Who Will Remain? What Will Remain?

Pearl “Lucy” Gorman was born in Vilna, Poland (Lithuania), in 1920. Her father died when Lucy was a child, but she had a wise and strong mother to guide her on her life’s journey. And she was quite lucky that the Soviets were the ones who occupied her city in September of 1939 and not the Nazis, because she was thus able to attend Vilna University for almost two years.

Unfortunately in June of 1941, the Germans occupied Vilna, and everything changed. Lucy, her mother, and her sister were forced into the Vilna Ghetto. In the same ghetto her husband-to-be, Motl Szames (Morton Shames), was one of the commanders of the famous resistance group, the United Partisan Organization (UPO).

Both managed to survive the war through a combination of fortitude, skill, and most of all, sheer luck. They were among the less than 10% of Lithuanian Jews to do so.

Their saga tells a compelling story of resistance and resilience in the face of incredible odds, and highlights the surprising way in which education and language skills can sometimes become survival skills.

Contents

Prologue “The Partisan Hymn”...................................i

One Here I Am...................................................1

Two My Parents..................................................2

Three Summer in NowogrodeÅLk.............................8

Four My Sister, Nadia.......................................12

Five My Brother, Abe.......................................13

Six Gymnasium.............................................18

Seven A Mother’s Wisdom..................................26

Eight First Love..................................................31

Nine Graduation...............................................35

Ten Commercial School...................................39

Eleven The Anulka Hotel.....................................41

Twelve Vilna University........................................48

Thirteen My FianceÅL.................................................51

Fourteen June 22, 1941, War Begins........................55

Fifteen The Vilna Ghettos.....................................58

Sixteen Outside the Ghetto ..................................64

Seventeen A Better Place...........................................68

Eighteen HKP.........................................................70

Nineteen The UPO..................................................74

Twenty The Underground Press.............................76

Twenty-One August 1943, Subačiaus St........................77

Twenty-Two March 27, 1944, KinderAktion................81

Twenty-Three July 3, 1944, Liquidation of HKP.............84

Twenty-Four Escape from HKP.....................................87

Twenty-Five Liberation.................................................90

Twenty-Six Motl’s Account..........................................92

Twenty-Seven After Liberation......................................114

Twenty-Eight An Engagement......................................118

Twenty-Nine The Wedding..........................................122

Thirty My Father-in-Law...................................124

Thirty-One Back to the University.............................126

Thirty-Two The Master’s Thesis.................................128

Thirty-Three Teaching.................................................131

Thirty-Four Editing....................................................133

Thirty-Five Another Dictator....................................135

Thirty-Six Repatriation............................................138

Thirty-Seven The US...................................................142

Thirty-Eight CCNY....................................................146

Thirty-Nine Witnessing..............................................148

Epilogue We Are Here! .........................................152

Appendix ..........................................................................155

Timeline ...........................................................................159

Works Cited .....................................................................163

Endnotes ..........................................................................165

Photographs .....................................................................213

Maps ................................................................................229

My Father, Moshe Gorman

For as long as I could remember, my father had always looked sickly to me. When I grew up, I found out why. As it turned out, my father died from cancer of the liver. According to my mother, he had been ill for almost ten years. In the early 1920s doctors did not know too much about this illness and did not properly diagnose it. They kept telling him that he had a nervous stomach and that this was the cause of his pain. In 1926, a year before he died, my mother found out what it was but refused to tell anybody other than the adults in the immediate family. We children only knew that Papa was very sick.

I wish I knew more about my father’s side of the family, the Gormans. However, whatever pictures we had of his family were all lost during the war. I know that my father had several brothers. One was named Baruch who died about the time his daughter, Rose (my first cousin, who now lives in the US), was born. An older brother died in Vilna while we were still there. He had a younger brother whom I visited in Israel in 1966. He also had two sisters, one died before I was born, and the other I know very well. In the 1930s this sister and her husband moved to Palestine. Their only son, Avremke (Abraham) Avni, was one of the pioneers who had left for Palestine earlier and became one of the founders of the Kibbutz Kfar Menachem.2 I visited him when I was in Israel in 1966. It was from him that I got the few family pictures I now possess. They are my biggest treasure. I loved this cousin like a brother, and since his death in 1971, I have become very close with his two sons. One of them, Ran Avni, is the founder of the Jewish Repertory Theatre (JRT) in 3

New York City.

Pearl “Lucy” Gorman was born in Vilna, Poland (Lithuania), in 1920. Her father died when Lucy was a child, but she had a wise and strong mother to guide her on her life’s journey. And she was quite lucky that the Soviets were the ones who occupied her city in September of 1939 and not the Nazis, because she was thus able to attend Vilna University for almost two years.

Unfortunately in June of 1941, the Germans occupied Vilna, and everything changed. Lucy, her mother, and her sister were forced into the Vilna Ghetto. In the same ghetto her husband-to-be, Motl Szames (Morton Shames), was one of the commanders of the famous resistance group, the United Partisan Organization (UPO).

Both managed to survive the war through a combination of fortitude, skill, and most of all, sheer luck. They were among the less than 10% of Lithuanian Jews to do so.

Their saga tells a compelling story of resistance and resilience in the face of incredible odds, and highlights the surprising way in which education and language skills can sometimes become survival skills.