The Shadow of Death: The Holocaust in Lithuania

9. The Airfield Work Brigade

9. The Airfield Work Brigade When the Germans started the war with the Russians, they bombarded the airfield with the Russian planes, completely destroying it. Now the Germans wanted to repair the fields for their own use, so they would be able to land, fuel up, and take off again. Where do you think they got the manpower? The Jews from the ghetto. The work was very hard, and we were gone seventeen or eighteen hours a day. Every morning about a thousand people marched out from the ghetto under the guard ofthe Wehrmacht. The road from the ghetto to the airport was about eight miles long. The guards walked on the sidewalks while we walked on the stone streets, six or eight abreast. At the same time that we were marching in the streets, the Lithuanians were walking on the sidewalks going to work. They would laugh at us and insult us in Lithuanian, so all the Jews walked with their heads lowered. We wore the yellow star of David in front and back. The star had to be sewn on tight, with no loose ends. Ifit was only pinned on, we would be shot. But a lot ofJews used to take the risk; these we called rabbits. As soon as we got a mile or two outside the ghetto and had a chance to mingle with the Lithuanians, these rabbits would take off the star in front and ask the man in back to take offthe back one for them so they could escape. They loved going on the airfield brigade because it gave them a better chance to escape. As soon as both stars were off, they waited for the right moment to jump out and mix with the Lithuanians and disappear. This was a deadly game. If the guards caught them, they were shot right 56 The Shadow of Death there, no questions asked. It had to be done very quickly so that neither the Germans nor the walking Lithuanians could see. They really had to work at it. There was no chance to look back or hesitate. Even though they were playing with their lives, every morning there would be quite a few rabbits like this. Many had Lithuanian friends to whom they would go and be fed: butter, bread, and ham (which Jews weren't supposed to eat, but at that time we would eat anything ifyou couldjusthave enoughto eat). There were otherLithuanians who didn't want to have anything to do with the rabbits and would turn them and their Lithuanian friends in to the Gestapo. When we arrived at the airfield, we were already tired from walking, but then we had to go to work. There were German foremen who wore uniforms but weren't guards, and they ran things. There were quite a few of them and each would take some people, fifty to a hundred, to work. There were big holes in the runway which we had to fill with sand, then we had to pave the whole airfield with cement. We had to unload carloads of cement and help put up barracks for the German Air Force. Atthe same place where we were working, across from us, the Russian prisoners were working. Their guards were the Hitler Youth, the youngsters who belonged to the Hitler organization; the oldest were perhaps seventeen. Each one wore brown boots and a brown coat with a swastika on the left arm and carried a rifle and a little bayonet. They were egotistical brats, or, as we called them, "monsters." How they treated the Russian prisoners is hard to describe. These little brats killed hundreds of Russians every day. They were twenty feet away and we could see that they were helpless, so tired that they were as weak as flies. Their rations were a lot lower than ours. When they were close enough, they would call to us in Russian , "Give us some bread, we want to eat." Many ofthem would try to get over to our group. Some told us that they were Jews also and to bring some clothes the next day so they could change from their uniforms and go back with us to the ghetto, since it was worse where they were. A lot ofJews did bring clothes and took the Russians into the ghetto. There were many Jews who The Airfield Work Brigade 57 were prisoners...