Chapter 1: Childhood Memories

09/20/23 • 27 min

Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust

Recollections of life before 1939 evoke the rich diversity of Vilna’s thriving Jewish community, including its multiple synagogues and political and social organizations. The impact on daily life of rising antisemitism foreshadows far darker times to come.

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Introduction: Remembering Vilna

“Those Who Were There” co-producers Nahanni Rous and Eric Marcus introduce a few of the voices that, over the course of 10 episodes, will bring to life the once-vibrant Jewish community of Vilna, Poland (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania) and chronicle its destruction during World War II.

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Chapter 2: In the Shadow of War

With the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the country is split between the Nazi invaders and the Soviet Union. Vilna winds up in the hands of the Soviets, then the Lithuanians, then the Soviets again, who set about seizing property and businesses, and arresting and deporting perceived enemies of the state.