Vilna is the capital of Lithuania, and at the start of World War II, it had a Jewish population of about 200,000. At the time of the German occupation of the city on June 24, 1941, the Jewish population was about 57,000. A Judenrat (Jewish Council) was established on July 4, 1941. By the end of 1941, the Germans had killed 33,500 of these 57,000 Jews. Another 11,500 Jews had gone into hiding or fled to other towns, which left about 12,000 Jews in the ghetto. In the summer of 1943, 7,000 men and women were sent to concentration camps in Estonia. The final liquidation of the ghetto took place in September, 1943. On July 13, 1944, the city was liberated by the Russians. Of the 57,000 Jews who had been in Vilna at the time of the Nazi occupation, about 2,300 survived.
Below are thumbnails of five ghetto documents. The first is a letter from the police prosecutor of Vilna to the police administration in the Ghetto ordering the arrest of the Jew, Aron Grac, who was accused of breaking through a window to steal. The second are instructions from the Ghetto Police to arrest someone. The third is an order to release a woman from prison. The fourth is an arrest warrant issued by the ghetto police in Vilna for the arrest of a person who had left his guard post and disappeared. The last is a 1943 arrest record from the Ghetto police setting forth the personal information of the person arrested. The form contains the bilingual handstamp of the Ghetto police. Please click on the thumbnail to see the full image, and then click your back key or "Ghetto Documents" in the left frame to return.
Spector, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, P. 1398-1403
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