A. Correct.

Q. Did you attempt to notify the world of this information?

Judge Raveh: When did this conversation take place?

Witness Kovner: In January, 1942.

Q. When was he arrested?

A. In March 1942, approximately, he was executed.

Presiding Judge: Do you know what rank this man had?

Witness Kovner: Feldwebel (N.C.O). He was then, as I estimate, not a young man, evidently a member of the reserves. He was of Austrian origin.

Attorney General: Did you try to make this known in the world, including the name Eichmann?

Witness Kovner: Yes, amongst other things.

Q. What did you do?

A. In 1942 we tried to communicate the truth about Vilna to the outside world. We wanted it to reach Moscow and from there to the free world. We sent two of our fighting girl comrades whose task it was to attain an impossible target, to move from Vilna, to go to the war front, to cross the front and to reach Moscow. Since it was my task to plan their journey, I remember precisely that I wrote a secret report; it contained several sections, about the extermination, about the fighting force, about the request for help, and also a list of people, the officers, those at the head of the killers and the plunderers, about whom we had information through the direct interrogation of people and from our spies.

Q. Did you mention the name of Eichmann?

A. I mentioned specifically in this report, that we had received these particulars from an anti-Fascist officer of the Wehrmacht. According to what he told me I understood that this was a very important man in the hierarchy of destroyers. In my innocence I supposed that he was stationed somewhere in our areas or in Ostland* {*One of the two Reichskommissariats (designation for an area ruled by a commissary) established by the Germans in occupied Russia.}

consequently I passed this on. These two girl comrades who went through events which are a story in itself, got almost as far as the front-lines, they were caught, and they were due to be executed. At night they managed to break out from their temporary detention, and moved from station to station, until they arrived back in the ghetto. Afterwards, this was at the end of 1943, when I was with the partisans, I was requested by the brigade commander to submit a report by partisan mail to Moscow on everything that had transpired and also on the collaborators, on the plunderers, on the men of the SS and the Gestapo, and so forth.

Also in this report which went by partisan mail, to the main headquarters of the partisan movement, to General Ponomarenko, I included a section about what we had been told by the anti-Fascist who was in the Wehrmacht.

Q. Did you specifically mention the name of Eichmann?

A. I specifically mentioned the name of Eichmann. Only after the War did it become clear to us who he was in fact, and what he was.

Presiding Judge: What became known to you after the War?

Witness Kovner: What his function was.

Judge Halevi: But do you have grounds for supposing that it was delivered to then?

Witness Kovner: The second message was delivered; no, I have grounds for supposing that it was. Why? For this time I did something unusual. Inside the material I also wrapped one of my poems. And my poem, after unusual adventures, reached Palestine, when I myself had not yet reached this country, and was published in my underground name "Uri" in the newspaper Ha-aretz, so I know that it arrived - that the poem arrived from Moscow.

Q. What is this? [Shows witness a written document].

A. This is an announcement which the commander of the ghetto police made on 4 May 1943. In this announcement he notifies that "on 30 April the workers Aharon Shulkin and his wife Rivka, of Strazuna Street 11/21 who were working in a brick factory on Ponar Road, went out to the village to buy food. In the village they were arrested and were shot without inquiry. I warn you once again that by order of the SecuritysPolice and the SD, it is forbidden for any Jew to be found outside the city without special permission of that German authority. Every Jew caught in this way without permission - will be punished by death. Signed, Gens." This was put up in the streets of the ghetto in the form of a notice of mourning. To be able to photograph it we were compelled to go over the printed text with a typewriter and suitable ink.

Presiding Judge: This will be exhibit T/290. What did you say about ink?

Witness Kovner: It was printed on a typewriter, since it was photographed by a number of archives, we went over the print with suitable ink.

Q. But there was a black frame?

A. Yes, there was a black frame. I am only talking of the lettering.

Attorney General: Perhaps now, as we approach the end, tell us, how the first commander of the fighting force, Wittenberg, died?

Presiding Judge: Was a notice such as this published only in Yiddish? Was this a practice?

Witness Kovner: Yes.

Q. This was a practice? This was a notice of the German police?

A. This was a notice of the Jewish police in the ghetto. They state that they had received a notice from the "Ghetto Polizei."

Attorney General: Do you want to tell us something about the Jewish fighting force, about the way in which the ghetto was liquidated, and something about the death of the first commander of the force?

Witness Kovner: Your Honours, I cannot unfold here everything we went through.

Presiding Judge: Obviously.

Witness Kovner: Nor everything we did. And I have to choose what, in fact, not to relate, in order to describe the essence - in order that you may understand that this was not a normal war against an enemy; how can I explain this to you? Perhaps in this way - that here, in this courtroom, there sits a woman who spent a certain time outside the ghetto with Aryan papers. A teacher of Catholic children in a secure place. And she, and others like her, were asked whether they were prepared to return to the ghetto; they were asked by comrades in the underground to leave their place of security in order to be partners in our fate in the War and to sacrifice themselves, with no chance of returning, and through this gate - where according to the announcement, according this document, whoever went through it in order to buy food and to bring in a kilogram of potatoes was shot to death - on her person she transferred explosives, dynamite.

And she went through the ghetto gate once, twice and three times and walked, a distance of 30 kilometres, in order to blow up a German military train. And she blew it up, the first German train to be blown up in the entire country of Lithuania; no train had been blown up, not by the Poles, and not by the Lithuanians, and not by the Russians, but one was blown up by a Jewess who, after she had done it, had no base to which she could return, unlike any other fighter.

She was obliged, after three days and nights of scouting and action, to return to the ghetto with injured feet and to pass through guard posts, and she got back. Imagine for yourselves what we, who sent her, experienced; what we experienced that night, for fear that she would not return, that she might be caught. This would have meant that not only she and her companions, but possibly the entire ghetto would have to pay the price. What was the significance of that day, of the challenge which no fighting man has encountered, at least in modern times collective responsibility? In other words, for what I do in defence of my honour and my life, my mother, my brothers and my sisters, old people and children will be held to account. Nevertheless, we did it.

Q. This woman was your wife?

A. Yes, we did it. We set ammunition trains on fire and stole weapons from the arm depots. Not just one of our comrades sacrificed his life for that and was tortured to death without betraying his secret. And here I have our battle rules in which you will find something strange, that the battle watchword for mobilizing the fighting forces at the time of the extermination was "Liza ruft" (Liza calls). This was the watchword. And if this watchword was heard, each one was obliged not to go to the maline, that is to say not to go to the hideout - for to conceal oneself was for our people tantamount to treason - but to go to the post to which had been assigned in advance where he would obtain weapons, "cold" or "hot" and to resist.

Presiding Judge: Does this name have any special significance?

Witness Kovner: The meaning hidden behind this name had a significance of blood. Liza was one of the fighters. Her name was Liza Magun, and she was sent from the Vilna Ghetto, when we learnt that they were about to carry out an "action" in the Ghetto of Oshmiany, not in our ghetto. We sent her so that she could get there and warn the Jews. And, indeed she reached the ghetto at the risk of her life and managed to warn them. But not all of them believed her, and not all of them were able to draw the conclusions and to do something.

But there were many who were successful and fled to the forests. And afterwards, from then on she passed on our proclamation of revolt from place to place. She was captured and tortured to death, but she did not reveal her secret. The watchword of the battle, of our mobilization, was in her name. But in order to understand the tragedy of the state of affairs, of fighting for human dignity and the honour of the community, I have to add something. You asked me about the death of Wittenberg. It would be better for me to refrain from describing this.

Presiding Judge: Mr. Kovner, you will appreciate the difficulty involved in the matter, if you say "I will not describe it."

Witness Kovner: Believe me, Your Honour, President of the Court, the greatest difficulty is for me to describe it and not for anyone to hear it.

Presiding Judge: That is clear. I do not have to tell you that we are full of admiration, but there is also another problem here. And I am certain that a man such as you understands this.

Witness Kovner: Yes.

Attorney General: If it is difficult for you, Mr. Kovner, I am ready to go on to the next question.

Witness Kovner: No, I shall reply to it.

The first commander of our fighting force was a wonderful man named Yitzchakel, Itzik Wittenberg. The Command consisted of Itzik Wittenberg - his nickname was Leon, Joseph Glazman - his nickname was Araham, Abrasha Chwojnik, Nissan Reznik and myself. We divided up the duties between us. Wittenberg was chosen by us to be the commander, and we had various duties in the headquarters. We sought what every underground is looking for - to find help. We hardly had any such help. We, with our own contacts, with our own encouragement, established the non- Jewish underground. At its head stood one Vitas, a man who was active in the Communist Party before the War.

On 8 July 1943 Vitas was caught by the Gestapo. He committed suicide in the torture-cell. On 15 July an unconfirmed rumour reached us that the person who was liaison between the ghetto rebels, and principally with Wittenberg - for he was the only one in the town they knew personally - a man named Kozlowski, that he, too, had been seized. On the night of 15 July, Gans, the commander of the Jewish police in the ghetto, sent his representative and asked us to come to him for consultation. He asked Itzik Wittenberg, Abrasha Chwojnik, a woman named Chyena Borowska, and me to come urgently. They told us that the meeting was to be held at a certain hour - afterwards they postponed it and said that the meeting would have to take place later, at 10 pm.

We arrived at the office of the police commander. At first he spoke about the work, although we felt that something was about to happen. Since our fighting comrades sensed something, guards were posted around the building and in the streets. And indeed, after some minutes of talking which did not elucidate anything, a side door in the office of Gans was opened and SS men appeared in the doorway with submachine guns pointing at us. They ordered us to stand up and asked: "Who here is Wittenberg?" Nobody answered.

Then Gans pointed to Wittenberg and said: "That is Wittenberg." They bound him in chains and removed him with their submachine guns. Dumbfounded we said to Gans: "You disgraceful traitor - we shall meet again." Then he said to us: "I am not responsible; one of your men was caught by the Gestapo, passed on the name of Wittenberg, and I was obliged to deliver him, otherwise others would have paid for him with their lives."

We went away, and he was taken to the Gestapo to the ghetto gate. It was not far away, a distance of less than a few hundred metres. The observation posts, which our fighters had set up en route, saw what was happening. They immediately alerted fighters, they fell upon the Gestapo men, there were shots and they ran for their lives beyond the ghetto. Wittenberg remained in our hands. It was difficult to free him from his chains. Later, we freed him, but immediately something was happened which nobody could have imagined. The Germans did not enter the ghetto, but advised Gans that if, by three o'clock in the morning, Wittenberg was not brought to them, they would destroy the ghetto.

Gans immediately assembled the ghetto, alerted the brigadiers and the police, and thereafter held a mass meeting. He explained to the Jews that on account of one man, Wittenberg, the ghetto was likely to be annihilated. The ghetto was in a state of panic. At first they did not believe it. Three o'clock passed by, and an extension was granted until six o'clock.

What happened in the ghetto - is beyond description. Many books were written about it, or, more correctly, both full books and also many references within books. One of the few individuals, who could have related something most authentic about it - did not write about it.

And Wittenberg was in our hands. We had freed him. When we saw what was going on, we immediately printed a declaration to the Jews. I composed it, and I know that I did not write the truth - that is to say, I knew. We did not have any sign that there was going to be an "action" in the ghetto. It was a period of stabilization in the ghetto. I wrote that it had been decided to destroy the ghetto, and this was a subterfuge. "Jews, go out into the street, we shall fight, we shall resist."

I brought this declaration to Wittenberg. He gave orders to mobilize the force. We mobilized the force. And then the Jews went out into the streets. There were no Germans in the ghetto. Gans mobilized anyone he could - the intelligentsia, simple folk, with policemen, who had received arms against us, in the lead. Delegations of members of the public came to us, pleaded for mercy, saying that it was impossible to endanger the ghetto because of one man.

Negotiations began - first of all we rejected all negotiations. And then there came an angry assault by those destined to be murdered, against us who sought to be their defenders - with axes, sticks, stones, even with arms - arms which they had received from the Germans against us. We stood facing our brethren. We explained matters to them. We gave an order to our fighters not to use their arms, not even cold weapons. Our people tore their hair, shedding blood, in the streets as they explained to them that they wanted to remove the illusion, that this was not on account of one man, although later it became clear that in fact this Kozlowski had disclosed the name of Wittenberg. But it was not important to us then. We did not imagine that the force could hand over its commander. Negotiations began. We hid Wittenberg. We said that he was not there, that he had escaped from the ghetto.

In this courtroom there sits a young woman who transferred him from lane to lane, dressed as a woman. At a particular moment we did not want, not even we ourselves, his comrades at headquarters, to know where he was, so that we should not be put to the test. But then we faced the dilemma: to be the first to open fire against those destined to be victims? Everything that we had built up over the years, everything for which we had prepared, was about to collapse because it had been possible to bring the victims to the point of madness for the sake of one more hour of life. How human this was, but how inconceivable subsequently!

Towards morning we came to Wittenberg's hideout, we the men of the headquarters, his colleagues. We were stricken dumb. He looked at us. Just a moment before this an attempt was made - someone told Gans that another person would offer himself up as Wittenberg. There was such a volunteer. Gans turned this down, as he said, since there would be a confrontation with Kozlowski. But he promised that if we complied, he would do everything possible in order to free him from the Gestapo. We did not believe him.

But with the entire ghetto crowding in on us around the office of the headquarters, it was only with difficulty that we made our way in order to reach the place where Wittenberg was. No one knew where he was, and we climbed up to an attic. A revolver lay on the table. For a moment he wanted to commit suicide. But he did not kill himself. He asked us: "What? Do you want me to hand myself over?" We did not answer. Then I said to him: "Look, Jews are standing in the street. We shall have to fight them in order to reach the enemy, and he will probably stand there and laugh. This is the situation. Give us the order and we shall fight. Are you prepared for this?" No. He was not prepared to do it. He was a great man. He gave me the revolver, appointed me commander, and went out into the street. We all stood there, with our bandoliers, our wretched guns, the fighters on one side, the crowd surrounding us. He walked along the empty street to the ghetto gate in order to hand himself over to the Gestapo.

[ Previous | Index | Next ]

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor