The Three Tragic Heroes of the Vilnius Ghetto: Witenberg, Sheinbaum, Gens

Vilnius (Vilna, Wilno), the capital of Lithuania, is almost 700 years old. Since the middle ages it has been one of the main centres of Jewish cultural, religious, social and political activity of the Diaspora. At one time, one half of the city inhabitants were Jewish. Everything changed during the Holocaust. The Jewish community was destroyed by the Nazis and their collaborators. But there were those who refused to surrender without a fight.Witenberg and Sheinbaum were the leaders of the Jew…