting ready to leave for London. So it was a bit of a slow day. Did some housekeeping - photocopying documents, scanning, archiving and some research.

I also tried to burn some of the audio records on to CDs but realised that most of them exceeded the 700MB space on the CDs. I have been kinda worried since the beginning of the trip when I realised that the external hard drive wasn't working. I have had to store things on the second internal drive on my laptop but felt we should have another external storage. Imagine if my laptop goes kaput for whatever reason? I have 1,291 files so far on this project - about 13 GB of information, from photos,audio files to index files on the interviews, things collected and so on. I dread to imagine what would happen if I lost these.

When Shiv got back from seeing the guys off at the airport, we decide to go watch a movie. We get ripped off by a cabby who charges us twice to get there compared to the fare we are charged to get back. We end up watching Get Smart 15 minutes after it'd started. I don't think Shiv cared about the movie at all; when we left the cinema, she pronounced that the popcorn was good.

Later, she called the guys. Apparently, the case holding the camera and videos appeared to have been opened, perhaps for inspection, somewhere between here and London. The latches on it were not re-secured properly. When it came off the conveyor belt and was picked up, it opened unexpectedly and the camera and videos fell onto the floor. We are hoping that they're all okay. We'll know later when the guys download them. Fingers crossed.

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Today, we go back to Cholem. He seems excited to see us and asks where Jesse and Dan are. He's such a social being and seems to enjoy company and larking about. He reminds us of how he choked while at lunch with us; how he thought it would be a disaster to spoil our lunch when he had visitors from abroad. (See blog entry)

We talk a bit more about his family; how prewar life was like. They weren't wealthy or anything but he says they were content; dad would try and get work daily - he was a casual labourer, while mum took great pride in making sure there was food on the table and that whatever earned was carefully spent. When Shiv asks him if he was happy and felt safe then, his answer reminds us how subjective those terms are and mean different things to different people. He says, 'Mum was there, and there was potato on the table,' and shrugs. For him, that his parents made sure that he and his brother were fed, had clothes, went to school, was proof of affection and love and a happy family; who can argue with that?



He tells us more about the events that led up to the 'Big Action' of October to November 1941, when about 13,000 Jews were killed at Kaunas Fort IX. He was there, with his family, during one of the 'selection processes.' They were assembled in the town square and the Nazis divided the people into groups and despatched them to the forts. By a stroke of luck, his father pleaded with a Jewish collaborator and his family was spared. (The activities at Fort IX is documented in the Jaeger Report (This link also provides a scanned copy of the original document created by SS-Standartenfuehrer Karl Jaeger, who commanded the murder spree of Einsatzkommando 3. It is a chilling document, where human lives are recorded like numbers on a spreadsheet.) He tells us of the many moments when it could have all ended for him; how he felt his life had hung by a thread. He believes that he was fated to survive, that for some reason, God had watched over him.


1995 Dachau commemorative badge.

Cholem wants to know when we are leaving. He says 'I may never see you again.' He says he would like to send us off at the airport. We promise to pick him up when we go, so we can say our goodbyes then. We feel honoured that he has taken us into his home and shared his memories; certainly, we hope the journey does not end at the conclusion of this research trip.

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We drop by at Berl's to ask a few more questions to verify some information from the first interview. He is in a blue ironed shirt and striped pajama bottoms.


Shiv and a box of matzo at Berl's

Berl seems in a good mood and is fairly chatty. He tells us about his medals, including receiving the Order of the Patriotic War First Class for his participation in the battle at Oryol with the Lithuanian 16th division of the Red Army. He tells us the snow was so deep it came up their armpits. They could barely move, let alone fight. So they stood and slept leaning against each other. How unlike the Germans, they had no tanks and no planes. They were 'like meat' he says; little more than cannon fodder. He concludes that he received that medal because he survived; he doesn't think they did much fighting or advancing. All they could do was stand their ground.

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A slower pace today but we got quite some done. Including get an external hard drive and some CDs with larger storage space - thank goodness! We also drive by Shnipishok.

Ruta points out to us that this used to be a shtetl and these were Jewish homes. Looking around, it's surprising to see how these wooden houses have survived. They look a little dilapidated but apart from that, seem sturdy still. Unfortunately, the weather isn't great for photos. But I take a few anyway...

Day 5: A Packed Day

Today is one of those quiet, reflective days. Feeling contemplative.

This morning, we visit Berl to film him on his daily morning walk to the synagogue. At the synagogue, I wait upstairs in the balcony during morning prayers. I don't want to intrude, so I decide to close my eyes and meditate. Everything sounds very melodious; the prayers sound like singing to me. Kinda like at a church, minus the choir or band. Am wondering if being tone deaf poses a problem to practising Judaism?


Filming Berl

After the synagogue, we stop for a quick bite. None of us had breakfast as we left at 7.40am this morning. I have semolina porridge. Reminds me of baby food - quick and easy. Then we head off for a chat with an official at the Genocide Center. Short and sweet; just to hear about what the Department of Investigation does. He tells us that genocide in Lithuania, including the Jewish holocaust, was the result of the Soviet and Nazi occupation. As the entrance to the Genocide Museum is just around the corner, we nick in to have a look. It is a very impressive museum. Lots of details and artefacts on the Soviet occupation. All these are based in the former KGB building. I wonder what it's like to work in a building that previously housed, tortured and executed civilians. I imagine in Asia, this wouldn't go down well at all. I can imagine potential job applicants declining to apply for fear that the place may be haunted or has bad karma attached to it. I wonder whether they cleansed the building before it became an office block? I can't imagine the qi in the place.


Genocide Center, note the names of Lithuanian victims inscribed on the stone wall

Speaking of hauntings and karma and qi... We join Berl again after a lunch break. He wants to show us the Vilna Gaon's mausoleum at the Jewish cemetery at Seskine. He used to come here and tend to the mausoleum, back in the 1970s onwards. He stopped when his eyesight deteriorated. He looks especially sad today when he relates how he had the gate to the mausoleum repaired; he still has the key that opens the lock. The mausoleum houses 7 graves, the Gaon's and his family. I peer inside and see notes left by visitors on the grave. I notice the stones and pebbles and remind myself to find out what is the significance of stones to the Jewish faith. I remember the last scene in Schindler's List when the survivors filed by and left a stone each on his grave.


The Vilna Gaon Mausoleum


Messages left by visitors inside the mausoleum

I decide to choose a stone from among the piles which line the walls of the mausoleum as an exhibit item.


Stones from the Vilna Gaon mausoleum. I picked the largest one on the left.

This a large cemetery and includes a mass grave. I wander about and take photos, practising my photography skills and trying to read the inscription on the headstones. It is quiet, the sun comes in and out from among the trees; I keep adjusting the settings on the camera to compensate. I think of silly things to lighten my mood; including if my sister were here, I imagine she would suggest I bathe in water scented with chrysanthemum petals. To 'cleanse' in the event I pick 'something' up on my way out of the cemetery.

But it's hard to shake. I guess it's just one of 'those' days; there's no escaping it. I suppose this is what ambling through someone else's memories and immersing in the past does to one. It's a day of quiet reflection.

Day 4: A Hard Day

Today is the most difficult day of all since we arrived. We meet Ruta, an academic who will be our guide and translator for the following days we are here. We have a team meet at 9.30am to discuss the possible line-up of interviews and schedule for the next few days. We will meet two Holocaust survivors today, Berl and Chasia.

Today has turned out to be the most difficult day for me. I don't know whether fatigue has caught up with me or what, but I am exhausted. I think it has to do with trying to focus on what's being said without understanding what's being said, reading the expression on faces and trying to match it with what the translator is saying, or whether it's about taking notes and trying hard to catch as much as possible down on my notepad. It's also our schedule of course. Waking at 7 or 8am, getting ready for the day, and being on the move until evening. Today, we got back only at 10pm as we returned to the apartment, dropped off our equipment and went to dinner immediately.

After dinner, I spent the last hour scanning photos and recording items we have been given as exhibits. Such amazing gifts - Ben gave us a yamulke and a medal; Chasia an amber pendant. They gave it to us and don't expect it back, though we are happy to do so.

But I think what's worn me out most are the stories. I can't even watch a World Vision ad without feeling angry and sad and everything else in between. Today, when Berl and Chasia shared their stories, I was consumed by both.

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Berl is 84. He lives alone. He is blind on account of his diabetes and glaucoma. He proudly serves boiled eggs, matzo crackers and wine. He speaks about losing his family; his bike ride to his father's 30 kms away to warn him of the Nazi invasion. His dad didn't leave. He was killed. He talks about how he joined the Soviet army when he was 17; he unexpectedly unzips his trousers and shows us a deep long scar where he was wounded in the hip. He recalls that this was "good" because he was off duty for 6 months. He relates tales of moving from place to place, living on food rations dispensed to veterans, of his first wife and his second; also his children. He tells us, "I am 84 years old and close to God." He is waiting, waiting, it seems to me. What he hates most is his blindness because he can no longer work or drive a taxi; his time is spent with his mind. And it is turning against him.


Berl

Berl tells us he is sad; sad when he learnt that there was a Neo-Nazi march this year and it was escorted by the police. Sad that it dishonours those who died. He starts telling us about people being lied to; asked to dig a hole to store food, then buried alive. I think he has lost faith in people. We ask him if he will lend us something for our exhibition or something he can give us; anything representative of him. He gives us a medal he gets for being a model Soviet worker and a yamulke.


Berl's gift

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After lunch, we meet Chasia. She is sprightly and elegant; she has make up on to welcome us. I feel intrusive; her flat is small and we have taken up all the space. Her son has to move into the kitchen to make way for us. I park myself on the door frame between the living room and the balcony; there is no room for Chasia, the camera, Jess and Dan, Ruta, Shiv and I.

She tells us of her Zionist fervour in her younger days. Her first husband, her son, her in-laws, the ghetto. How they had 25 people in a room and one bottle of milk for her 6-month-old son when they first got to the ghetto; how they somehow adapted. How her husband joins the partisans in the forest. How they all die.


Chasia

She shares how she was shot in the arm by a comrade testing a weapon. How she later remarried after the war. She has two children now; she named her son the same name as her first. How she carries the burden of blood lost that she may live. Her story is too steeped with pain to relate much here, too rich in detail to give it justice in a short paragraph, and too harrowing to feel and absorb at one sitting. Her brother has moved to Israel but she has stayed because "this is where my children died."

I am at once awed when she speaks of the joy she has at work - in a community center which used to be the college she spent her youth in - and humbled. I don't know where she finds the strength to forgive and yet not forget.

I am not sure I am looking forward to hearing more of these stories. I am not sure if I feel inspired or angry or frustrated. It all seems so unfair.