Zalman Kaplanas

Zalman Kaplanas

Jurbakas, Lithuania
Interviewed in Vilnius in 2005 by Zhanna Litinsksaya

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“I still remember those creeps and the humiliation I felt at that moment, and will remember it till the end of my days.”

By the late 1930s, Europe was contaminated with Fascism. Fascist organizations appeared in Lithuania, even in Jurbarkas and in our lyceum [high school]. On 23rd March 1939 the German army captured the Klaipeda district, the so-called Lithuanian coastland, and Hitler came to Klaipeda for an official visit. It was a big shock for Lithuania, and young Fascist guys in our country felt really emboldened.

There was one event that I will never be able to forget. Two weeks after that, on the 4th of April Joseph [Zalman’s best friend] came to the Lyceum. He and I were the only Jews in our graduation class. There were 18 boys and three girls. I was friends with one of them, a Lithuanian, Elena Taimati. Joseph and I usually sat at the second desk.

On that day it had already been taken by two members of the Fascist [youth] party. They pointed to the last desk and told us to go sit there. Joseph and I kept on standing. When our history teacher came in - a pious Catholic woman - she understood what was going on. She took the register and rushed out of the room.

She came back with the director of the lyceum, Bronis Lesas. He was an elderly man, a Lithuanian nationalist, who during tsarist times had fought for recognition of the written Lithuanian language, which had been banned by Russians since 1864. [Note: Lithuania had been part of the Russian Empire, and in 1863 Tsar Nicholas I began to carry out the policy of Russification throughout his empire, and suppressed many of the subject peoples’ languages].

As a part of that, the written Lithuanian language was banned so Lithuanian children were taught to read at home by their parents. At the end of the 19th century Bronis Lesas was arrested and was sentenced to eight years of prison. He was pardoned in 1904. He then became a member of the leading nationalist party in Lithuania.

That elderly Lithuanian, the nationalist, stood by the first desk, where my friend Elena was sitting, slammed his fist on the table, and cried out that Fascist escapades and Hitler's ideas wouldn't have a place here while he was headmaster. He had those boys leave our desk and told us to sit there. The whole class sat still. Elena was looking at me with her eyes full of tears.

I still remember those creeps and the humiliation I felt at that moment, and will remember it till the end of my days. I regret to say that when the Soviets came in 1940, Bronis Lesas was arrested and was most likely shot for being a Lithuanian nationalist, allegedly, and ironically, as a Fascist sympathizer. I tried to stand up for him. I went to the district committee of the Communist Party and told them about the case when he had stood up for me, but they didn't care...

Zalman Kaplanas fled to the Soviet Union when the Nazis invaded his country in June 1941. His family remained behind and was murdered. He returned and worked as the director of a vocational school.

BULLYING STORIES

Bullying Stories

“It’s something that never leaves you. It’s something you never forget, no matter how long you live.”

STANDING UP STORIES

Standing up Stories

“The priest gave me a Christian name for my false papers. I’ve kept it ever since because he didn’t just give me a name, he gave me a life.”