On 16 February 2017, the Moshe Mirilashvili Center for Research on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union at Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research held a symposium marking the launch of the Hebrew version of The Clandestine History of the Kovno Jewish Ghetto Police (Yad Vashem, 2016). This unique journal, which was created and edited by groups of Jewish policemen in Kovno, elaborately describes events in Kovno from the creation of the ghetto in August 1941 to the spring of 1944. In addition to attesting to numerous unknown facts and reflecting how the closest body to an elite in the ghetto evaluated the events, this document also contains a great many critical declarations about life in the ghetto, including the actions of the Jewish police itself.
Prof. Dalia Ofer of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem prepared the book, writing an analytical preface and footnotes prior to the journal’s publication. At the launch she answered a number of questions, and suggested that the knowledge of the tragic fate of the journal's authors influences the way the events from that time are perceived today. Additionally, she discussed the extent to which texts written by people who served in official capacities in the ghetto, including the Jewish police, influenced the historiography of the Kovno ghetto in its entirety. Prof. Ofer also explained what made the journal from the Kovno ghetto unique, and why publishing it was especially significant for understanding the Holocaust in Eastern Europe in general and for the study of the Holocaust in Lithuania in particular.
The book launch was dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dov Levin z"l, an Israeli historian and former prisoner of the Kovno ghetto and partisan, who for many years researched various aspects of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Prof. Levin’s contribution to the historiography of the Holocaust was presented by Yad Vashem Chief Historian Prof. Dina Porat.
The Research Institute’s Dr. Lea Prais discussed the activity of the Jewish police in the Vilna ghetto that provided a greater understanding of the uniqueness of their cohorts in Kovno. Rami Neudorfer, a PhD candidate from Tel Aviv University who is researching of the Kovno ghetto, provided an overview of the history of the journal of the Kovno ghetto police.
