Tag #119366 - Interview #90362 (Liza Lukinskaya)

So, we reached Vilnius. Our dear and favorite city bode danger. Fascists and Lithuanian polizei [15] were all over the place. We were told that the polizei were looking for Ilia as he was the secretary of the Komsomol Committee. We decided to leave Vilnius and go home. We were lucky: some cart heading for Kaunas took us. There were 25 people in it. We reached some farmstead in the vicinity of Kaunas and a police patrol stopped us. All the Jews were told to leave the carts. I started explaining that we were poor students on our way home and besought them to let us go. I succeeded in that: we were the only ones whom they let go. I don’t know why, but during the years of occupation I was really lucky when I was about to face death. It was the first time of my luck, and you will be able to see other spells of luck further in my story. We were released and we ran after that very cart and got on it. We were detained in the vicinity of Kaunas. It was horrifying as that time we were stopped by the Fascists and again I talked them into letting me go. Ilia was arrested. I could only shout to him that I would be waiting for him in Kaunas at Aunt Fanya’s place.