In 1939 the Vilna resident A. I. Grodzenski was preparing an almanac documenting Jewish life in the city. The articles he had assembled included reports about literary organizations, sport, religious activities, social institu- tions, and musical life; many proudly emphasized the glowing reputation that the Vilna community enjoyed among Jews not only in the local area, but also in major Polish cities, and as far away as Paris and New York. The sudden outbreak of war in September prevented publication of the book, but it was recovered after the war by a former community member, Isaac Kowalski. The progress reports that made up the almanac would, in diVerent circumstances, probably have enjoyed no more auspicious a fate than gathering dust along with others of their predictable and prosaic kind. As one of the last vestiges of pre-war Jewish Vilna, however, this almanac bears unique witness to an active and dynamic community life, and in particular to the value and importance aVorded by the Vilna Jews to various forms of creative activity.1
Vilna’s Jewish community did not count among the largest in eastern Europe. On the eve of the Second World War, its population numbered only around 60,000, and waves of simultaneous emigrations and refugee inXuxes left that Wgure relatively stable until the time of the German invasion in 1941. Nonetheless, Jews constituted a sizeable proportion of the city’s population—almost 30 per cent, according to the last census prior to the Second World War taken in 1931.2
Vilna also boasted one of the most historically dynamic and vibrant of the east European Jewish communities. By the middle of the seventeenth century
1 Isaac Kowalski (ed.),Vilner almanakh (New York, 1992).
2 Yitzhak Arad,Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust
it had become a major centre for Torah study, attracting some of the greatest Jewish thinkers and rabbinic scholars. By the nineteenth century it had established itself as the hub of secular Yiddish and Hebrew culture: some of the most important writers and artists were based there, and it was the home of numerous Zionist and Yiddishist institutions, including the Chibat Tsiyon (Love of Zion) movement, and the literary Pen club. The remarkable quality and scope of cultural life in Vilna earned it the esteemed title ‘Jerusalem of Lithuania’, a name by which it was known throughout the Jewish world. In the inter-war years, its Jewish life continued to thrive. The vast majority of children attended schools where the language of instruction was Yiddish or Hebrew, and a well-developed school network operated under the Zionist educational organization Tarbut (Culture). There were also youth move- ments and drama groups, several active publishing houses, and research and cultural institutions including the famous MeWtse-Haskole library and the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Jewish ScientiWc Institute, YIVO).3
The vibrant cultural life for which Jewish Vilna was esteemed remained one of its distinguishing features during the war. In the two years of the ghetto’s existence, from September 1941 until September 1943, it witnessed a Xourish- ing of artistic activities, including theatrical revues, symphony concerts, vocal recitals, chamber music, art exhibitions, choral singing, competitions, and a successful youth club. An organization founded in early 1942 called the Faraynikung fun Literarn un Kinstler (Association of Writers and Artists, FLK) promoted creativity in the ghetto by providing material assistance of various forms, and organized regular literary evenings, lectures, and discus- sions. Scores of talented musicians, actors, artists, and writers continued their creative activity in the ghetto until the Wnal months of its existence.
To a large extent, these activities grew directly out of Vilna’s pre-war cultural landscape. Most of the people who were to become the ghetto’s prominent cultural Wgures, including Zelig Kalmanovitch, Ya’akov Gersh- teyn, Avraham Slep, Wolf Durmashkin, Herman Kruk, and others, had long since distinguished themselves as enthusiastic participants in the city’s intel- lectual and artistic life. Some of the ghetto’s most important writers, includ- ing Shmerke Kaczerginski, Avraham Sutzkever, and Hirsh Glik, had for several years been active in the literary circle Yung Vilne (Young Vilna) and its oVshoot Yungvald (Young Forest). The history of cultural life in the ghetto is thus partly the story of how the community was able to re-establish, adapt, and modify its pre-war activities and institutions in the new context.
Powerful new political currents began to sweep through the ghetto soon after its establishment in September 1941, and our story is equally concerned with the ways in which these shaped the nature and course of the commu- nity’s creative life. The social structures in question were the Judenrat, particularly from mid-1942, when it was under the leadership of Jacob Gens, and the underground Fareynigte Partizaner Organizatsye (United Partisans Organization, FPO), established in the early part of that year. Although these organizations co-existed peaceably for some months, their relationship became increasingly fraught as the ghetto’s situation grew more precarious. Our journey through the ghetto’s musical landscape will reveal the powerful mark that both placed on cultural life, and on the ways in which people were encouraged to view the events that had befallen them.