The Shadow of Death: The Holocaust in Lithuania

13. The Workshops and the Small Brigades

13. The Workshops and the SmaIl Brigades The Gennans decided that, as long as they were feeding the Jews, they might as well try to get the most work possible out of them, at least until the Jewish question was settled. This is why they started building a big factory in the ghetto with many different departments, including tailors, shoemakers, furriers, toymakers, and mechanics. When they were ready to begin production, it was up to the Jewish government leaders to supply workers for the jobs. They gave cards entitling people to work in the factory to their friends and relatives and to the friends and relatives of the Jewish police. When all of these people were taken care of, then other people could get the cards, if they could bribe a little. You also had to bribe the men who actually handed out the cards ifyou wanted one mailed directly to your house. Those who had handed in their valuables had nothing to bribe with, so they had to wait for a little luck. The Gennans wanted real shoemakers, furriers, and so forth, but many people who went to work at the factory had no skills, since they had been chosen just because of their connections. Every day long lines ofpeople waited by the Jewish government building, even overnight, to get a card to work at the factory, sometimes only to find that all the positions were already filled. Fights broke out about who was ahead in the line. One would start pushing another, and a fight would continue until the Jewish police came and took the fighters tojail. The otherpeople watching this would be very quiet, but as soon as the police were gone the fight would start again. 70 The Shadow of Death The distribution ofwork cards took a week. Uncle Abraham was lucky and got one. His trade had been tailoring, and he worked at this in the factory. About three thousand people worked in the workshops, and each was searched as he came and left work on either the day or the night shift. When my uncle came home from work, he would tell us that, of all the three thousand people working, only about five hundred were really skilled men; the rest were hiding under the coats ofthe skilled ones. Everyone working in the workshops got an extra ration from the Germans, and also a very good extra ration ofsoup for lunch made of potatoes and beans. Uncle Abraham made new uniforms for the German soldiers by cleaning and repairing the uniforms of dead German soldiers. The shoe department made new boots and shoes for the soldiers. The furriers redesigned the furs the Jews had turned in for the wives ofthe German officers. The mechanical department cleaned and repaired machineguns and handguns, and the toy department made toys that were sent to Germany for the German children. Every day big trucks would bring in the raw materials for this work and would take the new products back to Germany. The main thing the Germans were proud of from this workshop was the toys because they had a tremendous effect on the German children. The toy workshop became so well known that every other day German high officers, even from Berlin, would come to look at the wonderful work of the Jewish workshops. Later on, as the toy department got even more famous, they made a special present for the bigcannibal, Goring. Itwas a pipe for smoking. I myselfdidn't see the pipe, but I heard from people who did that it was so exquisite that even in the good days before the war you wouldn't have been able to find one like it. When the pipe was sent to Germany and didn't come back, it meant that the big Mr. Goring had accepted it, and there was joy in the whole ghetto. Maybe this would buy us some time. The leader of the workshops was a man by the name of Mr. Segalson. He wasn't any relation to the police or the Jewish hierarchy, but he was a very good businessman. And since he was the leader ofthe workshops and became famous for the gift The Workshops and the Small Brigades 71 ofthat pipe, all the Jewish police and the hierarchy became his people. The Germans now started developing little work brigades. All the people who were working on the...