Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry, The

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Rabbi Oshry's eyewitness account of the Lithuanian religious community's courageous struggle to survive in the Kovno ghetto during the Holocaust. An astonishing account unlike anything else that's been written about Lithuania!

Even in famine, kashrus was kept.
Even under the threat of death, Torah learning continued.
Even as Nazis waited by the door, baby boys were circumcised.

The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry is an important account of the Holocaust by a thoughtful and devout survivor, one of the few rabbis to have written memoirs. This deeply affecting book reveals both the horrors and the tenacious spiritual life of the inhabitants of the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania. Rabbi Oshry heartbreakingly chronicles pogroms, being driven into the ghetto, the "Black Day" when more than 10,000 Jews were murdered, martyrdom and the slaughter of Jewish children. Rabbi Oshry recounts his terrifying experience hiding for thirty-eight days in an underground bunker until the Russians liberated Kovno.

The second part of the book provides a meticulous record of the sad fate of town after town of Jewish Lithuania.

And yet, amid unimaginable destruction, the Jews of the Kovno ghetto managed to hold fast to their spiritual life. For three terrifying years -- never knowing when death would arrive -- they prayed, adhered to Jewish law as much as possible and celebrated Shabbos and religious occasions with fervor. Thus, despite the sadness and the horrifying details of life in the Kovno ghetto, The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry is an inspiring narrative.

The book includes:

• a short town-by-town history of Jewish Lithuania
• a record of Jewish Lithuania's destruction
• 171 photographs
• complete index
• glossary
• maps