The clandestine history of the Kovno Jewish ghetto police

"As a force that had to serve two masters, both the Jewish population of the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania and its German occupiers, the Kovno Jewish ghetto police walked a fine line between helping Jews survive and meeting Nazi orders. In 1942 and 1943 some of its members secretly composed this history and buried it in tin boxes. The book offers a rare glimpse into the complex situation faced by the ghetto leadership and the Jewish policemen, caught between carrying out the demands of the Germans and mollifying the anger and frustration of their own people. It details the creation and organization of the ghetto, the violent German attacks on the population in the summer of 1941, the periodic selections of Jews to be deported and killed, the labor required of the surviving Jewish population, and the efforts of the police to provide a semblance of stability. The secret history tells a dramatic and complicated story, defending the actions of the police force on one page and berating its leadership on the next. A substantial introduction by distinguished historian Samuel D. Kassow places this powerful work within the context of the history of the Kovno Jewish community and its experience and fate at the hands of the Nazis"--Provided by the publisher. ; An English translation of a Yiddish manuscript written by an anonymous Jewish policeman or policemen in the wartime ghetto of Kovno. Focuses on the history of the ghetto police and, to a lesser extent, the Jewish Council in Kovno, their composition and functions, their relations with German and Lithuanian ghetto guards, and their transformation in 1941-43. Highlights also the history of the ghetto, established in the suburb of Vilijampolė (Slobodka). Dwells on the murderous Nazi actions, especially the "great action" of October 1941 when, according to the manuscript, ca. 10,000 Jews were killed, forced labor within the ghetto and in labor camps, and deportations from the ghetto. Pp. 1-59 contain a historical introduction by Kassow, "Inside the Kovno Ghetto", describing the events of 1941-44, from the pogroms of June 1941 to the final deportation in July 1944. Assesses the role of the Jewish ghetto police as ambivalent: although they participated in the main Nazi "resettlement" of the populace and murder actions in the ghetto, they also let 250 ghetto inmates escape to the forests and join anti-Nazi partisans. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)