From the Israel Kaplan collection:
A. Kirkel* of Siauliai, Lithuania: his testimony about an Aktion against the children of an orphanage. The testimony was taken in the Feldafing DP camp in December 1946. Six pages (with an additional copy of the first page), typewritten, in Yiddish.
On Sept. 6, 1941, Kirkel was standing at the entrance to his shop (which had already been expropriated from his ownership) and saw a truck with three policemen riding in the direction of the orphanage. Kirkel ...
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From the Israel Kaplan collection: A. Kirkel* of Siauliai, Lithuania: his testimony about an Aktion against the children of an orphanage. The testimony was taken in the Feldafing DP camp in December 1946. Six pages (with an additional copy of the first page), typewritten, in Yiddish.
On Sept. 6, 1941, Kirkel was standing at the entrance to his shop (which had already been expropriated from his ownership) and saw a truck with three policemen riding in the direction of the orphanage. Kirkel closed his shop and ran to the orphanage. The policemen went inside and ordered the staff to take the children outside, while rejecting the staff’s request to provide the children with food and water, as “everything they’d need is at the place they’re going.” The 43** children (the youngest age three) walked in a row to the truck in the pouring rain. With them went [Avraham] Kac and [Zenia] Karpel, from the orphanage staff. Kirkel hurried to the Judenrat, [Aharon] Kac, [B.] Kartun, and [Mendel] Leibovicz, and told them about the Aktion. They turned to Stankus,*** but he was drunk and claimed that he knew nothing about what they said. After half an hour the truck returned empty from the direction of [the] Kuziai [forest]. That night 60 murderers returned to the city and plundered the victims’ property.
* Thus in Kaplan's handwriting; printed at the bottom of the testimony: A. Kurkel. ** According to another testimony there were 45 children in this orphanage. *** Evidently a Lithuanian in a position of authority. Close
