![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article explores the diary of Shulamit Pilitovski, a young Jewish woman from the small town of Lazdiaji, Lithuania, who studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem between 1936 and 1939. The diary was written in Yiddish and later in Hebrew and dealt with the political, social, and personal affairs of that period. After graduating, she went back home for a family visit on the eve of The Second World War and could not return. She was murdered in the Vilna Ghetto in 1941. The diary, which survived in Jerusalem and had been buried in an archive for decades, is written in beautiful poetic language and in a sincere manner reflecting the events of the time from a uniquely personal viewpoint.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Shulamit Pilitovski, diary, Moreshet Archive, D.2.167. In 2018 the diary had been digitalized and uploaded to the Archive’s website as part of a broad process of digitalization of Moreshet Archive led by me.
2. I would like to thank Sharon Pozner for translating from Yiddish important entries of the diary, and The Holocaust Studies Program at The Western Galilee College, for their generous support in financing translation expenses.
3. Amos Goldberg, Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing during the Holocaust (Beer Sheva: Dvir & Ben Gurion University, 2012), 13.
4. Pilitovski, diary, 1.
5. Irina Paperno, “What Can Be Done with Diaries?” The Russian Review 63 (October, 2004): 561.
6. Interview with Hadassah’s daughter, Shulamit’s niece, Ruth Alpern Ben David, Tivon, June 12, 2008. I approached her following the finding of the diary in the archive. Most details on Shulamit’s whereabouts in her youth and on the Pilitovski family are based on this interview, on original papers found in her home after her death (hence: Ben David Private Collection), on Ruth’s video testimony in USC Shoah Foundation Visual Archive, interview code 45190 (June 17, 1998), and on Ruth’s writings.
7. Ruth Ben David, interview.
8. Interview with Hilla Ben David, daughter of Ruth, Tivon, April 8, 2022. This non-Jewish man would help the family during the Holocaust.
9. On April 1, 1936, she heard about the death of her good friend’s mother and wrote: “We used to still hope that we would be able to bring our parents and to be happy together here.”
10. In Shulamit’s letter to her grandparents from Lithuania to Palestine on January 25, 1940, she wrote: “Bezalel [Alpern, Hadassah’s husband] applied for a visa but did not get it. They told him to wait until Spring. It seems that by Spring the whole world might turn upside down.” Ben David Private Collection.
11. Ruth heard this from her mother’s friend, who survived and came to Israel. This friend is most likely Rivkah Michanovski, whose video testimony is at the USC Shoah Foundation Visual Archive, interview Code 18993 (December 8, 1996); however, in this testimony, she does not mention the Pilitovskis.
12. Hilla Ben David, interview. The man who rescued her was Hadassah’s former lover, who became a medical doctor and smuggled the child to his clinic.
13. See Ruth Alpern Ben David’s Blog http://rutalpern.blogspot.com (created by Yehudit Garin-Kol); also: Ruth Ben David, “A visit to Lithuania 94,” Iton 77 174 (July, 1994): 32–4.
14. Joseph Rosin, “Lazdey (Lazdijai),” English edited by Sarah and Mordechai Kopfstein, in: Jewish Gen Kehila Links Website: https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/lazdijai/ldhist3.html.
15. Dov Levin, Pinkas Hakehillot Lithuania – Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities from Their Foundation till after the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), 351–2.
16. Collective testimony of four survivors of Lazdijai (from Lejb Koniuchowski’s collection), given on April 28, 1946, Yad Vashem Archive, 071/132.
17. Rosin, “Lazdey (Lazdijai),” https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/lazdijai/ldhist3.html.
18. Yakir and Shoshana Pilitovski’s pages of testimony in The Yad Vashem Archive.
19. Anita Shapira, As Every Nation – Israel, 1881–2000 (Jerusalem: Shazar Institute, 2004), 113.
20. Tom Segev, A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben Gurion (Ben Shemen: Keter, 2018), 277.
21. The Real Gymnasia was established in 1915 and was the largest private Hebrew school in Lithuania and flourished between the wars under independent Lithuania. It was closed by the Soviets in 1940, like other similar institutions, including the Tarbut chain of schools which had operated in the main Jewish communities around East Europe.
22. During the British Mandate period there were two large rival sections in the Palestinian society – the radical Husseinies, led by the Mufti Haj Amin, and the more moderate Nashashibis’ opposition.
23. Hadar Ben Yehuda, “On the Land of Love by Leah Goldberg,” in the National Library website (2018), https://blog.nli.org.il/my_beloved_land/.
24. I believe that there is room for a deeper investigation and analysis comparing the early writings of these two women, since I have found many similarities in their language and topics. Such research is beyond the scope of this article.
25. Shulamit’s letter to Moshe Cohen, June 7, 1939, Ben David Private Collection.
26. Ruth Ben David, interview.
27. Shulamit’s postcard, January 25, 1940, Ben David Private Collection.
28. See list of names, http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/kovno/kovno_pages/teachers_application_1921_1941_lcva.htm.
29. Ruth Ben David, interview.
30. Members of the United Partisan Organization (FPO) underground who were active in the Vilna Ghetto escaped to the nearby forests. They joined the partisans in 1943 when it was obvious that the Germans were about to liquidate the ghetto.
31. This information is based on an interview with Hilla Ben David, Tivon, April 8, 2022. I could not confirm it with other sources.
32. Ruth Ben David, interview. Apparently, she heard this from a female friend of Shulamit, who was her roommate in the ghetto and survived. I met with her son, but he could not confirm the details.
33. Shulamit’s page of testimony in the Yad Vashem Archive (also written by Ruth Ben David).
34. Pilitovski, diary, June 29, 1939.
35. Shulamit’s letter, January 25, 1940, Ben David Private Collection.
36. A confirmation letter of Moreshet Archive about receiving the diary, saying that it would be available for the family upon request, June 10, 1963, Ben David Private Collection..
37. Paperno, “What Can Be Done with Diaries?” 563.
38. Paperno, “What Can Be Done with Diaries?” 572.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Daniela Ozacky Stern
Daniela Ozacky Stern is a researcher in the Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University and a lecturer at The Holocaust Studies Program at Western Galilee College, Israel. She was the director of Moreshet Archive. Ozacky Stern earned a PhD in Jewish History at The University of Haifa, studying the Jewish partisans in Lithuania and Belarus during the Holocaust. She earned a master’s degree from The School of History in Tel-Aviv University and her thesis dealt with Nazi propaganda led by Joseph Goebbels. This Thesis was published as a book. Ozacky Stern conducted a post-doctoral research in Yad Vashem and was a USHMM EHRI fellow.