Irena Lusky Collection, 1930-1972 | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

Irena Lusky, née Deuel, was born in ca. 1925 in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania in an upper middle-class, well-educated, and assimilated Jewish family. She describes her childhood experience in the well-off family focusing onto the interfamily relations between herself, parents, grandparents, and her sister. Irena Lusky draws a reflective and multifaceted account on the close circle of her family friends, relatives, and associates, in other words, depicts a certain strata of Jewish intelligentsia of interwar Lithuania.

The period of 1940-1941, that is the Soviet annexation of Lithuania, is being reflected through the prism of a young adult comprehension of social and political changes taking place in mundane life as well as of the events jeopardizing the very existence of their family. The latter is related to the arrest, initial stage of deportation, and the release from the transport to Siberia at the last moment. The Deuel family was freed due to the influential intervention of Dr. Finkelstein, an old family friend, who was in high esteem by the new Communist government of Lithuania.

The Deuel family was exposed to the war hardships from its first day—June 22, 1941, when Germany invaded Soviet Union. After a failed flight attempt they had to return to German-occupied Vilnius (Vilna). While en route to Vilnius, they were arrested several times. Although, at that initial stage of German occupation, it was still possible for them to get released from jail either with the help of bribery or simply appealing to “a good German.”

Irena Lusky describes the life in the Vilna ghetto from two perspectives: first and foremost as a young adult experiencing all ghetto hardships and second, to a lesser extent, as a memoir writer of late 1970s. This latter perspective shows us post-Holocaust interpretations together with the author’s personal reckoning. On the whole, this combination of two uncorrelated perspectives culminates in the authentic and independent account with regard to the various sides of ghetto life. Ghetto inhabitants, Judenrat members, resistance activities, German authorities, and numerous existential situations are reflected in the narrative. The reader will find among other such reflections, the author’s insights on Jewish leadership as a whole and specifically on such controversial figure as Jacob Gens, the head of the Judenrat and the Jewish Police Force in the ghetto.  The Wittenberg Affair is also accounted as the author’s first-hand experience.

Being indirectly involved in the FPO (Fareinikte Partizaner Organizatsie—United Partisan Organization) Irena did not join this underground organization. She escaped from the ghetto into the forest to continue partisan struggle. The FPO decided to leave the ghetto before it was liquidated. The Deuel family survived the liquidation of the ghetto only to face the German selection. In September 1943, the remaining ghetto inhabitants were taken outside the city into the place in an opened field called Rossa. The first stage of selection separated male and female family members. Irena would never see again her Father, Dr. Finkelstein, and her boyfriend Gamek Sturman. The next stage of selection resulted in separation of Irena and Tamara from their mother. The Germans directed the daughters to the right, while their mother was sent to the left.  The sisters sensed that “right” meant life and some hope, while the people sent on the left were doomed. Irena remembers how her mother was calmed and pleased by seeing the daughters on the life side. Irena and Tamar Deuel were deported to the Kaiserwald concentration camp near Riga, Latvia.

After ten-week imprisonment in Kaiserwald, Irena and Tamara were transferred to the AEG factory in Riga, a labor camp officially referred as Riga-Strasdenhof camp. They worked and lived in the factory. The conditions there were slightly better than in the Kaiserwald camp. In 1944, with the Soviet Army nearing Riga, the Germans evacuated AEG labor camp to Toruń (Thorn), Poland. Here, another underground factory was to be set up in the former castle. It was designated as “Fort 13.” Official camp-name was Thorn-AEG. Irena Deuel (Lusky) remained in this camp through December 1944. In the end of December 1944, female prisoners of the Thorn-AEG camp were forced-marched to the west, in the direction of Germany. Being badly wearied and ultimately starved the prisoners were compelled to keep moving pace under German command.

Irena Deuel managed to escape from the forced march when the column was passing the city of Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Poland. She ran up to the house door begging for shelter. Only after the long persuasion, a Polish lady let Irena in. After a week of hiding, in January 1945, Irena and others girls of this hide-out were liberated by the entering Soviet Army. Wondering through the streets of Bydgoszcz Irena met her sister Tamara and other girls from the camp. Soon after their group left Bydgoszcz for central Poland heading for Lublin, then a Polish provisional capital. In Lublin Irena learned about the fate of her Mother, Father, Dr. Finkelstein and Gamek. They did not survive: Father was killed in the Klooga concentration camp, Estonia, Mother was gassed in Majdanek concentration camp, and Gamek died of typhus.

It was in Lublin that Irena, Tamara, and a few other Jewish girls joined the Bricha Movement (an organized Jewish illegal immigration movement from East-Central Europe through the allied-occupied zones to the British-Mandate Palestine). On some occasion Irena came into contact with the former Vilna Jewish partisan commander Abba Kovner, who then was in charge of Bricha operations in East-Central Europe. This meeting was to play a decisive role in her future. She made commitment for Palestine, her eventual Jewish home. In total, Irena’s journey to Palestine lasted from March 1945 to January 1946. After a year and a half of wandering through Romania, Hungary, Austria, and Italy, their group finally arrived in to the British-mandate Palestine in January 1946. She, as thousands of other illegal Jewish immigrants at that time, were brought there by the means of another clandestine Jewish movement- Alijah Bet, and under the patronization of the Jewish Brigade. Upon their arrival to Haifa, the British authorities interned all the repatriates from that ship in the Atlit interment camp.

Eventually the Jewish Agency provided the internees with appropriate papers, and they were set free by the British. The first encounter with fellow Jews in a kibbutz came as a downgrading if not a break of Irena’s expectations and envisions for a free and peaceful life in her Jewish state. Irena highly resented the indifference the locals showed to the newcomers in particular and to the fate of European Jewry during the Holocaust in general.

It was not until Irena Deuel met Maikel Levin in the summer of 1946, she began to feel differently about herself and the people around her.  Confidence, sympathy, and hope filled her life. Having met Maikel at the party, she moved to kibbutz Beit Zera, on the bank of the Jordan River, near the Sea of Galilee, to be together with him. Maikel was a real pioneer and a patriot of the Land. His love helped Irena to appreciate the land and people of Israel. She soon married Maikel and for a while the couple continued to live at the kibbutz. Irena did not fit to kibbutz work and although she tried her best, kibbutzniks were not satisfied with her. It was Maikel’s decision to leave kibbutz and settle down in a town.

They settled in Givatayim.  With the help of the friend Maikel found a job, and they rented an apartment. Irena recalls that although they lacked money and the situation in the country worsened with every day, they were happy. She became pregnant and looked with hope to the future. On 14 May 1948, it was declared the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel to be known as The State of Israel. The war for independence had begun. As a Haganah soldier Maikel was called up for service. He was scheduled to arrive to the Recruitment Center on 18 May 1948. He left home in the morning heading first for work and then, after the work-day, to the Recruitment Center. The war between Israeli and Arabs had already started: Jerusalem was under siege, local skirmishes erupted in many places. On that day—18 May 1948, Maikel Levin was killed by explosion on the Central Bus Station. Irena remained unaware of his fate until the next morning. She was then eight-months pregnant.

In a month, Irena gave birth to a girl. Irena was going through an extremely hard time, she suffered mentally and physically. “As she recalls: I was hardly alive, little I comprehended what was going around me.” She could not even take care of her daughter Michal. Eventually time cured her wounds; she remarried to Shimon Lusky, and gave birth to another child--a son. In 1970s, she was living in Israel. Her past was always with her. She took up this writing with the intention of separating herself from this burden, and to place her personal vision, recollections, and reflections in a truthful and intimate account of her time.