{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/6d5p845p8q/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Charles Anolik 01-Originally on VHS"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/184/original/ijhs2_logo.png?1629814295","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Jeffrey Winter","Charles Anolik"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2024-04-04"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Charles Anolik gives some family history and then lovingly describes the Jewish community in Kaunas, Lithuania as a \"cultural pearl\" with about 40,000 Jews in a city of 130,000 people. Tells of the escalation of fear and violence that started in 1939, but got worse as of June 1941. He gives examples of atrocities he witnessed and experienced while in the Jewish ghetto, at a labor camp, and at several concentration camps, including Dachau. He details the time the Americans came the morning he was scheduled to be shot. For 4 years after liberation, he was in American-controlled parts of Germany before he got a visa to join an uncle and cousin in Des Moines, Iowa."]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MPEG-4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Kaunas","Lithuania","Family History","Dachau","Munich","Germany","Antisemitism","Forced Marches","Des Moines","Education","Iowa","Concentration Camps","Family Life","Jewish Holidays"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["TheirStory"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Charles Anolik gives some family history and then lovingly describes the Jewish community in Kaunas, Lithuania as a \"cultural pearl\" with about 40,000 Jews in a city of 130,000 people. Tells of the escalation of fear and violence that started in 1939, but got worse as of June 1941. He gives examples of atrocities he witnessed and experienced while in the Jewish ghetto, at a labor camp, and at several concentration camps, including Dachau. He details the time the Americans came the morning he was scheduled to be shot. For 4 years after liberation, he was in American-controlled parts of Germany before he got a visa to join an uncle and cousin in Des Moines, Iowa."]},"provider":[{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Iowa Jewish Historical Society"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Iowa Jewish Historical Society"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/184/original/ijhs2_logo.png?1629814295","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/297/997/small/open-uri20251201-428871-s1s9rp_1764604408.jpg?1764604408","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20251201-428871-s1s9rp.mov"]},"duration":3334.76477,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/297/997/small/open-uri20251201-428871-s1s9rp_1764604408.jpg?1764604408","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-jewishdesmoines.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/297/997/original/open-uri20251201-428871-s1s9rp.mov?1764604402","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3334.76477,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["TheirStory Transcript (Paragraphs with Speakers) [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e Please tell us your name, your date of birth, and where you were born.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=20.46,25.52"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e My name is Charles Anolek. I was born in Countas, Lithuania. My mother's name was Minna. My father's name was Jacob.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=26.895,40.0"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e What year were you born?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=40.54,41.84"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e Nineteen seventeen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=42.06,43.44"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e Can you tell us a little about your home life, your brother's sisters,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=45.795,50.455"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I, I didn't have sisters. I had two brothers. My father was an engineer. He, he specialized in a unique profession. He did pupils. Drowned roofs, what's on churches and buildings, And this was a special special thing, what not many people did it, and he had about eight, nine people working for him. And, encounters, there is a few churches where they are still standing, but my father did the roofs. I wish it would have been bombed, and it wouldn't be anything, but it's still there. Some people came from there, told me that. And, my mother was in the time she was just, housewife as Jewish mother were there and detained, And, we were just, let's say, at middle class Europe and Jewish family. Because we had, at the very rich one, we had also poor one, and there were some professional people who lives quite. Good. We thought, Sadan. Of course, we were not as rich as America thinks rich, but we had a very nice life there, having three sons, We went to private schools. We also had a public school, and they call it the Talma Toura. But, a deterrent to make a living didn't send their sons in a Talma Torah. They would attack their belt and send the kids in, Ginaja, we call them. Live, I think, yes, I I remember, was quite pleasant because Jewish life and covenant in this period was one it was many communities in the world, in Jewish life. We had our cultural, our physical, our entertainment, we had the Jewish theater, We had five daily papers. We had about twenty periodicals. And, intellectually, it I think it was the pearl in the crown of Jewish life in this period. And, and we grew up with our friends, we didn't have a specific section where Jewish leave, there was some, what later became the getter of a Slabotka There was more a compact Jewish community about, like one hundred and fifty families, because there was the shiva and there were very religious people, and they lived close by, but the rest of us believed all over the town. You have to understand, governor in this time had about hundred thirty thousand people. It was a big city. It was a capital. Of Lithuania, and it was about forty thousand Jews. Of course, we, We had about, like, two Hebrewim nazis, one rushing him nazis, private. One German and then Littorang and Muslick and a Jew in a Edish one. Muslick parents send their children in the Hebrew and Nazium, where I tender. And, life went without extreme,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=53.25,299.46"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e events we grew up. Just","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=301.52,303.525"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e we're supposed to go. And, Lithuania became a country, independent country in nineteen eighteen after the war before the ban was, Russia. And then they had a president. And the Jewish people as a whole lived quite well. We had our anti semitic outburst once in a while, but, we didn't pay attention too much. We had our friends, we went to school with some of them, replaced some of them. We even date each other, you know, till, suddenly everything fell apart and it was very hard.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=304.245,347.17"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e Before the beginning of the war? Well,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=349.925,351.845"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e it's not what I feel antisemitism. I grew up in it. You understand, we know it is there. We are Jewish and they are not because a Jew couldn't have then a, government job, you know, it was unheard that you should be a policeman, for example, you know, Jews were doctors, were lawyers, they had jobs in the Apara as musicians, and the Apara was a government institution. And, And you had your friends, you know that your neighbor is a Christian and will live good, and it came a holiday. You exchange some presents, but that's all about. But we know, but when we were young kids, you know, we dated, there was a certain, place where young people used to go. There were the Christian boys and girls and the Jewish boys and we used to fight. These fights because we wanted a certain bench in the park, but that is a part of growing up. But we know we are Jewish, when it comes to marriage, we was very seldom an inter marriage. Then Counters, the, the city by itself is a very beautiful city. It's like in Navalle. It's not big mountains, but it's his hills. And, Countas has two rivers who come together. And it's very close to Germany. And very close to France and that so it was a very little cosmopolitan city in Lithuania. But the borders was with Germany, and Poland and Russia, of course. The cultural things you took from Germany.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=351.845,474.625"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e Did any of the many of your family served in the army?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=475.485,478.945"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e No. They were too young for you thought it? No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=479.405,482.91"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e Where were you when the war started in in describing?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=485.29,488.11"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e The exact moment, no, we had about forty or forty five kilometers away from carbonate, there was a wood with pine trees, and my father, and his, brother-in-law, we had a little cottage So, summertime, the families used to go there, the wife and the kids, and the husbands used to take a for the the boat and take under river and come to stay over the weekend. And, In my childhood, I hated to go there because, mother always watched, that's what we do. But in this, when the war broke out, I was there. And we heard what had happened, the way it happened, suddenly, The airport we had a little airport there was bombed. You know, what's happened? We know it's a war going on somewhere. And we're bound, and we couldn't go back, so myself and a few other friends, we walked the four to five kilometers. To, to covenant. And then, it was, the whole thing. And, by the time when we came, it was the next day. And this day, this night, As I said before, we had there a religious, community next to the Slovakia Shiva and denied before the Germans came in before, anyway, then, the lithuanian killed about one hundred and forty choose people. They came in the night and killed out. And then we know that something is going on because,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=489.425,608.235"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e They felt they can go by with them as they did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=611.31,614.45"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e This was in in in June nineteen forty one. And, and after this, they start running around the streets, some of the Lithuania with guns and and anybody that could pick up these to take it, arrest them, take them out of town and ship them. And then the first today, eighteen hundred people. And then, today's later, the Germans walked in. I had, a little girlfriend, her name was Ariah, we were planning to get married. And somehow they went around the houses as they collect about twenty three beautiful girls, sixteen, seventeen years old. Two days later, they sent back their bodies. They were taken for the Germanings to play because soldiers And, of course, the way they send them back, we didn't have all the big costs and everything. It was some big, wagons where they used to have a flower wagon, used to call it. And they piled up And that was my first love, you know, and that's just something. When you talk about it, it comes to your mind, but usually you don't talk about it. You try not to remember. And this was the first killings where actual see because They send it back to the Jewish community, and, it was a terrible site, and we knew that we are doomed for something, but, we none of us even could dream what it will happen. And it, of course, it got worse. And everybody lost a son or a father in a few days. And we stayed in their homes. And the way life was there in the cities, black and big cities here, you live in apartments, you know, or you own the apartment, or you rent the apartment, you rent the apartment, And every partner had a custodian, a custodian, where it was not Jewish, and got very frightened, and the way in Europe the apartments are, you have a, a gate high you know, you lock it up at night, and everybody start, giving the custodian money or whatever he wanted just to keep it locked and not to let in the, the Germans of the little onions. And, in the world, little onions and very greedy. They used to take the moneys and whatever it is, and then they used to tell the Germans, and then they used to come, and then they used to take out the people and ship them. And this went on for about two months till August then the rumor was regarding a ghetto. We all know what a ghetto is, but we thought when we'll be in the ghetto, will be a lot safer. We didn't realize that that will keep us in one place. And they can't do what they want, but who even knew about the things? You read the bad ghetto, but the ghetto was four hundred years ago somewhere in Spain, on France, and but whoever knew what it would be. He never looked forward to god in in the ghetto, and we could have taken one, as much as you could carry started doing together. Now, The ghetto was a choose was where the massacre was the first night. It was an area, maybe, two miles, by three miles. And thirty thousand, by the time all of the ten thousand were killed, but thirty thousand people were squeezed in in this area. Because it was no privacy. And, in, in a room, like, twelve by twelve, maybe ten people lived and eat and slept and, and it was, but we thought we are safe, because it was all around, was barbed wire, and we couldn't get out because there were food with, Watchman, not police, but and this was this was elected from Lithuania with guns, and everybody wanted to make a profit of the Jews. Alright. I'll let you out to get some bread by you have to give me, give me the ring, give me your thing, and we did, then we went, then we came back. In between people got killed, but we thought, well, it shouldn't have gone. Till October, Then some big German came and says we're going to make account. And we went out in a very, very big place where the day like the dead was cold. And, he was standing there, one to the right, one to the left, I went with my mother, and my father went with his sister because in the few months, her husband already was killed. So my father felt ill go with her, you know, it will be better. So my father, my aunt, went to the left, and my mother and myself, who went in, to the right. My brother was then with his wife, and my younger brother ran away when the war broke out, a lot of young people. And, and in the beginning, when we realized that the jumps are coming in, a lot of our young kids, sat running away. It was not many places to go, but you ran anyway. You didn't want to stay. And, in no place you could go except for the first two weeks, the ration. Open the border and let anybody in. And we thought our brother went there. But later on, we found out that, that he was caught, and he was shot some synching. This is one of this saddest thing, because when who'd have stayed together, I survived. My brother survived. So maybe he would too, but That's the way it went. And, in this big, action, my father went away, and a lot of the people. Now, at the beginning, when they came in, they took away all the intelligences of our Jewish people. Of course, a lot hide when you run, but their method was when they'll take away the intelligence, intelligence is leadership without leadership. It's a chaos, and if nothing would would do, and that's what it happened. And that was managed to do, to the big action on the, this place. But the community elected some, of the the leadership and it was some doctors or some lawyers, and they were approved by the German authorities there and as in, in, in, it's very hard to judge Of course, it could have been a lot different, more, Jewish learning what it means about life and telling somebody. But when the Germans came in and said, we needed three hundred people and you give us the three hundred people by tomorrow, eight o'clock. If not, we'll come in and ship people, say you had to make the choice. Now, how do you say who who gives you the right to choose who should live and who should die, but they didn't. And of course, because of our leadership, we had some russians. They might have had some different portions than the rest of it because by the time, People start dying of hunger. There was nothing at full. They developed jobs for the people because you can just have, thirty to one thousand people in one place, especially young ones, and not to do And there was a start enlarging the airport. And this was, we had to walk every morning like twelve kilometers, one way, and work eleven hours, then come back, don't think they gave you some little hot water, what they say for soup and a tiny portion of bread. The same, the same thing was in the confederation camp, and And, like a loaf of bread, we had to, cut in fifteen pieces. So, and this was the ration for the whole day. And there was, this was in, I thing in September. They got, and they said they needed five thirty two people. The young ones. That's the young ones. And that someone they have to sort an archive. And in the, the hang up, posters that young people should come and register because it's a new job. Of course, everybody wanted to go. Just to get out and get some food, and, just to get out. And five thirty six young girls, young men, We had to meet on this, gate, like, six thirty, and they went away. Now, I registered also, my two cousins registered. I woke up this morning. And I see it's about seven thirty. I got mad. It's a mom, why didn't you wake me up? We needed, like, I could bring some bread or something. Since a child, you slept so peacefully. I know you, you, you are tired and worn out. I just couldn't wake you up. I my heart didn't let you to wake you up. I was mad. The day went by, the second day went by. They didn't come back. But four days later, we find out So they were taken out to one of the forts. There was, from first world war, was places, and they call it the fort fortifications when you go on the war. And as I used to take the people and ship them, And there were the five hundred. Thirty six, my two cousins, I could have been there. And, they were overshot. Then it turned out why a shipload of sugar had to go through Lithuania for somewhere. And five thirty six sacks of sugar got wet. And somebody had to punish somebody so they took all our kids, and that's what they did. And, the only thing I can say It's a miracle, you know, or a mother's heart, whatever it was that I survived because I would have been with the rest of them. So this is one story. How long were you in the ghetto?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=622.715,1469.875"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e In the ghetto,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1470.335,1470.975"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e we were from the from forty one to forty four.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1470.975,1475.46"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e And what was what was daily life like this?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1476.08,1479.62"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e Misverbal. Well, because of my father, you know, his friends, they developed Indigeto They call it Werkstadt. This was a factory. The Germans used to send in They are, uniforms, coats, blankets, and and they developed a tailor shop or a fixing shop, So if you had a little bit, so we call it protection, like my mother, know somebody in the, leadership. She went to him. She told him, lesson my boy, I don't want him to go out, to die, Caesar to get sitting in the workshop. I got the job there. You know, and I, I saw they did something just not to get out because they're getting out, that would have killed you. And there was something like four or five hundred people worked in it. It was hard to get in, so you had to have a little pool my life. Unfortunately, that's what it was. And, the rest every morning you had to go and work, and, people died every day. It was hundreds of dead people, young, and old. And, the children. God. And, and the hunger And then the younger ones, you have to have about two or three hundred young people run away, went to the partisans. I had the idea, but, they used to shoot them on the spot and send back the bodies in the ghetto. And one ran as they brought him in, and they hung him in front of us because we had to go out and particular place to give us a lesson, and I just couldn't leave my mother. I just couldn't, you know, And then days go by, and I worked in this place. And, and when you are young, you are young. You, you don't think about dying, even the death is all around you, you know, defined. You go. And, and then it was the story that if you are married, they won't take you away because they used to come in, take three hundred here, and two hundred there, and they never seen them. They sent as they came in. They took three fifty people to send them to Estonia. They had a concentration camp my brother, and his young, bride, wording. Well, we knew something, somebody was a policeman, We went right away to him. They got them out, you know, and about the rest, we never seen them again. So life was every day, fear, and fear and dying. And, when we came in the homes, we had our laughter because it was a period after the ten, when they took the ten thousand, it was a period for about two years from, forty one, October till forty three, that it was sort of just little killings, you know, and dying. We, the, the Germans in scenes that we're having an orchestra and all the good people, music, people who used to work for the state, they developed an orchestra, and we used to have concerts, and the Germans used to come and listen to it. And that was the life in the ghetto. Did you have a school that? Yes. We had a school it was illegal, but we had a school, our, leadership and the the rabbi sent it teach us, they seem that the children. I learned a lot in this time myself, and, and, holidays, and, we used to celebrate very quietly And here life goes on, suddenly, and another, the, the fear was put in, in us, at the beginning, like, in the neighbor, in the street when we lived, they came in one day. We had to get out and stand next to the wall lined up, as a two child, a family, young, you know, in front of us. And shoot us. If we don't give the copper because we had to give one day was copper, one day was silver, one day was gold, of course, or, paintings. And that's how they put in the fear because it was unbelievable. Then, one day, and, and this is, this is a nightmare of what because on and on and on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1481.775,1840.595"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e They took a one year old boy, not even a year old, in front of all of","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1843.535,1846.975"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e us. Lift it up and tore it apart.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1846.975,1850.89"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e I can forget my father's guilt,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1856.995,1858.935"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e all the awful things. This is something that haunts you. When my first born was born. I used to hold her, Iraqa. And this every time I used to come in my mind, And it was terrible when I got married, I didn't want her children because all the things that I seen about her children. The dying, they were left alone and swollen from hunger. Find that the little child dying last night because it was no place for it to go. And I, I, I just thought, no, I don't want to choose, but then I got married, a good wife, I called him down. Thank god. I have good children. And, an all incident, For example, I, I, I can stand diamonds. You know, I didn't book my wife a diamond during when we married. That's the proper thing to do in engagement room, because we we are staying there, and we have to give it away. Everything we had. This poor woman couldn't take it off. She might have worked for twenty years. He came over, took her finger in front of us and shut it off a half hand. So how how how how do you look at them? How do you think about it? When did did this who killed his child. He couldn't have been more than nineteen and twenty years old. Little assess, you know, the Hitler Yugent or whatever they were called in. And, and this was the live in Ghetto every day. We, the older one, of course, died out, you know, the, they we had, Jewish policemen, for example, over policemen, under policemen. And the Wednesday came in, and they needed, they needed two hundred people. The policemen had to go from home to home. And get people out because the norm had to be full. When something happened, a policeman who, whoever had to do this, selecting, they couldn't find it, you know, because misery is very ingenious. We all had little hiding places in our homes. We had, for example, made behind, in the kitchen behind, a cabinet in the wall. And we used to crawl in, especially younger ones. We used to crawl in and stayed up till the thing went over because they came in and grabbed you. One time, we were there, at home with a, some of friends. And this place, a lot, there was the three people out that saw with Kengin, and there I am left, and my friend had left. We went in in a little, outside. And, and we he was in our room where to hide. So we went in in this little outdoor where where we kept the firewood and relied down on the floor, and my mother covered us with the firewood. And we stayed there for about maybe eight hours. We were stiff when she came back and take us out. But in between, the action, what they needed, the young people went over. And that's how we survive. And then in nineteen forty four. There was the end of the ghetto, but in between was older little things. And, we were the strip everything, with everything. Now, in our in our data, We were lucky that we got an apartment who has a bathtub. It maybe was three bathtubs for the whole ghetto. We were just lucky, and I remember, it wasn't the bathtub you know, but we had to pump in the water and hit it with wood. And before the war, Our home, my father's home, my mother's home, was always open home. It was an open home because, my father was a learned man. He asked me to sufferabona, but he decided to go the other way, state, he got married and lived a good life. And what the home was it, so we always had people in our home, and especially young ones. And my mother, if she had some found potato pilings. She always made, washed it, put in, other things, and made a kugel. You know, and fed us, or, somebody used to bring some beans used to cook and make some So it's just a question about the bathroom. Of course, she had the sound. I used to have the first bath, but then maybe four or five other guys used to get in in the same water and Western South. That's how it was. And, And, it was a lot of, unhappiness with our Union Rock with the leadership because everybody want, want it to maybe if we want to get out of ghetto, or if they want to send us away, we'll survive. But in a way, they had to give the people. But then it also was that this union right, the people who was in a had the better food, had the better clothing, they had the better apartment, they had families were a lot safer, than the average because they were in the leadership.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=1860.435,2318.07"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e Can you talk about what happened when the ghetto was closed and where you were sent.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=2320.21,2325.435"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. They, in nineteen forty four, at the beginning, they decided to make the ghetto a concentration camp, but but but by the time all the Jews from the little towns in Lithuania where they killed. When we came in in Ghetto in nineteen forty one, We were about thirty six thousand people in nineteen forty no, in getaway waiting in forty one, and they closed the ghetto in forty four by the time it was about twelve hundred Jewish people lived, you know? Few old ones and the rest younger ones. And they send they came in and they start burning. We had to be in a certain place. A lot of people hide in the hiding places, but they dropped hand grenades in it and tore off the homes and, and kill the people. And, And, and by the time when we went out, it was about twelve hundred people left. And they send that in a little concentration camp about, one hundred and ten kilometers from Governor Palamon, and there we stayed for about eight, nine months and we worked, and this was on the fields and, all kinds of work because I guess they had their planes plans how to send us, but it was not the trains. The, the, the, the, the cattle cars didn't come. So we stayed there for about eight months. And by the time, you you really didn't have any more your private processions. You didn't have anything. You became like an animal, and she didn't have a toothbrush, you know. And one morning, we had to get out, take whatever there is, you know, and there was the cars. What I have to tell you is about the nightmare when we had when everybody had to get out of the ghetto to send us away to war, just the old people and the children were left. And we, we came back you didn't find. Somebody had a, an old father or mother or a grandfather, a grandmother, and the children. I took them away and killed them all. That was the kinder actor. Then for four days, they left us alone, it's to cry because The plan was without children, no future. That's what he was. And, he would have walked out of him. And we went from Palamourne in the station, put us in cattle cars, And even there in the cattle cast, when you looked was so crowded. And there you see a young man, you know him. He stays there with his eyes closed, praying to god,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=2326.855,2554.605"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eJeffrey Winter:\u003c/strong\u003e praying to god, and here,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=2556.505,2560.045"},{"id":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997/transcript/87321/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Anolik:\u003c/strong\u003e we know we, we renew them, but we heard about Auschwitz. We were sure regarding them. And he's staying there and praying. What are you praying? You know, a few people jumped out to the little window, the upstairs, on the wall. And, But the last car was the advance of service. And as soon as you used to see some of the jumps of the train, a shit, a signer. So with me. And by the time, it took about three days of four days. Some people died. Some people prayed. Some people left crazy. Some people yelled. And, let's filter. And then we we we are pressure, then we're going farther. And you look after the little barbed wired windows, and say, my god, they don't even know what a war is, look the beautiful land. The green, how perfect everything is, and in Germany. And, and, and then, we're coming in a station. Their Germans dressed up, looking at us and seeing, that we are there, we were yelling, The hems out, wanted some water. I said, look for that, and it looks away. Like, even, even, even, you, you, you fed an animal When you put the dog in a cage, she sees that he has water, you know, and here, they were looking at us. And, and that one, whatever it was, or they were used to it, or they were afraid, maybe they were afraid. There was a few, Lithuania who, saved some children But you give them, you get them anything you had, you know, and lots of, then, then with the thing with gold, some people had a lot ago. And a few people did, but not not one, I know, not one Lithuania did voluntarily. We hadn't made my mom for years. And I remember when she got married, my mom organized the wedding, She used to bring, and then, she had a little farm. She used to bring us some cheese, goat meal, but my mother always give us something. And, Lithuania, and Latvia and Estonia, there was countries where Germany needed people to go around from one getter to the other getter, to kill, and they were selected. They didn't have lots of Germans killing, and that's what it was. It was Lithuania, Latin Polish one, Ukrainian. And in nineteen forty four, we, we, we, we landed in Dachau. And, of course, there was a albright maldas, Lebaneseies, work will make our lives. We I assume we came in, they stripped us, took away everything. Gave us the gray and black uniforms. And live there, you have to get up, like, five o'clock in the morning, go on the place, be counted, get the hot water, and, and start marching. There again, because my father was a nice man, a good man. He had good friends. There was a doctor who had a son attached Stella, you see just, when someone got injured, you brought in there to die, you know? Well, because you know me and my family, And, he took me with him, and I walked there, and I, I like to walk there, I, I had an extra soup or an extra piece of bread, then I could have shared with my brother and a little bit my friend. And my mother and my sister were sent away in another con operation camp. And, with the first day, what it was, I remember that this vivid We think they took away everything, so people start throwing any, anything they had in, in, latrine, you know, and that was an open place. And there's a commandant come, and he noticed that, as somebody told me this to do, he stripped four in front of us, and made them jumping in the slatrine to fish out what people dropped to them. And This was the daily. We worked in Germany in an underground hangar for airplanes. We dig that, we build that, and people die, died, and died. And the marching, that would kill the Muslim people. Because it was below zero. And you march maybe fifteen kilometers. No food. The bodies are so weak. He just died. And, I don't know why I survived. That they survived. And, when I, when the war was over, I found myself in Munich, not far from Munich, in Wilfred's house because they were planning to fall fortification in the Babarian Alps, so they took out the Dachau prisoner and we marched and marched and marched to the Babayan Alps because they will have plenty to fort, fortificate there and still keep on fighting. But in the march and we died. And there, my brother, he, he just couldn't walk anymore. I waited there about sixty eight pounds. And as soon as you stopped, you couldn't walk anymore, you left your side and somebody came and shits you, but I decided it can't walk. I'm not going. I won't survive. I stayed with him. And they took us away in the wood, and it got dark. And they decided to do it in the morning. But in between, we dig grave, you know, that's his end. This night, for another miracle, The Americans came, you know, and we woke up in the morning, and was not one German soldier around us. And then the Americans came, as they seen the skeletons, they cried, recried, you know, and they start giving us food, and the half of us died because our bodies wasn't used to to the American food, all the rich the the breads, but they didn't know either. And We survived, we took us in hospitals. I was in hospital for nine months. Then I learned to walk for another eight months. I got Fish Langko. And, Then I found out I have relatives in America who got in contact with them to join. I didn't know that my mother is alive. My mother, when when when they were alive, they decided to go back to Lithuania because they didn't know we were alive, But if we will be alive, we'll go look for them. So that's why they went to Russia, it wasn't for La Russia. When we survived, was Germany was divided in four German, French, Russian, and, English. My mother was in the Russian zone. I was an American but I was in hospital. My brother went to get my mother and his wife in between the blockade start in Germany. He couldn't get out. And I got stuck there. I decided I'm going to America. And, I've waited about four years for my visa. And then I came to America. I read about America, And I wanted to come to America. At the beginning, I wanted to go to Israel, but I walked in two crashes. And one of the guys told me, we have plenty of the invalids. Yeah. Friends in America go there. So here I'm in America. And I came to the morning because I had here an uncle and a cousin, and I thought the place to belong. And when I came in the morning, there was other survivors, most of in Poland, and poor and young and, and they start making a new life for, for themselves. By the time when I came to America, I did spoke a little bit English, and I try to help and about that I can with my few words to be interpreter. And By the way I felt, Des Moines, just a very cold city not only because of the weather, but the people, and especially our Jewish community. Now, I think about it, I think they didn't know, because, I remember some of us, we couldn't understand them. Why does this so called the woman of the club going around and telling our young woman about birth control What did they know? And everybody lost everybody? Everybody wanted a child. They wanted a name after their father or after their mother. Who are they to tell us how we should live and the, community, to start out their own money we've assigned, thank god everybody paid back by every penny, but the people just didn't know I feel. I love the morning. The morning is my home now. I have I think the best wife available, the best kids the world ever produced. And, finally, I stopped liking myself a little bit because it was a long time I didn't talk about it. Then I started talking about it. I had terrible headaches. I didn't know what happened. I went to doctors. And everybody said something. I went to Mayo Clinic, where I had some, a few sessions with some doctors, and thank god. My head just went away because I felt so guilty all the years why I am alive, and my father, my brother, and all the good people died, But thank god, I feeling a lot better, not a lot better. Thank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://ijhs.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1537/collection_resources/163715/file/297997#t=2560.76,3329.625"}]}]}]}