Memory Office: I. Glikas
Izaokas Glikas, member of Kaunas Jewish Community, remembers how he has spent a winter’s night with his mother in a pile of hay trying to get warm, while wearing summer shoes, and how we slept in a barn and woke up in a block of ice. He also recalls his life under the care of a priest in Salesian monastery in Gelgaudiškis, were he was baptised as Antanas Žemaitis.
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“My papa and his cousin, together with some other people, dammed Šešupė and built a power plant in Kudirkos Naumiestis. That dam of Šešupė was very opportune for us, when we had to run away from the city. Especially in summer and drier weather, when water below the dam would dry out and it was possible to cross it.”
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“On June 22, early in the morning, around 4.00 AM, there was a great noise in the town. We heard vehicles and motorcycles. Later we heard a loud explosion, because the Germans blew up the checkpoint of the Soviet Union Army. Father opened the shutters and wanted to open the window and see what was happening. There was a German with a firearm who told that it was forbidden, otherwise he would have to shoot us. Then my papa closed the window and told us that the end had come for us. Two Jews were shot that night. This was the beginning of war.”
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“On July 1, an unknown policeman came to our home. He greeted us like friends and announced that Germans had ordered to collect men who would be taken to work in Germany. He advised to put on more layers of clothes, bring warmer ones for the trip and food for three days. My father and the eldest brother decided to go. They went outside, there was also an old man, his three sons and several acquaintances. They were lined up, brought to the town market square. Their passports and documents were collected. In late afternoon, they were counted and brought to the Jewish cemetery. When it got dark, shots were heard. We started to panic. We were explained that these are manoeuvres and exercise.”
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“In winter, January, we had to look for a place. It was minus twenty degrees of Celsius outside. Around the midnight, we knocked at the door of some pleasant people. We told them why we were there, and they sympathised with us. The hosts heated some water and soaked my feet in it. Later they put two bricks into fire. They brought us to the barn. They gave us feather-fill blankets to cover ourselves. Then they placed warm bricks wrapped in some scarves or cloths. It helped to keep the feet warm. This is how we slept. When we woke up in the morning, we saw that the steam we breathed out froze, so our blankets were covered in ice.”
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“For some time, I found refuge in a monastery, where I learned several prayers and the Ten Commandments. Later my older sister came to work to the kitchen of this monastery. She did not raise any suspicion, because she had light hair, European complexion and knew the language well. We used to see each other when praying in church. We knelt not far away from one another, but there was no contact between us. It was impossible. No one suspected we were brother and sister.”
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“After the war, we visited our home in Kudirkos Naumiestis. You could not find a stone on a stone. Everything was levelled, and the city destroyed. Undamaged buildings were scarce: municipality, police station and some other buildings on the same street. There was also church, the tower of which was pierced by bullets. We had nothing to do there. There was no one who could build a house and nothing that could be used to do it, even though a lot of bricks were lying around. Once again we had to find a temporary place to stay with people who hid us during the war.”
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Izaokas Glikas
Izaokas (Izraelis Iseris) was born in Šakiai, 1934. He lived in Kudirkos Naumiestis together with his parents, Jenkelis Glikas and Malka Frišmantaitė Glikienė, brothers Leibas and Kopelis, sisters Chana Mina and Pėsė Dveira. The family of Glikas was religious and educated. When he was only 7 years-old, Izaokas had to suffer the war and the loss of family members: together with hundreds of other men, the boy’s father and brother Leibas were shot on 1 July 1941 in town's Jewish cemetery. Izaokas, his mother, brother and sisters survived the war hiding in nearby villages. 20 farmer families and individuals helped the family of Glikas.
His sister Pėsė Dveira married and found refuge in Kaunas somewhere around 1949, and the entire surviving family moved to the city as well.
Data of the interview 2017-10-25