photo #8487179

The underground school of Kovno After the German invasion, Jewish residents of Kovno were confined within a Ghetto. For a little while the Judenrat conducted schools within the ghetto perimeter, using the available teachers. After the Germans closed the Ghetto schools in August 1942 secret classes were conducted in various hidden locations inside the ghetto. The photograph is of a class conducted in the "underground school" -- actually in stables -- by Shmuel Rosenthal, who appears in the pre-War images. All these "illegal" schools ceased after the removal of over 2,000 ghetto children during the "KinderAktion" 27-28th of March 1944. The teacher Shmuel Rosent(h)al - survived -- as did -- miraculously -- his daughter Rona born in secret & smuggled out of the ghetto as a tiny baby. His wife, Ronia, the baby's mother, did not survive. After the war Shmuel Rosenthal once more taught in and supervised Jewish schools, until circa 1949 when Jewish education was once more made illegal by the Lithuanian Communist government. Rona who was re-united with her father after the war, was then thrust into a Lithuanian language school. In 1979 Rona came from Lithuania to live in Melbourne.