Category Archives: Holocaust

Aharon Pick’s Memoir

Posted on January 4, 2023 by Andrew

We all have hopes and expectations for the new year. Mine are topped by the coming publication of a project I’ve been working on for three years: The translation of Aharon Pick’s Holocaust memoir, written from 1942-44 in the ghetto of Šiauliai. Continue reading →

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Documenting the Holocaust

Posted on April 5, 2022 by Andrew

To our Keidaner friends, We were recently contacted by Israeli filmmaker Boris Maftsir, best known for his documentaries about the Holocaust. Maftsir’s film project called  “Searching for the Unknown Holocaust” includes documentaries on the experience in Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, … Continue reading →

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The Keidan Jewish Cemetery Project

Posted on July 30, 2021 by Andrew

By Ben-Tsiyon Klibansky July, 2021 The Initiative In 2016, I was invited to a seminar held in Vilna. At the end of the seminar, I took a train to Keidan, the hometown of my father and his mother, to visit … Continue reading →

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Tracing the Pick Family

Posted on May 9, 2021 by Andrew

The following was submitted by Aryeh Leonard Shcherbakov. What do we know about Aharon Pick’s family from Keidan (Kėdainiai) There are many reasons why the name of Aharon Pick has long attracted our attention: He was born in Keidan, he … Continue reading →

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Aharon Pick, Holocaust Witness

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Andrew

Late in the winter of 1943, Dr. Aharon Pick helped put Jewish infants to death. Assisted by other doctors and nurses in the makeshift hospital of the Šiauliai ghetto, he euthanized them with heroin and morphine, in one instance resorting … Continue reading →

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Recalling those who survived: Images

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Andrew

By Aryeh (Leonard) Shcherbakov Collected here are images of Keidaners who survived the Holocaust, made in the following decades. Not many such images exist, particularly those clear enough to allow easy identification. The photographs were taken mainly between 1957 and … Continue reading →

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Recalling those who survived the Keidan massacre

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Andrew

By Aryeh Leonard Shcherbakov Preface When talking of the Jews of Keidan, the first who naturally come to mind are those who were murdered: our grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins lying in the mass grave on the outskirts of town. … Continue reading →

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Recalling those who survived: Lists

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Andrew

The first list below contains the names of Keidaners known to have survived the Holocaust, along with short biographic summaries where those could be obtained. The second list contains the names of young men who escaped the mass slaughter in … Continue reading →

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Yudel Ronder

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Andrew

I first heard of him in 1994, from Laurence Salzmann, a Philadelphia photojournalist who was documenting Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in Lithuania. At the time all I knew about Keidan came from my grandfather’s articles, which predated World War … Continue reading →

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Yudel Ronder’s Story

Posted on April 23, 2020 by Andrew

Yehuda “Yudel” Ronder (1923-2016) was among the small number of Keidaner Jews who remained in Lithuania after the Holocaust. His story is both singular – a heroic tale of survival and persistence – and representative of the lives and experiences … Continue reading →

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