Trudy Gold
Lithuania: The World They Left Behind

Trudy Gold - Lithuania: The World They Left Behind

- I’m going to talk about the origins of it all, because I find that fascinating. But as I said, we’re going to start with this film and the film on Vilna is very, it’s very special, Wendy, because in the 1970s, someone found in a left luggage in Grand Central Station, a series of travel logs. They were taken by a Polish Jew living in America who went to Poland. Remember Vilnius in the interwar period was part of Poland, although it’s now again the capital of Lithuania. And they went back to Poland, which included Lithuania to tell the story of, so for the folks back home, this was for Eastern European Jews who’d made it to America, what was going on in the spring and summer of ‘39. And the person who found it, he realised what he had and it’s such a fascinating tiny little film, 10 minutes of Vilnius, so I thought I’d start with that, Wendy.

• Yeah, that’s okay. Thank you, Julia. This week, this past week, you know I’m involved with this organisation, the NGIC, and I actually had one of the past prime ministers was there, and he asked me if I talk on, do an interview with them. And I actually turned it around and said, well, maybe you could do an interview with us. And he and his colleagues, we spoke about how shocking they were to the Jews.

• That would be very interesting, yeah, that’s wonderful Okay, all right, can we show the film please, Karina? Thank you, thanks Wendy. Can you start it? It’s in Yiddish, of course. The tomb of the Vilna Gaon. The spiritual home of European Jewry. Lot of synagogues for different occupations. The great books and old age men, Down the street. Remember, it’s the summer of 1939. Very poignant. Just terrible poverty. Of course, it’s saved in New York. Discussing politics.

• [Narrator] Goodbye, Vilna, goodbye.

• Goodbye, Vilna. Thank you, Karina. Can you stop it there, thank you. Thank you and can we go to the slides now. I wanted to start with that presentation, because it’s a particularly poignant one. As I said, it was taken in the spring and summer of 1939 to give the folks who’d made it to America a glimpse of the world that they’d left. As I said, right at the beginning when I was chatting to Wendy, what the world they left behind, and tragically it was going to have such, such a dark ending. Now, why are we including this in the series of South Africa? Well, of course, I don’t have to tell you, particularly the South Africans, about 90% of South African Jewry, in fact, trace their roots back to Lithuania. In 1569, there were about 120,000 Jews because there was a census, by 1792 when it became part of Czarist Russia, there were a quarter of a million. So it was a very, very important part of the Jewish world. And not only that, they developed their own Yiddish, their own culture and it was very much the centre, for a long period, the absolute centre of Eastern European Jewish Life. It was the centre of the great Yeshivat, it was the centre of learning. And it was, of course, under the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth until it was taken over by the Czars.

Now a question, why did so many Lithuanian Jews actually go to South Africa? And again, the accidents of history, the Union-Castle Line, which was founded in 1853, think 19th century, think trade, think of all the inventions that are coming out and it’s founded in 1853 in Southampton, it was a steamship company to transe coal from South Wales to Southampton. And in 1857, it linked with the Union line and it won a contract to carry mail to South Africa, mainly to the Cape Colony. Now meanwhile, the Castle Packet Company traded with Calcutta around the Cape of Good Hope. And of course then in 1876, Benjamin Disraeli bought the Suez Canal, which cut that trade because it cut the sea roots to the East by four and a half thousand miles, so it started to run to South Africa instead and the two companies merged in 1900. And so the majority of Jewish immigrants came from the Kelmes region from Panevezys, Siauliai, which I’m going to talk about next week. Many of them travelled to the Latvian port of Libau is the German word or Liepaja. And after its opening, and what happens is they, after its opening they go into the Kiel Canal for the English East, for the East English coast. They no longer, to get out of the Pale of Settlement because of course at that period it was under Russian rule, many of them came out down the South, that long hazardous journey and out through the German ports. But now you could actually come out through the Latvian ports and go to where, to go to Hull. Across the North Sea to Hull and then what happens then, there was a business, ticket agents in Vilnius and Kelmes to lines shuttling between Liepaja and Hull.

And what would then happen, they would come by road from Hull to London, many of them reorientating at the poor Jewish shelter in the East End. And then they rejoin the Union-Castle Line, which specialised in the route to South Africa. Some of them did stay in England, I have some South African friends who actually stayed north before going to South Africa. And in the first South African census, the population of 47,000, the majority of them, of course, were Litvaks. But what was the world they left behind? And what I’m going to start with is a background to Lithuania, A, because it’s intrinsically very, very interesting, and also it gives you a notion of Jewish life at the period and of course in I’m taking you back to the 13- and 1400s, there you see the Baltic tribes around 1200. And you will see what is now called the Prussians. In fact, it was Prostki. Now, very important, the Lithuanian tribes, they fought the Slavs and the Teutonic Knights, and they’re going to found an incredibly important state, a great state which goes from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. They become really the big power in the area. It encompasses what is today Belarus, much of Ukraine, and Western Russia. And they are pagan. So this pagan tribe, they beat the Slavs and they beat the Prostki, and they create this incredible land empire. Now, can we see the next slide, please? They are a pagan empire and this puts them in conflict with who? A story that’s incredibly interesting, the story of the Teutonic Knights. Now, the Teutonic Knights were a military order that was paid for by Germans to protect the roots to the holy land at the time of the Crusade.

So they are a crusading order, but of course, in 1199, a very important date, it falls to Saladin. So these characters are out of a job. So they go to King Andrew of Hungary because his lands border the Muslim lands, so a crusade against the Muslims. But they try and steal his territory, so he kicks them out. And it’s at this stage that the Pope says a war against paganism is just as good as a war against heretics, Muslims, Jews, etc. So they go to the land of Prostki and it takes them about a hundred years, but they go against the indigenous population of Prostki, a very dark pagan tribe. And it’s immortalised in Alexander Nevsky Eisenstein’s brilliant film, which is made in 1938 before the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and what it’s really about is how the Germans, oh, how the Germans are beaten by the great Russ. Because in the end it’s going to culminate in a battle in 1510, the Battle of Tannenberg, when the Teutonic Knights are going to be defeated. But it’s important to remember at the beginning, it is the pagan Lithuanians, the Lithuanians were pagan, they were actually the last European country to be converted to Christianity. And there’s a lot of intertribal fighting. And now I’m going to take you into history and can we please see the first character? This is Wladyslaw Jagiello, he in fact was Grand Duke of Lithuania. He was a pagan prince, his brother was a pagan. They worshipped the great fires in the forests, and he converts to Christianity, why?

Can we come to the next slide, please? Here you see Queen Jadwiga. She was 10 years old and heiress to the kingdom of Poland. Poland, a very important kingdom whose currency was salt with a very strong nobility. A 10 year old woman, how on earth could she control the country? So what happens is she is persuaded to marry Jagiello and his price was conversion. He converts to Christianity. Do you remember Henry IV of France? Paris is worth a mass, he became a Catholic. Well, here you have the Grand Duke saying Poland is worth a baptism. So he is baptised, and Lithuania and Poland are united by marriage. It’s not going to be until 1569 that they are united, in fact, by a proper union, the union of Lithuania and Poland. So what happens is the Teutonic Knights do not accept his conversion and the great battle that I’ve already mentioned, the Battle of Tannenberg, where the Germans are terribly defeated. And it’s a symbol because Ukrainians fought, the Russ fought. It’s a symbol of Russian nationalism today, it’s a symbol of Lithuanian nationalism today, it’s also a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism today, the Battle of Tannenberg. Now, can we see the next slide, please? I wanted to give you a picture of mediaeval Vilnius, which at this stage it’s still pagan, it’s wooden, it’s quite primitive, and it’s first mentioned in the Teutonic Knights Chronicles of 1337. And the question is, when did Jews first come to the area? And there are various theories on this. One theory is that the Jews migrated during the reign of Gediminas, who was obviously a pagan king and he gave out invitations to merchants and craftspeople. This is in the 1320s, that there were great economic opportunities in his area, because the Lithuanians had not yet really developed cities and there were no closed guilds and obviously one of the main problems for Jews in mediaeval Europe were the guilds.

A Jew couldn’t be a stonemason, there were so many trades and professions that were completely controlled by the Christian guilds, but it wasn’t so in Vilnius. So as a result, Gediminas, he doesn’t just want Jews, he wants people who can build up his economy. And in the 14th century, Lithuania is expanding. So as they expand to the Baltic and also to the Black Sea, they need more and more skilled people to help oil the wheels of the economy. Can we see the next slide, please? This is beautiful Trakai. Now, I’ve had the fortune to travel and actually teach in many of these areas. Trakai is an absolutely beautiful spot, and many of you will recognise that castle because it is used in so many film productions today, because obviously it’s cheaper to create epics in Lithuania than it is in Hollywood. But what happens is that there’s a charter, Trakai Charter of 1388, where actual privileges are granted to the Jews. It later on became a centre of the Karaites, they are a group within Judaism. And these privileges were extended to many towns, many settlements within Lithuania. And we know that these charters were modelled on an earlier document of Casimir III of Poland, which goes back to 1264. So important to remember Jews were actually invited into what became Lithuania as they had been invited into Poland. And under the Lithuanian Charter, the Jews formed a special class of freemen. And they were in all criminal cases, they were obviously subjected to the Grand Duke and his people and in petty cases to local officials, but any dispute between Jew and Jew was dealt with by Jews.

So consequently, Lithuania and Poland is going to give the Jews a lot of self rule. Also, these judges, the beit din, also included guardianship of the people and to look after the freedom of Jewish worship. So I want you to see just how much autonomy the Jews had. And there was another theory, which I may as well mention, that Arthur Koestler and Abraham Harakvy, they claim that much of the settlement in Lithuania and Poland originates from Caesarea because why? Because Caesarea, of course, was that land in the Crimea which either the king converted or the people converted, but the majority of historians believe that it’s actually migration basically from the German lands. Why, why would they migrate into Lithuania and Poland? Because basically the German lands are becoming more and more inhospitable. From the time of the first crusade in 1095 when whole communities in the Rhineland were completely wiped out by crusaders and also the next two, 300 years are a terrible time, the black deaths, for example, but at the same time the kings of Lithuania and Poland, and as I said, can we see the next slide, please? The Union of Lublin, where the two countries become one, they are actually inviting the Jews in and it led to a huge growth in the Jewish economy. And also it begins something very important, because it becomes Poland. Here shall we rest in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, Here we will rest and here we can live in safety.

It’s a Hasidic statement because basically, and of course everything is relative, but if you compare it to some of the horrors and the ghettoization that was happening in Western and Central Europe with the Union of Lublin, Lithuania, Poland, it’s a very, very special place. And it meant that in that special time, Jews could concentrate on the inner life and it led to an absolute explosion of rabbinic talent. And as best, I suppose, personified by the Vilna Gaon. I’m jumping you on because I’m just giving you a flavour of it all, can we see the next side, please? The great Vilna Gaon. Now, he is the stuff of which legends are made. Evidently by the time he was three, he committed the Torah to memory. At seven, he himself was teaching Talmud and he writes a commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud. And he was reputed to have known so many of the tractates of the Talmud by heart. And by the time he was eight, he studying astronomy and also mathematics. It’s a very lovely question that I often pose religious Jews, what may a Jew study? It’s an interesting dilemma, certainly mathematics, Adin Steinstaltz, who in the 20th century translated the Talmud into English, he studied mathematics at the Sorbonne. There’s nothing wrong with mathematics, there’s nothing wrong with astronomy. Any subject that enhances your knowledge of Torah and Talmud are fine, but don’t forget that other statement. Never forget there is wisdom amongst the Gentiles, but there is no Torah, you can’t study philosophy that is not Jewish philosophy.

So basically the Vilna Gaon was an incredibly learned man. He knew algebra, which he saw was as an aid to Talmud discussion and astronomy, why? So he could better understand the Hebrew calendar. He marries at 18 and he secluded himself in a small house in Vilna and he studied more or less day and night. And his sons tell the story that he would put his feet in freezing water to keep himself awake at night, so he becomes this great centre of Jewish learning. And just after his death, a wealthy relative bought a plot of land to erect a building for prayer and for study. And several of his followers themselves are going to become very important, very important leaders in the community. And it leads to the establishment of the great Yeshivat of Eastern Europe, which are going to service eventually many of the diaspora communities, the community in Britain, the community in America, and of course later on, the community in South Africa. It’s the Eastern Europeans who are going to bring with them the knowledge. Now, can we see the next slide, please? This is the Mir Yeshiva in Belarus, I chose that one because I visited it and it’s still standing. Unfortunately, there’s not much Talmudic knowledge left in Belarus, but that’s not the point, that is the great Mir Yeshiva. And it’s important because Mir, the students were saved. They came out through calmness because of the work of a wonderful Japanese consul, a man called Sugihara. It’s interesting when you look at what makes greatness, I always think of the trilogy when I think of great horror. In Nanjing in 1937, there was an appalling massacre of Chinese, over 300,000 Chinese were murdered by the Japanese. Many thousands were saved by a member of the Nazi party called John Rabe. In Vienna, a Chinese consul, Manli Ho, was giving out visas to get Jews out. And in Kelmes, the Japanese consul was giving out visas, which led to the escape of the Mir Yeshiva and they finished up in Shanghai. It’s an extraordinary story.

So just take that as an example of many, many yeshivat all over Lithuania. And there’s another point that it becomes very important. Can we see the next slide, please? In 1648, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth had become weakened, and as a result, it could no longer stand against unrest. Now, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, most of the Lithuanian nobility had become colonised and they had annexed the Ukraine. The Ukraine merely means borderlands. And it had been annexed mainly by Jews actually, working as land agents. Every landowner in Poland and Lithuania had a Jewish land agent. And of course, on the great estates the shtetls were set up because the man who ran the estate for the landowner, he was also a benefactor of his community. And to allow him to live a Jewish life, they would set up the shtetl and they would run the community in what is known as the Council of the Four Lands. You can read about it, but I’ve actually lectured on it and now we have a website up. So I’m really giving you an overview today because much of it we’ve dealt with in detail. Now, the Chmielnicki Massacres happened in 1648 when the Polish crown was incredibly weak. And the Ukrainian cossacks under their leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, went on the rampage in the Ukraine. They murdered Polish aristocrats, Polish Gentry, Catholics, they were Russian Orthodox, and upwards of a hundred thousand Jews. It was a terrible, terrible time in Jewish history. It is called the deluge. But the point is it led to all sorts of reactions in the Jewish world. It led to false messiahs like Sabbatai Zevi and Jacob Frank.

But it also led to a far more pious response, Hasidism, led by the work of the Baal Shem Tov. Lithuania was basically untouched by the Chmielnicki massacres. So it’s important to remember that Lithuania becomes a centre. Vilnius is the centre from then on of misnagdim, which just means opposers because within a hundred years, the Jews of Eastern Europe are either Hasidic or opposes to Hasidism. There’s very little inroad of reform. What’s going on in Napoleon’s France and what’s going on in Europe, in Western Europe, the Enlightenment, it’s making very, very few dents. So what you have in Judaism is the misnagdim centred on Vilnius and the Hasids. And of course Hasidism is about joy in worship. And in fact, certain leaders of Hasidism went to visit the Vilma Gaon, including Shneur Zalman of Liadi, and they wanted to assure him that they didn’t conflict with traditional Judaism, because by the time you get to Shneur Zalman, he brings it back. He’s third-generation Hasid, , wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. But the Vilna Gaon instructed that the testament of the Baal Shem Tov be burnt. And this is what was said, I will continue to stand on guard and it is the duty of every believing Jew to repudiate and pursue with all manner of afflictions and subdue them because they have sin in their hearts and they are a sore on the body of Israel. So important to remember that there’s this terrible conflict between Hasidism and traditional orthodoxy, the misnagdim. Later on, they had much more of an accommodation to fight the greatest threat of all, which of course was reform and assimilation.

In fact, Shneur Zalman of Liadi, I’ve told you this before in other presentations because he’s absolutely fascinating, what he does, he, when Napoleon invades, remember I’m jumping on a century now, Napoleon invades, Shneur Zalman is still alive and he writes to another rabbi that he would, he goes with the czar’s army because what’s going to happen in 1793, Lithuania is going to be annexed by the czars, and he prefers to go with the czarist army. He actually says, I would prefer my people actually be persecuted under the czars than live in peace under Napoleon, because Napoleon will be the end of the Jewish people. So can we go on, please? Next slide. Ah ha, now, with the partition of Poland at the end of the 18th century, the territories of Lithuania, this is very important, they pass into the Russian Empire. And for over 120 years, they no longer exist as a political unit, only as an administrative unit. So now we have to, this is one of the stories of the Jews, isn’t it? How do Jews survive when they have no real rights themselves? And what happens is that in Lithuania, it’s going to be the centre of all sorts of interesting movements particularly centred on Vilnius. It’s very important to remember that acculturation is just not going to occur in Lithuania. Think about the social structure of Lithuanian itself. It’s a very poor region. And the mass of the inhabitants were either Lithuanian or Belarus peasantry. They were either very poor, many of them were illiterate, and they have a very undeveloped national culture.

And the Jews who have contact with the peasantry, this goes on under the Russian czars, they are the merchants, they have various stratum of society, they are shopkeepers. Jews controlled most of the inns in Lithuania. They were craftsmen. And as a result of that, there is very little intermixing between Lithuanian society and Jewish society, And Litvaks, as far as the rest of the Jewish world was concerned, they spoke a different dialect of Yiddish. They saw themselves as having specific features. They prized the intellect over emotion. They prized mental alertness. They prized sharp wittedness. And it’s the Hasidic movement that doesn’t strike any roots. And if you have a look at some of the Maskilim, these are people who wanted not to reform Judaism, let’s be very, very careful. What they wanted to do was to enlighten Judaism. Now I want to turn to, can we jump on to Israel Salanter, please? Can I go on, yes, now Israel Salanter is born, because he personifies it all, he’s born Yisrael ben Ze'ev Wolf Lipkin. He is father of the Musar movement. He was famed Rosh yeshiva and he was a great Talmudist. He took his name from the town of Salantai, which was a Lithuanian town where he’d come under the influence of a rabbi called Yosef Zundel. He was also, Rabbi Zundel, by the way, was the father of Yom Tov Lipman Lipkin who was a great mathematician. He’d been born in Zagare, which is a real little shtot in Lithuania, son of a rabbi, Av Beth Din. So do you see how the lives would not have touched? Now he was quite revolutionary because in 1848 there was a terrible cholera epidemic. And what he said, he said that Jewish ethics and law mandated obligations to save life, to save the priority of life above everything else. And that even on Yom Kippur, if you needed to save life during a epidemic, you shouldn’t fast.

So he is very much a man of ethics, but within the framework of the law. He becomes sort of really the most important religious figure in Vilnius and then something happened. In the period of the czars, they really didn’t know what to do with their Jewish problem. And at certain stages, they tried to, inverted commas, reform the Jews. And one of the things they wanted to do was to set up a rabbinic school. And he obviously was offered the post because he said they will create rabbinic pothics and what is important is that is Judaism survive. So what he did was he went to Kovno, where he founded Kollel Kovno, where he founded another yeshiva. Musar, by the way, means instruction, discipline, conduct. He had 13 teachings, which I think you might find interesting, and it might be something to debate at another time. The 13 teachings are patience, silence, pleasantness, humility, thriftiness, justice, truth, cleanliness, diligence, alacrity, peace of mind, and respect and order. Let me repeat them because this is about the well-trained mind with honour, but it’s a logical mind. Patience, silence, pleasantness, humility, thriftiness, justice, truth is all important, cleanliness, diligence, alacrity, peace of mind, respect and order. So different from the practises of the Hasids. Now, another important factor in Lithuania from the 18th century onwards was in fact the Hebrew press. It had first been founded in Shikhov and in Grodno. And during the 19th century, Vilna is going to be become one of the centres for the printing of Hebrew books. And here the famous Vilna Talmud was printed.

So important to remember, even though it’s under Russian rule, the Russian bureaucracy was incredibly inefficient. And every czar had a different policy towards the Jews. So in a way, life could continue. And so Lithuania is playing a very important preservation of traditional Judaism, but it’s also going to contribute very important ideas which =are going to change the Jewish world. Now, the Haskalah first penetrated from Prussia and then it comes to Vilna. And they, the , the Enlighteners in Lithuania and in Poland, they didn’t want acculturation. You see, there’s no acculturation to be part of. So they adhere to their own people. What they wanted was a Hebrew literature which would spread. They wanted ideas of the enlightenment in Hebrew for the Jews. It encompassed every aspect of life. So Vilnius, which at this stage of course is still the central town of Lithuania, it becomes the centre of Hebrew poetry, of novels, and all sorts of scholars in Jewish studies, works on general history, as well. And there was a notion of spreading Russian culture. And it did lead eventually to other important movements, but it doesn’t work in Russia because the Jews realise that the Russian government will always be the enemy. Can we go back, please? Can we go back to the last slide, yes.

Now, Russia itself, the Russian Empire had a huge industrial boom at the end of the 19th century. There were tanneries in Siauliai, which I’m going to be talking about next week and in many other Lithuanian towns, Tobacco was a very important industry. There were clothing factories. And what what that meant was there is now a large Jewish working class in Siauliai, in Kaunas, in Vilnius. And by 1900, 40% of the Jews of Lithuania are proletarianized, Jewish bosses and Jewish workers. And the working conditions were deplorable. And of course, in 1881, when Alexander II was murdered by revolutionaries, the Jews were used as an excuse to ward off revolution and you have the terrible pogroms. And the May Laws, which were to curtail Jewish life, Popotinestov who was the lay procurator of the Russian Orthodox Church and the number one minister to Alexander II’s son, he said, a third will emigrate, a third will die, a third will assimilate, I don’t want a Jewish problem anymore. So after the May Laws, they’re even more vulnerable to exploitation. And this is from the Yiddish worker of 1905, this is Jacob Lashinsky, destruction, poverty, and privation, need and hunger in the fullest sense of the word, sweating system, shrunken chests, lifeless eyes, pale faces, sick and tubercular lungs, this is the picture of the Jewish street. These are the conditions under which the Jewish worker had to fight for reforms. So there’s a huge Jewish working class now, and they are being oppressed by the Jewish rich. So as a result, it begins in 1897, 1897 is a very, very important year. It begins in the back of a blacksmith shop in Vilnius. The Bund is born. It’s a Jewish socialist organisation that wanted to keep within the Jewish world.

They would not work on a Shabbat. They were within the Jewish world. They revelled in Yiddish culture because that was the culture of the people. And what they wanted was better working conditions. And the Bund, in the end, is going to be become one of the most important features of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. And later on, of course, is going to spread to America. Now, 1895, by the way, it had started because two years earlier, a group of students at the Yeshiva abandoned their studies and began preaching Marxism. It didn’t work for the Jews at that period. So consequently, two years later, they abandoned, two years later, the Bund is formed, it abandons any idea of assimilation. By the end of 1897, the Jewish intellectuals in Vilnius, who are socialists, but they are Jewish socialists, they want a mass Yiddish speaking movement that can change the Jewish world. But something else is happening. 1897 should ring all sorts of bells in your head because it’s the first Zionist Congress. And of course in the first Zionist Congress, Vilnius also becomes a great centre of Zionism. So you have the Bund in Vilna, you have the Zionists in Vilnius. In fact, a lot of those who went to create came from Vilnius and they sent delegates to the first Zionist Congress. They founded two newspapers. The papers were founded by a man called . But he studied at the Kavno yeshiva, settled in Vilnius, and he actually bought the first plot of land for the JNF. And on his death in 1935 in Switzerland, he bequeathed half of his estates to the JNF for the promotion of Hebrew language and culture. So you see what else is,

• [Wendy] Everyone, I believe Trudy will jump back on in a moment.

• I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. I’ve moved to my bedroom. Can we change slides? I apologise for that. Yes, because look, obviously after 1881, between 1881 and 1914, you have this huge exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe, about 40% of them leave. And of course, many of them that I’ve already mentioned come to South Africa, the largest number, of course, to America, followed by England. But then the whole of Eastern Europe goes up in flames in the First World War. And the First World War becomes an absolute bloody battlefield. That area of Lithuania keeps on changing sides. And I know that many of your families, South African families actually got out of that period. I was talking to Frances Kirsch and I’m going to be talking about Siauliai, where some of her family came from, that her grandmother got out and her grandmother’s sister, they got out at that period because of the horror of what happened, the gassing attacks and the armies moving, German armies, Russian armies. But then the Russian Revolution, the Russian Revolution erupts and it leads to a peace deal with Germany. And can we see the next figure? Here you see him, Leon Trotsky, Lev Davidovich Bronstein, the man who created the Red Army and who’d led the Red Army during the civil war. Because what happens is there is a civil war in Eastern Europe, the whole area goes up in flames. There the poles of fighting.

The Ukrainian anarchists are fighting. The white Russians are fighting. And in the end, the Jews are caught in the crossfire. And so many Jews are destroyed as communist insurrectionaries. Now, I can say until I’m purple the majority of Jews were never revolutionaries. But the problem was that they are seen as revolutionaries, and at the end of the war, it’s going to lead to many more problems. So I think I’m going to stop there. I’m sorry about the hiatus. And what I suggest, I will come back to Lithuania in a couple of weeks and I will talk about modern Lithuania because Lithuania, after the collapse of the, because what happens is after the collapse of the Czarist empire, Trotsky holds most of it, but Lithuania emerges as a modern state, so does Latvia. And I’m going to be talking about the fortunes of Jews in Lithuania between 1923, when there’s a modern state of Lithuania, and the Second World War and its terrible, terrible consequences. And we’ll also be looking at the Jews of Siauliai, but also I want to consider what was it that’s going to lead to this terrible outpouring of association of the Jews with revolution. Because the situation in Lithuania, even though countries were meant to have a policy of recognition of minorities, and the Jews were a large part of the Lithuanian population after Lithuania becomes independent, nevertheless, it’s going to become a very, very difficult period. So what I’ve tried to do is give you an overview. So let’s have a look at some of the questions. And I apologise for the hiccup.

Q&A and Comments:

Oh, this is from Tim. Some of my family came from Lithuania, they came to Ireland probably in the 1800s. Some came to Dublin. Well, I was reading the text because you’ve got to remember it’s in Yiddish, that is the best version you’re going to get. That is about the best you are ever going to get on that film. That’s why when it was too bright, I tried to read it.

This is how robust do you think is the evidence of Yaffa Eliach’s Eishyshok, “There Once Was a World?”

And Solis Roth is answering that. She’s saying she researched her work, has credible references to everything. I’ve got the book, it’s absolutely wonderful. Will this lecture be repeated at a later date? Not only that, you’ve got it, it’s now a part of lockdown. Is the dybbuk a factor, oh, the dybbuk, ah. The dybbuk, of course, is part of Jewish folklore. Now what we’re going to do with that, when we turn to America, I’m going to find some experts in Yiddish theatre, Yiddish Cinema. and Yiddish legend, of course. Thank you.

There seemed to be a gap between 1897 and World War I because of the glitch. I will repeat that at the beginning of my next lecture, David.

Q: Can you repeat the routes that Lithuanian Jews left?

A: Yes, they went up, they came out through the Latvian port, which the Germans called Libau. They went to Hull, this was one route, or as we just heard from Tim, his family went on to Cork. Many of them then, they had tickets, you see, you could buy the tickets in Kalnas or in Vilnius. They then had the tickets and they would come to London. Some of them stayed at the Poor Jew Shelter, there’s a lot of that on record. And then they would take the boat to South Africa on the Union-Castle line, okay.

Are you aware of the new Ukrainian French co-production mainly in Yiddish, no, I’m not Abigail. I think that’s all the questions.

As I said, I’m sorry about, are there any more questions, though? I’m sorry about the glitch, but I think that film is just so moving, so I wish you all goodnight and enjoy the rest of the presentations and, as I said, if you didn’t listen to Colin Bundy, you must listen to his next lecture, the man’s a genius.

Wait a minute. Oh, and Paula is saying she’s in love with lockdown and thank you all for it.

Anyway, and Happy, Happy New Year to everyone, God bless.