(Author: David Saks, Vol. 69, No. 1, Pesach 2014)
Nathan Marcus, father of future South African Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus and a devoted communist, once had a fierce argument with Mordechai Perlov, a survivor of a Soviet forced labour camp. According to Perlov, when he described himself as a victim of communism, Marcus responded angrily, “You little bastard! If it wasn’t for communism, you wouldn’t be here today!” Perlov no doubt would have pointed out that his mother and father were no longer there. Along with countless others, they had not survived the inhumane conditions which they were forced to endure following their deportation from their Lithuanian homeland.
In one respect, Marcus was probably correct. Had the Perlov family not been deported during the brief period following the outbreak of World War II when Lithuania was under Soviet rule, the likelihood is that few if any of its members would have survived once the Nazis took over. In the second half of 1941, an estimated 85% of the Jews of Lithuania were massacred by the occupying German forces and their Lithuanian collaborators; of the 40 000 or so who remained, four out of five suffered the same fate in the years that followed. For all the cruel hardships they endured, Mordechai Perlov and his brother and sister were at least still alive when the war was over, as were a fair number of other Jewish exiles who had shared their captivity. Such hindsight, however, does not lessen to even the slightest degree the culpability of the Soviet regime in deporting and enslaving them in the first place. Nathan Marcus’ reaction to Perlov’s comment only reveals how much he, along with so many other fellow communists, remained in denial about the true nature of the Soviet Union during the Stalin years, and indeed thereafter.
On 10 July 1941, the occupying Soviet forces began rounding up tens of thousands of Lithuanians for deportation. These supposed ‘enemies of the state’ included intellectuals, businessmen, teachers, Lithuanian nationalists and former state officials. Their ‘re-education’ was to take the form of working as slave labourers for the Soviet empire, which was looking to develop the vast, under-populated regions of northern and eastern Russia. Wealthy non-Jewish Lithuanians were also arrested, and in general antisemitism does not seem to have been a factor in deciding who should be deported. Lithuanian antisemites in fact alleged that the deportations were an act of Jewish revenge carried out by ‘Jewish’ security officers in charge of the deportations.1Entire families rather than just individuals were deported. Each family was allowed one hour to pack belongings not exceeding 100 kilograms and sufficient food for a month’s journey. What they could not take with them was confiscated and their homes ransacked. They were then loaded onto cattle trucks and transported to labour camps in areas so remote and inhospitable as to make escape all but impossible.
Amongst the many Jews deported were Leibe and Malka Perlov and their three children, Mordechai, 15, Yaakov, 11, and Tova, 7. Leibe’s brother Lazer, his wife Rosa and two of their children, Matla and Bertha, were likewise seized (a third child, Luta, was considered to be ‘psychologically unfit’ for deportation, the result of his being recently tortured, interrogated and imprisoned for five months as a suspected subversive).
Leibe and Malka Perlov, with their two younger children Yaakov and Tova.
The Perlovs had been a wealthy family. Leibe and Lazer were partners in a thriving timber and flour milling business in Raseiniai (Yiddish: ‘Rasein’), a medium-sized town located mid-way between the larger urban centres of Kaunas/Kovno and Siauliae/Shavli. The business employed some 100 workers, and it was generally believed that one or more of these, to settle personal grievances, were responsible for denouncing the Perlovs as ‘capitalist exploiters’.
Raseiniai was one of the oldest towns in Lithuania, and Jews had lived since the 13th Century. In 1897, Jews constituted as much as 90% of the population. These numbers declined sharply over the next four decades, but on the eve of World War II, there were still 2000 living there, making up around 40% of the total. On 23 June 1941, a mere nine days after the commencement of the Soviet deportations, the invading German forces captured the town. Over the next two months, virtually all its Jewish residents had been annihilated by the Einsatzgruppen and their Lithuanian supporters.
The prisoners were under the impression that they were being sent to ‘Siberia’, the all-purposes term for a place of punishment and exile. In reality, their destination was the Komi Republic, a vast, barely populated area west of the Ural Mountains and lying partially within the Arctic Circle. There was no incentive for people to migrate to the area, where winter temperatures ranged from just below zero to as low as minus 50C for six months each year, where 85% of the land was covered by forests and swamps and which had virtually no infrastructure or amenities. During the preceding decade, as part of Stalin’s ruthless drive to modernise Russia and exploit and develop its natural resources, tens of thousands of prisoners had already been sent to Komi under the pretence of ‘re-educating’ supposed enemies of the state. It is estimated that around a million people were ultimately forced to work there, in mines, oilfields and other development projects, during the Soviet era.
Leibe and Lazer Perlov and their families, comprising nine individuals in total, ultimately ended up in the dreary settlement-cum-labour camp of Ust-Lokchim, about a day’s journey by barge up the Vychegda River from the Komian capital Syktyvkar further south. The two families were assigned to a single room in a four-room barracks; their first job was to erect two wide communal beds out of planks and straw mattresses. In the centre of the room was a stove with a plate for keeping food warm. In the room opposite were the Ziv brothers and their families, including Mordechai’s childhood friend, Yitzchak.
There was an ethnic mix in the camp, including around 50 Jewish families. Those over the age of fifteen were immediately put to work, cutting down trees and dispatching rafts of logs down the river to the ports of Kotlas and Syktyvkar. Mordechai, although not quite fifteen, was amongst them. His brother Yaakov, eleven when he arrived at the camp, went to work as soon as he was able to so as to receive the extra 200 grams of bread each day. Each worker received 600 grams of bread per day, plus three allocations of thin cabbage soup on arising, at midday and in the evenings. The average work day began at around 4am. After a twelve or thirteen hour day of exhausting labour, in the summer months amidst clouds of mosquitos and in sub-zero temperatures in winter, people queued for their bread (which was invariably eaten on the spot lest it be stolen), and went immediately to sleep.
The Perlovs had been a wealthy family. Leibe and Lazer were partners in a thriving timber and flour milling business in Raseiniai (Yiddish: ‘Rasein’), a medium-sized town located mid-way between the larger urban centres of Kaunas/Kovno and Siauliae/Shavli. The business employed some 100 workers, and it was generally believed that one or more of these, to settle personal grievances, were responsible for denouncing the Perlovs as ‘capitalist exploiters’.
Raseiniai was one of the oldest towns in Lithuania, and Jews had lived since the 13thCentury. In 1897, Jews constituted as much as 90% of the population. These numbers declined sharply over the next four decades, but on the eve of World War II, there were still 2000 living there, making up around 40% of the total. On 23 June 1941, a mere nine days after the commencement of the Soviet deportations, the invading German forces captured the town. Over the next two months, virtually all its Jewish residents had been annihilated by the Einsatzgruppen and their Lithuanian supporters.
The prisoners were under the impression that they were being sent to ‘Siberia’, the all-purposes term for a place of punishment and exile. In reality, their destination was the Komi Republic, a vast, barely populated area west of the Ural Mountains and lying partially within the Arctic Circle. There was no incentive for people to migrate to the area, where winter temperatures ranged from just below zero to as low as minus 50C for six months each year, where 85% of the land was covered by forests and swamps and which had virtually no infrastructure or amenities. During the preceding decade, as part of Stalin’s ruthless drive to modernise Russia and exploit and develop its natural resources, tens of thousands of prisoners had already been sent to Komi under the pretence of ‘re-educating’ supposed enemies of the state. It is estimated that around a million people were ultimately forced to work there, in mines, oilfields and other development projects, during the Soviet era.
Leibe and Lazer Perlov and their families, comprising nine individuals in total, ultimately ended up in the dreary settlement-cum-labour camp of Ust-Lokchim, about a day’s journey by barge up the Vychegda River from the Komian capital Syktyvkar further south. The two families were assigned to a single room in a four-room barracks; their first job was to erect two wide communal beds out of planks and straw mattresses. In the centre of the room was a stove with a plate for keeping food warm. In the room opposite were the Ziv brothers and their families, including Mordechai’s childhood friend, Yitzchak.
There was an ethnic mix in the camp, including around 50 Jewish families. Those over the age of fifteen were immediately put to work, cutting down trees and dispatching rafts of logs down the river to the ports of Kotlas and Syktyvkar. Mordechai, although not quite fifteen, was amongst them. His brother Yaakov, eleven when he arrived at the camp, went to work as soon as he was able to so as to receive the extra 200 grams of bread each day. Each worker received 600 grams of bread per day, plus three allocations of thin cabbage soup on arising, at midday and in the evenings. The average work day began at around 4am. After a twelve or thirteen hour day of exhausting labour, in the summer months amidst clouds of mosquitos and in sub-zero temperatures in winter, people queued for their bread (which was invariably eaten on the spot lest it be stolen), and went immediately to sleep.
Floating logs down the river in the Komi Republic (from memoirs of Moshe David Chayat, Israel, 2004)
Within a month or two, elderly people in particular began dying, both from the cruel work regime and from sickness and malnutrition. There was no medical attention available, and few of the deportees – who back in Lithuania, they had been clerks, housewives, shopkeepers and the like – had any experience of physical labour. Lazer Perlov, Mordechai’s uncle, was amongst those who died at an early stage. The death toll escalated as the war progressed and shortages led to rations being progressively cut.
With the coming of winter, Mordechai and others were sent further into the forest to work. It took them five days to reach the barracks, where men, women and children slept. It took another four hours of walking each day to reach their place of work. Each person was provided with a saw and axe. Some cut down trees, working in pairs, while others worked with horses and sledge to pull the felled logs to the riverside. In the spring, these would be floated down the river, to be tied together by special machines and then rafted down to the main ports.
Escape from the logging camp was constantly on people’s minds, but very few attempted it. It would mean a five-day walk through deep snow, without adequate clothing and with no more food than could be somehow saved from their small daily ration. One day, Mordechai awoke with a strong premonition of disaster. That night he and Yaakov, who had since joined him in the camp, made their escape. They were accompanied by two non-Jewish Polish friends, Arthur Pilsudki and one Pakalchuk. They were known to the Perlovs as their families had owned land near Rasein. Arthur’s father was a cousin of the renowned Marshall Jozeph Pilsudski, former Prime Minister of Poland and a renowned fighter for Polish independence.
Walking day and night, the four managed to reach Ust’Lokchim. It was night-time when they arrived. Mordechai and Yaakov tentatively entered the room where their families were still living, but there was no father or mother to greet them. They had died that same day, of illness and slow starvation, Leiba first and Malka a few hours later. Between them on the bed lay their daughter, Tova. Before she died, her mother had taken her in her arms, held her close and murmured, “I’m sorry for you, my dearest child, to leave you alone at such a tender age”.2 It took Mordechai and Yaakov nearly three days to hack a double grave out of the frozen ground.
Around this time, Mordechai received a letter from his friend Yitzchak Ziv, who earlier on had succeeded in escaping from Ustlokchim to Syktyvkar and now urged Mordechai to try to join him. Mordechai, along with Pilsudski and Pakalchuk, decided to risk it, even though it meant another harrowing journey without food or shelter and the ever-present danger of being caught. His Aunt Rosa angrily opposed his plans, believing he would never survive the journey and afraid that his escape would endanger the family members left behind. She did not betray him to the authorities, however, although he had feared that she might.
Yaakov Perlov was by then working in a distant forest. When he eventually returned, it was to find that both Mordechai and Tova were gone. It was only in 1991, during a visit to Israel, that he saw them again. Yaakov remained in Ust’Lokchim, initially living with his Aunt Rosa and cousins Matla and Bertha until they likewise moved to Syktyvkar and left him quite alone. He then met Maria, a Komi native likewise far from home, and they married and started a large family. In addition to working, they were able to grow vegetables for themselves, and while desperately poor at least did not go hungry.
Mordechai and his companions, sheltering in barns when too exhausted to continue and cadging or stealing food whenever they could, reached Syktyvar after two days and nights. Being so small and under-nourished, they looked much younger than they were, and those they encountered assumed they were children from one of the other settlements rather than runaways. This was some time in 1944, three years since they had first passed through the town en route to Ust’Lokchim.
For Mordechai, while many hardships and dangers still lay ahead, the worst of his experiences lay behind him. He and his two companions were now taken in by two Jewish families, who had managed to keep out of the labour camps and establish a reasonably secure life for themselves in Syktyvar. They were able to register for food rations, and because they could pass as children did not need to produce identification documents. It was now learned that the Soviet Union and Poland had concluded an agreement to repatriate imprisoned Poles. Before going to the Polish Consulate, Arthur Pilsudski and Pakalchuk gave Mordechai and Yitzchak Ziv a crash course in basic Polish to enable them to pass as Poles. To this end, they identified as their supposed place of origin the city of Grodno, now part of Poland but formerly part of Lithuania and where people spoke with Lithuanian accents. It would not be necessary to hide the fact that they were Jewish. The four boys also began a train stoker’s course at a Russian trade school.
When it finally took place, the interview with the Consulate went better than any of them had hoped. Once it was learned that Arthur was related to the famed Marshall Jozeph Pilsudski, he and his companions were accorded every kindness. They left the stoker’s course and moved into the Consulate, where they worked as clerks and were provided with clothing, food and accommodation. Their job was to organise clothing, food and other material aid for Polish citizens seeking repatriation. They were also able to make a good living by selling small quantities of food on the black market. Through this, Mordechai was able to hire a man with a motorised boat to bring his siblings, aunt and cousins in Ust’Lokchim to Syktyvar. His Aunt Rosa, however, decided to remain where she was, unwilling to take the considerable risks that she, as an adult, would face. Yaakov could not come either, as he was again working deep in the forest. In the end, only Tova was returned on the boat, but her reunion with Mordechai after more than three years was short-lived. Things at the Consulate were winding down, and Mordechai and his friends were scheduled to be relocated to the Ukraine in just two days. Mordechai made the painful decision to place his sister in the local orphanage for Polish children, promising to find her again after the war was over. Shortly afterwards he, Yitzhak, Arthur Pilsudski and Pakalchuk were taken from Sykytvar to a sugar beet Sovchoz (government farm) between Kursk and Voronezh.
The first months in the orphanage were a traumatic time for Tova; living conditions were harsh, and she was unkindly treated by the other children and caregivers. Unable to speak Polish and afraid to reveal herself as being Lithuanian, she stopped speaking altogether. Later, she and the other orphans were transferred to Kursk in the Ukraine, where life was a little easier. They remained there until the end of the war, and then were moved to Lodz, Poland.
On the Sovchoz, Mordechai and his companions enjoyed a period of relative tranquillity. The work was not arduous and they were kindly treated by the other residents. At last, they were not thinking of food all the time and, as Yitzchak put it, ‘for the first time in years began to live again’. After about four months, they were transferred to a sugar factory about twenty miles away. Sugar being so rare, it sold well on the black market, and the boys, as did virtually all their fellow workers, took advantage of this. On weekends, they would walk to the farm to visit their friends. In March 1946, after eighteen months in the Ukraine and long after the conclusion of the war in Europe, they were finally ‘repatriated’, arriving in Lodz with other Polish exiles. Their arrival preceded that of Tova by a month or two. On learning of the orphanage’s whereabouts Mordechai, together with Yitzchak and a Raseiniai landsleit called Abke, stole into the building one night and spirited her away.
There was no thought of returning to Lithuania. With the near total annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry, there was nothing to return to. In any case, going back was not safe. A sister of Yitzchak Ziv who tried to return to Raseiniai was deported back to Komi.
Mordechai, with Yitzchak had by then joined a temporary kibbutz established by Zionist groups working to bring Jewish survivors to Palestine. In due course, they were taken from there to Hochland, a small settlement near Munich that ironically had been built for the Hitler Youth but was now a Jewish youth camp under the administration of mainly Palestinian Jews charged with preparing the inmates to make aliyah. There, Mordechai in due course was appointed as a madrich and became proficient in Hebrew, which he taught to young children who could only speak Russian or Polish. Tova was able to go to Palestine during this time, but the ship on which Mordechai was trying to arrive illegally was intercepted by the British, and its passengers interned on Cyprus for a lengthy period.
Yitzchak Ziv (left), Tova and Mordecai, Germany, 1946.
ikva and was severely wounded in the knee. On his recovery, he served in the elite Givati unit until the end of the war. Availing himself of the opportunity of studying provided to ex-servicemen, he successfully completed a course in engineering at Haifa University, but in the end did not remain in Israel. In 1953 Meishel Zwi, the elder brother of Malka Perlov, brought him out to Johannesburg to attend the wedding of his son Saul. Mordechai, who spoke no English, initially decided against taking up his offer to remain, but following an unhappy return visit to Israel, decided to move to South Africa permanently. There, at least, he had some family; he was treated like a fourth son by Meishel and his wife, Toby, and his three cousins, Wolf, Charles and Saul, were like brothers to him.
In his thirties, Mordechai married Millie Faivish, who was a bookkeeper at Crystal Bakeries where he was then working. They had three children, Ari, Roni and Carmella, and five grandchildren. Mordechai had a successful business career, eventually running the sock production and distribution department of the textile company Safnit Mills. At one time, this was the largest sock producer in the country. Now retired, and still in excellent health as he approaches his 90th birthday, he lives with Millie in Melrose, Johannesburg.
Tova remained in Israel, where she qualified as a nurse. She married Yossi Keret, whom she had met on a kibbutz, and they had a son and a daughter. She maintained contact with Yaakov throughout the nearly fifty years in which they were separated. Now widowed, she lives in Kiryat Bialik. Her son and daughter, respectively an IT specialist and a banker, have likewise remained in Israel.
In 1996, a year after his wife, Maria’s death, Yaakov Perlov and seven of his ten children made aliyah. Yaakov’s more than twenty grandchildren have since integrated well into Israel society, and several have converted to Judaism and married Jewish Israelis. Yaakov died in October 2008 and was buried in Ashkelon. Despite the tragedy of his early years and subsequent life of poverty and hard labour, he was not embittered by his experiences. His had been a hard life, he would say, but it had been a good one; if his family had been very poor, they at least never had to go hungry.3
Mordechai’s cousin Bertha immigrated to Israel around the same time as Yaakov. She had been married, unhappily, to a Russian carpenter, with whom she had three children, Tanya, Grisha and Olga. Grisha and his family immigrated with her; her daughters remained in Syktyvkar. Now living in Hadera, she celebrated her 90th birthday in 2014.
In addition to the interviews conducted with Mordechai Perlov himself, this account of his life and that of his family has drawn heavily on Once Were Slaves: A Journey through the Circles of Hell by the South African-born author and novelist Rose Zwi. Published in 2010, this weaves the recollec and Tova Perlov, as well as of those like Yitzchak Ziv who largely shared their experiences, into the broader historical narrative of the Soviet labour camps, World War II and the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel. Rose was married to Mordechai’s cousin and close friend, Wolf, who died in Sydney in May 2013. It is fitting to end this article with her book’s concluding lines, which stress not just the tragedy of the story that had been related, but also the quiet heroism, self-sacrifice and essential decency displayed throughout by its young protagonists:
Since I started researching and writing this book, the siblings have learned a great deal about one another’s ‘lost lives’ in exile. As I write, new questions arise, some of which are answered differently by Tova and by Mordechai. Because of the inscrutable working of memory, some aspects of their separate experiences are remembered differently, or not at all.4 Some memories have been too painful to dredge up, others have faded with time. That too is part of their story. What shines through those years of suffering is the indomitable human spirit that overcame almost insuperable odds.5
Yaakov, Tova and Mordechai Perlov, Israel, 2006
NOTES
- http://www.holocaustrevealed.org/_domain/holocaustrevealed.org/lithuania/lithuanian_history.htm
- Zwi, Rose, Once Were Slaves – A Journey through the Circles of Hell, Sydney Jewish Museum, 2010, p56.
- Ibid., p188.
- Mordechai, for example, cannot recall rescuing Tova from the orphanage in Lodz; Tova remembers it well.
- Zwi, Once Were Slaves, p202
