A Guest at the Shooters' Banquet

by Rita Gabis

  As I read through the interrogations of those who worked with or under my grandfather and Jonas Maciulevičius, certain tropes repeated themselves. Many witnesses insisted that they provided aid to “Soviet citizens” trapped under fascist (German) rule. Iozas Breeris, warden of the Švenčionys prison, claimed that he had released a significant number of prisoners close to the end of the war, and had witnesses to back him up. No one my grandfather worked with ever mentioned under interrogation that Senelis had been arrested by the fascist Germans for freeing prisoners, even though they might have attached themselves to his efforts—he was their superior, after all—to win some slight mercy at the Soviets’ hands.

  Certainly there were Lithuanians who abandoned their work on behalf of the Germans without repercussion. Joachim Hamann’s killing squad, for example, had its share of Lithuanian defectors, who were allowed to walk away from the carnage without any punitive measures. My grandfather might have been horrified to find himself at the meeting in early fall of 1941 that mapped out the killings at Poligon and the creation of the Švenčionys ghetto, but if so, it had not been enough to make him request another posting.

  Still, as a historian I interviewed and questioned via e-mail several times noted, my grandfather was never put on trial. Though he lied on his naturalization and immigration forms, the lies were not picked up by the U.S. Justice Department. He never had the opportunity to address questions about his wartime life and answer them in a court of law, even an immigration court. According to my mother and her sister, he never mentioned either Poligon or the 1942 Beck reprisals to them, so again, in the end, there is no direct account of his role (or lack thereof) in these events.

  I recently received a pro forma letter from the FOIA unit of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department regarding the case file and notes for Vincas Valkavickas, the Poligon guard. His extradition case still intrigued me. Why, I wondered—and still wonder—had a Poligon guard living in the United States been located and prosecuted, while Senelis, chief of security police for the whole Švenčionys region, had been left untouched?

  Perhaps, the letter suggested, since my FOIA request has taken so long to fulfill, my interest in the material might have waned. If I no longer wanted the material, the harried specialist—who, as she told me during several phone calls, is short on staff and constantly pulled out for meetings and has a pile of requests on her desk that has mounted at a steady twenty cases in CD format, month after month after year, with mine close to the bottom of the stack—perhaps could pull my files out of the pile and send them back to storage. “If you are still interested … and wish for the request to be processed, please respond …”

  “Yes, I am interested, yes, I wish,” I write back right away.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  I HAVE MANY people and institutions to thank for their contributions to this book. Before I recognize them here, let me first say that all missteps and errors in these pages are my own.

  In Israel: Yitzhak Arad answered my many questions with patience and the same scholarly precision found in his many books. It is my great hope that his book The Partisan: From the Valley of Death to Mt. Zion, currently out of print, will be available to a wide readership again. In addition to the crucial Holocaust history it contains, it is an astonishing, universal story of young people torn from their ordinary lives and forced to try to find a way out of an impossible maze of entrapment and death.

  Lili Holzman spent hours with me on two separate occasions, speaking, as almost all my interviewees did, of the greatest tragedies of her life with erudition and an extraordinary memory for detail that has been with her since childhood. I count her, as I do Yitzhak Arad, as one of my most valued teachers, for she not only told me her own story but explained the unfolding of local and national events in wartime Švenčionys and beyond with precision. (I add also my gratitude to her daughter, Gitit Holzman, who initially contacted her mother on my behalf.)

  Irit Pazner Garshowitz served as my fixer and translator during my interviews in Israel. She made time, despite the demands of her work for the New York Times bureau in Jerusalem, to troubleshoot for me frequently, often with little advance notice. Her fine translation of a portion of Yitzhak Arad’s private papers is included in this book. Not only has she been a passionate, dedicated, and insightful ally, but she has become a beloved friend whose generosity of spirit has seen me through a dozen small and large crises and encouraged me at every turn. I owe her a debt that cannot be repaid.

  Nadav Kersh journeyed through Jerusalem with me twice. His enthusiasm, his extraordinary local knowledge, and the depth of his version of historical context was thought-provoking, his love of his surroundings infectious.

  I also wish to thank the Yad Vashem Archives, and particularly Zvi Bernhardt, for last-minute permission to use the Leib Koniuchowsky material so crucial to this enterprise.

  Finally, my stepdaughter, Lily Fishleder, joined me on my second trip to Israel, and in addition to her fine company, did the film and photography work for those interviews.

  In Lithuania: Rose, Viktorija Bourassa, and Petras, my stalwart companions—you have my love and gratitude.

  My extended Lithuanian family offered me their hospitality and affection, and shared many stories about our family, their own postwar experiences, and what they could remember about my grandfather, Pranas Puronas.

  Arunas Bubnys, director of research at the Genocide and Resistance Research Center, provided valuable leads and was an illuminating force. As noted in the text, I read much of his translated scholarship before I set foot in Lithuania, and each time we met, I left with a greater understanding of the different forces at play during first the Soviet and then the German occupation of his country.

  Rachel Kostanian, who at the time of our interview was still the director of the Green House in Vilnius and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Holocaust in Lithuania, gave me several hours of her time on a cold day in late spring. Her discussion regarding the politics involved in both the forgetting and remembering of wartime events in present-day Lithuania foregrounded the beginning of my research.

  Emanuelis Zingeris spoke with me about the experience of a dual identity and the postwar struggle for Lithuanian independence, encouraging me in my efforts at a time when encouragement was sorely needed.

  I owe particular thanks to Dalius Žižys, director of the Lithuanian Central State Archives, for allowing me, during my last visit, to access a large amount of material within a brief time frame. Within the Lithuanian Central State Archives, I also made use of the Archive of Image and Sound. Archivists at the Lithuanian Special Archives and the Lithuanian State Archives provided valuable assistance as well. Petras Kibickis lent a much-needed hand at several of the archives mentioned above.

  The Nalšia Museum in Švenčionys graciously gave me permission to use images from their impressive digital image collection. Naderda Spiridonovienė was a helpful guide during my initial visit and copied the Poligon file for me that Giedrė Genušienė used during her own research.

  My interviewees in Lithuania spoke of what for many were the most traumatizing events of their lives. Together with Yitzhak Arad and Lili Holzman, they offered me a window without which any part of the dimensional past this book has managed to capture would have remained a blank. To Teresa Krinickaja, Zinaida Aronowa, Anton Lavrinovich, Illeana Irafeva, Vanda Pukėnienė, Elena Stankevičienė née Gagis, Zenon and Jadyga Tumalovič, Artūras Karalis, Vaclav Vilkoit, and my extended Lithuanian family my deepest appreciation.

  Though we only met once in Vilnius, Geoff Vasil not only did a superb translation of the bulk of my grandfather’s reports and letters but was consistently helpful from afar over the course of several years. He, as others did, gave me an additional perspective on current issues in Lithuania regarding the narrative of its past. I am doubly grateful to him for introducing me, via e-mail, to his wife, Milda Jakulytė-Vasil, who in conjunction with the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum
created The Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas. I am thankful for her permission to use an interior shot she took of what was once the Vilna ghetto library.

  In Poland: The gifted journalist Joanna Berendt provided crucial leads and initial, important research for me. Her astuteness, generosity, and willingness to share a small part of her own personal narrative were of great help to this entire endeavor.

  Maciej Bulanda was an outstanding companion/fixer/translator. With him, my husband and I toured the stunning new Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, whose program director, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, stepped in several times with useful advice for us as we navigated various Polish archives. Without his prodding, I would not have traveled to Lublin for an astonishing interview with Romuald-Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel. Maciej translated the interview on the spot, and the emotional courage and immediacy of Weksler-Waszkinel’s remarkable story reinforced again for me that the past lives on in us, if only we can bear it.

  At the Oddział Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej w Gdańsku (the Gdańsk branch of the IPN), senior historian and researcher Dr. Monika Tomkiewicz was crucial to this project. Maciej spent one long week at the Gdańsk IPN, poring over ten volumes of the Maciulevičius case file during the day and then translating and Skyping with me each night. Dr. Tomkiewicz answered all of the questions different aspects of the case file brought up, as well as allowing Maciej to interview her, on my behalf, about Eleanora Rakowska. In addition, she provided several photographs of Rakowska for use in this book. The staff at the Gdańsk IPN offered help at every turn.

  In Germany: Almut Schoenfeld worked her way tirelessly through many different archives. She was a deft researcher who, though it is cliché to say it, left no stone unturned on my behalf. In addition, she often translated useful material uncovered during her work, and when we finally met in Berlin, she quickly became dear to me. She has continued to answer questions related to my work, as well as translate correspondence when a quick turnaround is needed.

  Dr. Joachim Tauber allowed me to interview him at length during my time in Berlin. His insights, particularly in regard to work and power in German-occupied Lithuania, have been illuminating. As I mention in the text, the word collaborator seemed to me from the start too simple a term. It did not capture the complicated complicities war provides a breeding ground for. Dr. Tauber spoke eloquently about the admission (or denial) of guilt on the part of both the individual and the nation. I am grateful for our time in Berlin as well as his lengthy response to a series of questions I posed after our meeting.

  Konrad Beck generously shared both photographs of Josef Beck and the outline of Josef Beck’s history as the family knew it, and via e-mail wrote movingly of his own relationship to the past and the strange link between our families.

  In London: The historian Antony Polonsky talked through the structure of this book with me and what I hoped it might achieve, less a personal narrative than a close examination of a particular place at a particular time. Both his work as editor of and contributor to the journal Polin and his responses during our interview helped clarify a long, complicated history in the borderlands. He invited me to ask more questions, and I’m grateful for our correspondence.

  Timothy Prus and his staff at the Archive of Modern Conflict were welcoming and generous with their time. A staff member searched through a monumental amount of material for images of World War II relevant to my book and quickly made high-resolution copies of photographs I was interested in. The archive is an astonishing effort, and I was privileged to see it firsthand.

  In Washington, D.C.: Archivist Megan Lewis at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has been of great help the last several years. (She is just one of several archivists who were always ready to respond to the most remedial questions, speedily responded to all of my inquiries, and made valuable suggestions when I was stumped.)

  His contribution to my work is mentioned in the text, but again, in D.C., Michael MacQueen at ICE provided important details and context that helped fill in some of the gaps regarding the particulars of my grandfather’s brief incarceration in Vilnius, as well as the information on his immigration and naturalization forms.

  In New York: Chaya Palevsky allowed me both to interview her and also to return with the photographer Edwin Torres to take still photographs of some of her most cherished memorabilia, including photographs of her family, as well as a portrait of her. My meeting with Chaya Palevsky was my first interview with a survivor of the Švenčionys ghetto. Like Yitzhak Arad and Lili Holzman, she is one of my teachers. Through her, I began to see a town, a way of life now vanished, the terror that was visited upon her family and others she loved, and her indomitable intelligence and strength as both a young person and the older woman who told me “stories within stories.” I am grateful also to her son, Elliott Palevsky, who helped me to establish contact with his mother and made sure that my presence would not be intrusive.

  I thank YIVO, particularly head archivist Fruma Moher, for use of the Boyarin translations of the Koniuchowsky papers so vital to my book. Fruma Moher’s assistance and encouragement represents the graciousness of the staff at YIVO in general. I began my actual research there, and have thought, many times, of those who helped the institution survive when Vilna was crumbling.

  Jonathan Boyarin allowed me to interview him by phone in November 2011. We talked at length about his translation work on the Koniuchowsky material, and his insight about the way the past is reconstructed in the present (represented in the text) proved to be a compass point for my entire endeavor.

  Timothy Snyder was one of the first historians I contacted when I began my research. He responded with advice he said he often shared with his students: “The questions you start out with won’t be the questions you end up with, but they won’t be entirely different either.” I have often wondered if this was a sort of professorial koan he invented simply to keep his students asking questions and pressing on. It certainly had that effect on me, and in the end, perhaps, it turned out to be true.

  Alexander Stille, on several occasions, gave thoughtful advice about personal historical narrative. Marie Howe and Erica Ferrari offered initial support.

  Rita Phelan, William Haywood Henderson, and Tina Harrell have been beloved anchors throughout. Dr. Ellen Pearlstein, my superb internist, literally saved my life. My sisters: Laurie Kutchins, Donna Masini, Regina Kopelevich, Honor Moore, Alice Spitz, and Regina McBride lived through each chapter with me, in one way or another, and they, along with Daniel Mendelsohn, both mentor and friend, carried me forward.

  Julija Šukys, author of Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė, gave me permission to use a few lines from one of Šimaitė’s letters that Šukys translated so beautifully. Thanks also to another wonderful contributor, Ellie Moidel, who provided invaluable translation skills to an important part of the text.

  Jason Gallagher began the process of creating order in my impossible filing system. Edwin Torres provided his skills as a photographer and photo editor, and Sara Fetherolf worked tirelessly on the various crucial addendums to the book. A stickler for detail, she has caught mistakes I’ve missed, raised questions I neglected to ask, and been a steady presence throughout. During the last mile, the vocal range of Justin Vernon and the beauty of Goat Rodeo challenged me to keep discovering.

  My wonderful editor at Bloomsbury, Nancy Miller, believed in this book from the start. It is because of her that I plunged ahead. I thank her for her editorial acumen, and her friendship. Also at Bloomsbury, Lea Beresford patiently fielded dozens of questions. With her, Gleni Bartels, Patti Ratchford, and Theresa Collier helped me move from draft to book.

  In addition, thanks go to Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury UK, Jeffrey Miller, Esq. for sound advice, and the support of my unflappable agent at ICM, Lisa Bankoff.

  Finally, to Susan Chira for giving a late draft a keen read; Michael Shapiro for his quick insightful take on what always seemed to be unsolvable issues; Suzanne Daley, David McCraw, Kami Kim,
Tommy McDonald, Susan Caughman, Gerry Goodrich, Edie Silsdorf, Nicole Gill, Eli Fishleder, and Gloria Crumrine—thank you for suggestions, encouragement, and most importantly, your steadfast friendship. The rest of the Friday night gang—along with friendship, you gave me continuity week after week, even when I was traveling or at home working.

  My family of origin—my brave mother, Aunt Karina, Aunt Agnes, and my aunt Shirley Gabis Perle who championed this work: thank you for remembering …

  Paul and Lily Fishleder, you are my loves, my anchors, my sails.

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  * * *

  * William Darton, Poland, Prussia, October 1, 1811. Permission for use granted by David Rumsey Map Collection, davidrumsey.com.

  * Puronas family tree. Permission for use granted by Česlovas Gniżinskas.

  * Pranas Puronas, 1920. Author’s collection.

  * Pranas Puronas, circa 1922, with unidentified companions. Author’s collection.

  * Blacksmiths and Farriers, London, 1910. Permission for use granted by the Council of the National Army Museum, London.

  * Pranas Puronas, Ona Puroniene, and family at the funeral of their fourth child in Žeimelis. Author’s collection.

  * Žeimelis Envelope, 1939. Permission for use granted by Reimon Akimoto.

  * Łódź, 1939. Permission for use granted by the Archive of Modern Conflict (AMC), London.

  * Partial image of the first German order in Lithuania, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum record group 26-017M.

  * Ķlarah and Wolf Treegoob. Permission for use granted by Shirley Perle.

  * Letter from Commander Röhler in Panevėžys, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum record group 26-017M.

  * Letter from Pranas Puronas, Lietuvos Centrinis Valstybinis Archyvas, f. R911, ap. 1, b.1, l.193.