{"product_id":"the-last-days-of-the-jerusalem-of-lithuania-chronicles-from-the-vilna-ghetto-and-the-camps-19391944","title":"The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps  1939-1944","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor five horrifying years in Vilna  the Vilna ghetto  and concentration camps in Estonia  Herman Kruk recorded his own experiences as well as the life and death of the Jewish community of the city symbolically called The Jerusalem of Lithuania. This unique chronicle includes many recovered pages of Kruks diaries and provides a powerful eyewitness account of the annihilation of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. This volume includes the Yiddish edition of Kruks diaries  published in 1961 and translated here for the first time  as well as many widely scattered pages of the chronicles  collected here for the first time and meticulously deciphered  translated  and annotated.  Kruk describes vividly the collapse of Poland in September  1939  life as a refugee in Vilna  the manhunt that destroyed most of Vilna Jewry in the summer of 1941  the creation of a ghetto and the persecution and self-rule of the remnants of the Jerusalem of Lithuania  the internment of the last survivors in concentration camps in Estonia  and their brutal deaths. Kruk scribbled his final diary entry on September 17  1944  managing to bury the small  loose pages of his manuscript just hours before he and other camp inmates were shot to death and their bodies burnt on a pyre.  Kruks writings illuminate the tragedy of the Vilna Jews and their courageous efforts to maintain an ideological  social  and cultural life even as their world was being destroyed. To read Kruks day-by-day account of the unfolding of the Holocaust is to discern the possibilities for human courage and perseverance even in the face of profound fear.  Co-published with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946158288949,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300044941","price":127.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300044942.jpg?v=1769926493","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-last-days-of-the-jerusalem-of-lithuania-chronicles-from-the-vilna-ghetto-and-the-camps-19391944","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}