Vilnius ghetto book smugglers

In 1925, the YIVO, the most important Yiddish cultural and scientific research centre in Eastern Europe, was established in Vilnius. Initially located on J. Basanavičiaus Street, the Institute moved to a purpose-built building on Vivulskio Street in 1933. After the outbreak of World War II, YIVO moved to New York, where it still continues to operate successfully. 

During the Nazi occupation, the YIVO headquarters became the Paneriai for books – the Vilnius Ghetto’s ‘Paper Brigade’ sorted through the valuables for destruction: 30% were to be sent to Germany, 70% were to be recycled in paper factories. 

The YIVO building became a safe haven for workers from the ghetto; it was quiet, warm, and provided lunch. However, it was not a desirable place to work because, unlike a factory or a warehouse, there were no valuable items to steal and exchange for food – only books that were not in demand on the market. The idea of taking books from YIVO to the ghetto came to mind in June 1942, when the destruction of printed materials began. At the end of the working day, the book smugglers would literally wrap themselves in paper by stuffing books into their clothes. They also made corsets and nappies, which they also filled with books. 

A plaque commemorating the significance of the YIVO’s work was recently unveiled on the site of a residential building erected on the site of the YIVO in 2008, marking the historical location of the demolished Yiddish cultural shrine.

Abraham Sutzkever was a member of the ‘Paper Brigade’ and significantly contributed to the preservation of cultural treasures. In the ghetto, he probably settled for a short time in the house at Strašūno (now Žemaitijos) g. 1. Later, one of the ten hiding places for books and manuscripts rescued from the YIVO was set up here. 

Žemaitijos g. 1, like many of the ghetto buildings, was also equipped with a shelter for people to hide in. Such shelters were an integral part of Jewish daily life during the war. Without a work permit, a person could not feel safe even in the ghetto. The Jews nicknamed the hiding places ‘malina’, ironically translated from the Hebrew for ‘hotel’ (malion).

If you look at the house at Žemaitijos g. 1 from the car park, you will find another relic of Jewish life – a Star of David carved into the wall, which was revealed when the house next door was demolished. 

The library in the ghetto came about almost by accident. The library of the Jewish Disseminators of Enlightenment was taken into the territory of the Great Ghetto. The first concern of Hermann Kruk, the head of the library, was to save and preserve the collection because he did not expect that frightened, hungry people without a permanent place to stay would want to read. But once the library was open, ghetto inmates rushed to borrow books to forget the depressing reality. For those hiding in the malinas, it was the only consolation. 

Children were the most voracious readers, ordering on average more books than other age groups. Once, a group of children even broke into the book depository vault of the library to steal books. The most popular genres were detective stories, and easy-to-read novels, but also popular were Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ and Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, which fit the mood of the war. 

The building that housed the ghetto library is included in the Register of Cultural Heritage. The building, which has been abandoned for the time being, belongs to the State Jewish Museum of the Vilna Gaon. In the future, it is to house the Memorial Museum of the Holocaust in Lithuania and the Vilnius Ghetto.

At the end of the ghetto’s existence, an entire underground city with several hundred inhabitants was fully functional. Initially primitive, the malinas located in cellars, furnaces, dark rooms and attics later took on a variety of forms. They were luxurious and poor, large and small, for one family and a hundred people. The shelters were set up at night to avoid being seen by strangers. Prudent people did not put much trust in the ghetto malinas because the Germans quickly learned how to discover the most secret hiding places. It was not uncommon to return to a discovered hiding place in the hope that the Gestapo would not think that someone might move in again. When the ghetto was being destroyed, the people who had lived in ten malinas were buried alive under the ruins of the blown-up houses. 

At the Jewish Cultural and Information Centre, you can visit the malina in the basement and experience the same cramped, dark space of those who hid there, revealing the meagre lifestyle.

The ghetto inhabitants were not allowed to walk freely around the city, so the first place the rescued treasures reached was the various hiding places in the Great Ghetto. It was not long before the activities of the book smugglers were noticed by the United Partisan Organisation (FPO) in the ghetto. Members of the ‘Paper Brigade’ – Shmerke Kaczerginski and Abraham Sutzkever – joined the structures of this organisation after some time. In this way, the organisers of the ghetto underground uprising and the book smugglers began to cooperate. The FPO arranged for the ghetto gates to be manned and guarded; the book smugglers were checked by the organisation’s trusted people, although there were never any guarantees – the Germans could appear at any moment. 

The FPO also shared its best hiding place at Šiaulių g. 6 with the ‘Paper Brigade’. It was a cave more than 18 metres deep, which you entered through a sewer. You then had to climb a ladder 16.5 metres down to the space, which had a separate ventilation system, electricity from wires, and a tunnel to a well outside the ghetto. From 1943 onwards, the bunker contained boxes of books and weapons. 

The building at Šiaulių g. 6 survived the war and is now a residential building.

The work of the ‘Paper Brigade’ was regarded by most ghetto residents as trivial paperwork, and the members of the brigade were also called paper men because of their emaciated bodies. 

Every morning at precisely 9 o’clock, the workers would gather at the ghetto gates and, accompanied only by the team leader, walk through the streets on the road (Jews were not allowed to walk on the pavements) to the YIVO. Although there was no one to protect them, they did not dare to escape because if a Jew was arrested in the city without a permit or a yellow star, he would be sent to Paneriai, and there was also a common understanding that if one of them escaped, the others would suffer instead.  

Several offences were committed when transporting printed materials from YIVO to the ghetto: firstly, theft from the workplace, and secondly, it was forbidden to bring any books into the ghetto. Therefore, when the workers were returning to the ghetto in the evening, they were tormented by the same thought: who will check the gates? If it was the Jewish police of the ghetto or the Lithuanians, there was no problem. But if the Germans on duty at the gates found any unauthorised package, they smuggler could be flogged, put in the ghetto prison, or even shot.

The right side of Rūdninkų Street survived the Second World War (the corner of Rūdninkų g, 18 and Visų Šventųjų g. 2 with the surviving balcony is visible in the photo). The houses on the left side of the street were demolished after the war and have now been replaced by a playground. 

At the end of the 19th century, the territory of the Great Synagogue, the centre of Jewish religious life, also became a place of scholarship, with the establishment of a library named after its founder, the entrepreneur, scholar and bibliophile Mattityahu Strashun. After his death, the fashion among the Jewish elite of Vilnius was to leave books to the community; this tradition spread, resulting in the library growing rapidly. The heart of culture and science was open every day, even on the Sabbath and holidays, except that it was forbidden to write or mark anything in the reading room. 

The Strashun Library did not escape German looting and destruction. Like all the valuable Hebrew and Yiddish material in Vilnius, it was taken to the YIVO headquarters, where it awaited either destruction or salvation by the ‘Paper Brigade’.

The Great Synagogue complex was partially demolished during the Nazi occupation and was finally razed to the ground during the Soviet era and replaced by a kindergarten. Plans are underway to demolish the kindergarten and build a memorial to commemorate the significance of the Great Synagogue.

When Ona Šimaitė, a librarian at Vilnius University, found out that the ghetto inhabitants were in need of help, she often visited the ghetto under the guise of her official position, ostensibly to pick up books that were overdue for return. In reality, she handed over food and took away valuable books and documents, hiding them in the library of Vilnius University and in her home. Her own life was far from luxurious: although she earned enough for just two kilograms of bacon lard, she spent half of her salary on aid. In addition, her room at Savičiaus g. 13 was always cold due to the constant lack of fuel. However, the librarian did not complain of fatigue, even when working in the ghetto until early in the morning. Ona Šimaitė did her best to preserve not only cultural treasures as she also rescued about 100 Jewish children from the ghetto. 

On the apartment building at Savičiaus g. 13, where O. Šimaitė stayed during the war, there is a commemorative plaque recalling the good deeds of the woman who once lived there.