Before the War

Irving Simon was born in 1925 in a shtetl Svir next to Vilna. His birth name was Itzik Sajewicz. Before the war, he lived with his father who was a tailor, his mother who was well-educated (she knew Russian and Yiddish), and a sister. He had a brother who passed away when was an infant. 

Life before the war included visits to the lake and river, the community had its own orchestra, schools (public, private, Hebrew, and Polish), and a synagogue where his grandfather used to go every day. Irving shares that every morning he went to synagogue with his grandfather to practice for his Bar Mitzvah. 

Anti-Semitism incidents happened all the time, but before the war it was "under control" When the war broke out neighbors became enemies. The non-Jewish kids thought that the Jewish people would kidnap them for their blood to make Matzah. 

During the War

In 1941, when the war arrived in Vilna it was a big confusion so while the Russians ran away, and the Germans started to occupy the country his sister ran away with the Russians. When Irving suggested the same thing to his parents they declined because they didn't think any bad things would happen to them while the Germans were in charge. The Germans moved them to the Ghetto and on the first night Irving ran away to the woods where he joined the Partisans.

Irving keeps sharing that one day the Germans found them, and they took him and other men to the Headquarters. The Gestapo started to question them and when they didn't give them the answers, they wanted they start beating them until they passed out. After they didn't get the information from Irving, they send him back to the Ghetto. In the Ghetto he shared with his family and friends the horror he saw - putting people in a barn and setting it on fire, murdering people and putting them in a ditch. All of a sudden, the Judenrat is coming to talk to him and tell him he is telling lies and making rumors and it's not ok. He knew he is going to get punished. 

Fall of 1943 all the families in the Ghetto had to send away one male person. They had to register since Irving was worried his father would go, so he went instead of him. He remembered the same day they started to march until they arrived at a small ghetto with a gate. The next morning, they went on a train and were transferred to a camp in Lithuania. He met the prisoners over there who looked like skeletons and they were very dirty. These people were slave laborers. Most of the people kept asking him if he knew or saw their family members. 

Around 6 months later, he was transferred again to Vilna Ghetto another Ghetto with a gate. He used to smuggle food into the Ghetto and share it with his parents. One day someone told the authorities he and his friends were smuggling food. They were caught and sent away to Ponar. He was so horrid at the sight of the murdered people. At Ponar he and his friends got an order to throw away all the bodies into the ditch. Irving understood that from this place they would not leave alive, so he threw himself into the ditch along with a dead body. That is how he saved his life, in some way he managed to get himself outside of the pit and found his way back to the Vilna Ghetto. When he got there, he didn't share with his mother what exactly happened he just told her it was bad. To his close friends, he shared what is happening outside the Ghetto.