Memory Office: J. Zarchi
Julijana Zarchi, member of Kaunas Jewish community, tells a story about her multicultural-Jewish and German origins, missing her father whom she had lost very early in her life, the ever-present nostalgia for Düsseldorf felt by her mother and hardships suffered in childhood when deported to the heat of Tajikistan.
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“In my opinion, the destiny of people depends on the family in which they grew up. And the destiny of a family depends on countries, in which they live. In my case, those countries are Germany and Lithuania. My name is German, and my last name is Jewish. It reflects both sides of me. The destiny of my family is tied with the entire history of WW2 and its aftermath in Lithuania and Germany. Nazism, Hitler, Soviet occupation of Lithuania... My destiny reflects two great dictatorships of the 20th century.”
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“There was no civil registry offices in those times. Because of this, my mother went to the synagogue. This means that first of all, she became the citizen of Lithuania (and this was very important to her), and then Jewish. In 1934, mixed couples would divorce in Germany as they were told to divorce, but at that time, my mother entered into such marriage. She told me that the process was very pleasant. She was immersed into water, and felt like she was taken care of. But my father was very anxious, and so was the rabbi: if Christians found out that a Christian converts to Judaism, pogroms could have started in Kaunas. But they did it. They got married.”
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“My mother found everything strange here. She would cry and wanted to go home. She decided to have something of her own and give birth to a child. This was how I came into existence. Until her death, I was the person who tied her to Germany. Even though for me Germany was... I could not go there ever. During the Soviet times, it was forbidden to go there. Especially if one knew languages. My mother would always speak in German to me. This was my first language. Later I learned Lithuanian. When we got deported to Tajikistan, I learned Russian. I was a piece of her homeland, even though I have never been to that homeland.”
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“In the occupied countries, there were announcements that half-Jews must go to the ghetto. My mother and grandmother were frightened from the first days when the war began. In Lithuania, Kaunas, many Jews were killed at home and on the streets. By Hiwis. We lived on Vytautas Avenue. My mother saw everything. And that garage (Reference to Kaunas Pogrom, a massacre of Jewish people living in Kaunas, that took place on June 25–29, 1941 in Lietūkis garage.) Even though she did not tell me everything. They thought that the ghetto would defend me from these atrocities, from dangerous people running in the streets. Even I had to go behind the fence, it would be safer for me. No one imagined what that ghettos were going to be like, that the cleansing would start from removing the redundant Jews: elders, children, pregnant women and women in general...”
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“For several days, the action against intellectuals was taking place in the ghetto. Everyone knew what was done to them. It was told that some sort of special intellectuals were wanted for special works in the archives. It was a great competition. And they were instantly transported to the 4th forth and killed. All of them.”
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“Vocelkienė would bring us to the yard and my mother would look through binoculars, if we were still alive. She was afraid to go closer to the fence, because I would start crying. It seems that Greta Holzman would also come."
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“I remember being next to the fence, and someone said to me in German: “Liauf” (Run). Put me through the fence and said it. Far away, on the other side of the house, in one of the entrances, I saw my mother. And started running. Very fast. My mother told me she could not believe I could run so fast.”
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“First of all, we were carried northwards. And then, at some point, back. They decided to bring us to Tajikistan, where they irrigated fields. Cotton was the white gold in the Soviet Union. They needed labor force very much. By the way, we were at the wagon in May, when the war finished. It became warmer, children became more interested, because they saw camels and mountains. It was very beautiful, when you think of it...”
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“Later, one girl told me that when we were brought here, people came to see us. Everyone was interested how these Germans got here... Do they have horns? Can you imagine?”
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JULIJANA ZARCHI
Julijana was born in 1938, Kaunas, the family of a Jew from Ukmergė, Mauša Zarchi and German Gerta Terezija Urchs from Düsseldorf. Her parents met in Düsseldorf and came to get married in Lithuania: in 1934, Hitler’s Germany, a marriage between a Jew and a German was not permitted. This is how the girl’s mother became a citizen of Lithuania. The young family lived in Germany for some time, but they did not feel safe there and arrived in Kaunas. Later Julijana’s maternal grandmother joined them. Girl’s father worked in the editorial office of three Yiddish newspapers located in Vytauto Avenue.
When the war with the Soviets broke, Julijana’s father went to the editorial office to find out more information. From the office, he informed the family that the front was moving very fast, and that he and the editorial staff were retreating to the East. As Julijana found out later, her father actually went to Ukmergė and was killed by the Nazis together with his other relatives. Julijana spent several months without her mother and grandmother in Kaunas Ghetto (her mother thought it was safer, because she was afraid of Hiwis). She was rescued from the ghetto by an Austrian neighbor Pranas Vocelka. Mother and grandmother hid the girl at home from Nazis until the Soviet Army came to Lithuania. Her grandmother died in January 1945. In April of the same year, the Soviet Army deported Julijana and her mother to Tajikistan, to work in the cotton fields surrounded by unbearable heat. The women had stayed there for 17 years and returned to Lithuania only in 1963. Her mother had never stopped missing her native Düsseldorf, which she had never had the chance to see again.
Data of the interview: 22/05/2018.