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From the Israel Kaplan collection:
Berta Salzberg - Smulovic - Gorodecki: her testimony about her experiences during the war and about Seda, Lithuania. July 26, 1970, two pages, Yiddish, in Kaplan’s handwriting.

On June 22, 1941, the day the war broke out between Germany and the USSR, B. and her husband were in Kaunas (Kovno). Their young sons Smuel and Gideon remained in their home in Seda with [B.]’s 19 - year - old sister. The parents tried to return to Seda but were caught by the Germans and made to return to Kovno. They paid a Lithuanian to take them to Seda and bring them their children and the children’s aunt, but he returned empty-handed and told them that all the Jews had been taken to Mazeikiai.

B. was released from the Leibitsch camp on Jan. 23, 1945, and returned to Seda where she met up with an acquaintance, a teacher [m.] named Jonas Ivanauskas. He told her that during the war he met B.’s sister in Mazeikiai and warned her about the massacre that was about to take place. He told her that he could hide her with relatives or in the forest. When she asked what would become of the children, Ivanauskas explained that he couldn’t take care of them in the hideout also. B.’s sister refused to part from her nephews, and their fate was as that of the Jews from the towns of Mazeikiai, Seda, Tirksliai, and Barstyciai. They were shot in pits near Mazeikiai.

B. went on from Seda to Nemaksciai, where she met two Jewish young women who during the war had been hidden by the priest. An acquaintance [m.] told her that the men were murdered near the railway station and the women some six weeks later. Close