This presentation examines the unique case study of the “Kibbutz in Vilna” (Rikuz Vilna), established between 1939 and 1940 by several hundred young Jewish refugees belonging to the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist-pioneering youth movement.
Letters from the Beginning of the War: The Case Study of the ‘Kibbutz in Vilna’
Fleeing Warsaw and other German-occupied towns following the Nazi invasion, these youths traversed war-torn Poland to reach Vilna, which was briefly under Soviet rule and later Lithuanian administration before the second Soviet occupation.
Despite severe overcrowding, hunger, and appalling living conditions in tenement buildings on Subotz Street, the refugees maintained an active communal life. Emphasizing solidarity under the motto “It is better to starve together than to starve alone,” they organized strict daily routines, educational workshops, and cultural gatherings centered around the Strashun Library. Prominent future resistance figures—including Mordechai Anielewicz, Tosia Altman, and Chaika Grossman—were among this collective, which operated as a surrogate family and a hub of intellectual resilience.
Crucially, the members possessed an extraordinary historical awareness, compiling a massive real-time archive of diaries, testimonies, and extensive correspondence. This documentation captured not only their internal daily struggles and ideological commitments, but also dangerous emissary missions back into Nazi-occupied Poland—undertaken by figures like Tosia Altman and Shmuel Breslaw—to assist stranded comrades. Although leadership in Palestine struggled to fully grasp the realities of the war zone, the Vilna kibbutz archive was successfully preserved and transferred to Israel.
In summary, this case study illuminates a vital, often-overlooked chapter of early wartime refugee history. It highlights how young Jewish idealists defied extreme chaos by prioritizing collective mutual aid, maintaining rigorous cultural structures, and creating an invaluable documentary legacy of resistance and survival.
The lecture was delivered at the scholarly workshop ‘Letters from the Holocaust,’ held at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris from February 24 to 27, 2020.
