Vilna, the capital of Soviet Lithuania, which was called “the second Jerusalem” as a flourishing center of Hebrew learning before the war, now has only 16, 500 Jews left out of a pre-war Jewish population of 200, 000, The New York Times reported today from that city. The Jews in Vilna have now only one synagogue, the correspondent said.
The Nazis killed an estimated 80, 000 Jews in prison camps, the correspondent writes. The Jewish institute, library, schools and most synagogues were razed. The correspondent described the only remaining synagogue as “a shabby building with boarded windows.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
