On one cold winter Saturday, on a mission to obtain weapons, Zelda put on her peasant fur jacket and lowered her headscarf over her eyes. In her basket were coded letters for the underground in the city. She walked directly on the road to town, passing guards with her head held high. By the time she arrived, it was late, and she had to spend the night with a Christian woman she knew. One of the neighbors tried to blackmail her, but Zelda pushed her away. While Zelda and the Christian friend were talking—a knock on the door. Her heart pounded.
In walked a Lithuanian police officer and a German soldier. They demanded her ID; she showed them her fake documents. But still they were suspicious and began to search Zelda’s clothes. They found a note from the ghetto. “You’re a Jew!” the Nazi yelled, slapping her. “We’re taking you to the Gestapo.”
Zelda bolted into the next room, jumped out the window, tumbled down a hill, and started to run in the dark. She bumped into a fence, dogs began barking, gunshots were fired from behind her. The Nazi caught her arms, held her down. “Why did you escape?”
“Please, just kill me,” Zelda insisted. “Don’t take me for torture.”
The Lithuanian officer whispered, “You can stay alive for gold.”
Zelda saw her chance. She invited them back to her host’s apartment for a drink. “I’ll give you something now and get the rest from the Jews later,” she promised. The officers held her arms and walked her back. Her friend and her children were hysterical. “Is this your payment?” the friend asked Zelda angrily. “Look at these children who will now become orphans.”
Zelda concealed her terror and consoled her friend, told her to set the table, and offer the men a drink. The Nazi drank, tried to calm down the children himself, and told Zelda of his deep love for a Jewish woman. “I don’t want the Jews to die,” he slurred, drunk. “But an order is an order, and I need to take you in.” His duty time was nearing, and his temper was short. He called Zelda outside. “Give me your money and run away.”
“I don’t have a penny,” Zelda pleaded. “Tomorrow, I promise, I’ll get it.”
The Lithuanian seemed to believe her—he told the Nazi that he’d deliver it to him tomorrow. The Nazi left. The Lithuanian guard grabbed Zelda by the arm and took her home with him. What else could she do but go along?
As they entered his house, however, the landlord began yelling, telling him not to bring girls home. He picked up an ax and directed it at the cop’s head. Chaos. A riot. And so Zelda slipped out, hiding in the pitch-black garden while the officer searched for her, waiting for him to finally give up.
Then she went on with her mission.
*
The Soviet partisans aimed to destroy a German stronghold city, and though they had the weapons, they did not have the intelligence. They approached Abba Kovner and asked “to borrow a few Jewish girls.” Abba turned the tables, saying this should be a Jewish mission, and the Russians should give them the weapons. On Erev Yom Kippur, two boys and two girls left the Jewish camp dressed as peasants. One of the girls—Vitka—carried a battered farmer’s suitcase. Inside: magnetic mines and time bombs that could stick to any metal surface.
The group headed into the hills around Vilna and reached the fur factory at the Kailis forced-labor camp, where some Jews still worked, intending to spend the night with them. They spoke to Sonia Madejsker, a blonde Jewish Communist who lived in a factory house, their only remaining link to the underground in Vilna. Sonia said that the factory was soon going to be shut down, and the Jews would be sent to their execution. They wanted to flee with Vitka to the forest.
The partisan commander had already been upset by the number of Jews living in their camps as refugees and had asked them to cut back on new arrivals. Most of the Jews had no combat experience, could not use weapons, and weren’t that keen to learn. They wanted to wait out the war, but still needed food and clothes. Vitka explained this to Sonia and told her she had come to town as a soldier, not a humanitarian. Sonia retorted that if Vitka didn’t take the people, they would die.