62 Facts About Jacob Gens

Jacob Gens was the head of the Vilnius Ghetto government.

Jacob Gens married a non-Jew and worked at several jobs, including as a teacher, accountant, and administrator.

When Germany invaded Lithuania, Gens headed the Jewish hospital in Vilnius before the formation of the ghetto in September 1941.

Jacob Gens was appointed chief of the ghetto police force and in July 1942 the Germans appointed him head of the ghetto Jewish government.

Jacob Gens attempted to secure better conditions in the ghetto and believed that it was possible to save some Jews by working for the Germans.

Jacob Gens's policies, including the attempt to save some Jews by surrendering others for deportation or execution, continue to be a subject of debate and controversy.

Jacob Gens was shot by the Gestapo on 14 September 1943, shortly before the ghetto was liquidated and most of the residents were sent either to labor camps or to execution at an extermination camp.

Jacob Gens was born on 1 April 1903 in Ilgvieciai near Siauliai in what was then the Russian Empire and is Lithuania.

Jacob Gens's father was a merchant and Gens was the oldest of four sons.

Jacob Gens attended a Russian-language primary school and then a secondary school in Siauliai.

Jacob Gens was fluent in Lithuanian, Russian, German, and Yiddish, and knew some Hebrew, Polish, and English.

Jacob Gens then moved to Jurbarkas to teach physical education and the Lithuanian language at a Jewish school.

Jacob Gens appears to have wanted to transfer from the infantry into the Lithuanian Air Force, but at the time it was accepting only unmarried men.

Jacob Gens studied at Kaunas University and graduated in 1935 with a degree in law and economics.

Jacob Gens worked for the Shell Oil Corporation for two years from 1935, then took a job with Lietukis, a Lithuanian co-operative.

Jacob Gens was a Zionist, and was a follower of the Revisionist Zionism school, which called for most European Jews to immediately emigrate to create the State of Israel in what were then the League of Nations mandates of Palestine and Trans-Jordan.

Jacob Gens belonged to Brith ha-Hayal, a Jewish organization for military reservists.

Jacob Gens was unable to secure a work permit nor was he allowed to continue to live in Kaunas.

Jacob Gens went to live with his brother, Solomon, in Vilnius, and although Gens was on a list to be sent to Soviet labor camps, he managed to secure an unregistered job at the Vilnius health department through an old military colleague, Colonel Juozas Usas.

Jacob Gens was not on the official payroll, which meant that the political officer attached to the hospital did not need to be informed of his employment.

In September 1941, Jacob Gens was named the commander of the Jewish Ghetto Police for the Vilnius Ghetto by the head of the new Judenrat, Anatol Friend.

The police force comprised around 200 men at the start, and Jacob Gens appointed Salk Dessler as his deputy commandant.

Jacob Gens was afraid that the actions of the Germans would result in a widespread massacre.

Jacob Gens persuaded the Gestapo to let the Jewish police round up the deportees.

Jacob Gens, backed by the Jewish police force, was responsible for deciding who was to be sent for resettlement and execution.

Jacob Gens disagreed and considered it to be lawful to sacrifice some people to save others.

At one point, while Jacob Gens was checking permits, a family with three children went through the checkpoint, and Jacob Gens pulled aside the third child.

Jacob Gens began berating the father for losing track of his second child and pushed the third child from the first family into the second family.

Jacob Gens urged them to keep quiet, and some of the wounded were kept in the hospital to prevent them from repeating their stories.

Jacob Gens was viewed favorably by the ghetto residents, partly because he lived in the ghetto when he could have escaped.

In June 1942, Jacob Gens took the responsibility for carrying out the death sentence imposed on five men from the ghetto who had been convicted of murder.

Jacob Gens had a dispute with a tailor named Weisskopf, who ran a tailoring workshop in the ghetto.

When Jacob Gens ordered all work contracts to go through the Labor Department, Weisskopf appealed to his German contacts, but the Gebeitskommissar of Vilnius, Hans Hingst, preferred that control of such contracts go through his own office which worked through the ghetto's administration.

Jacob Gens came into conflict with the Judenrat and Friend over the Jewish policemen who guarded the gates into the ghetto.

Jacob Gens' policy was that when no Germans were present at the gates, the policemen would do minimal searches and would allow the smuggling of food and other necessary items.

Jacob Gens claimed that even when the Germans were present, any confiscated items were brought into the ghetto, which would not be the case if there were German guards at the gates.

Jacob Gens was appointed as head of the ghetto; he retained his position as chief of the Jewish police force, and took the title of "chief of the ghetto and police in Vilnius".

Jacob Gens asked the rest of the Judenrat to remain in the administration as heads of the various ghetto departments, which they did.

Jacob Gens thought that labor would provide a way for the inhabitants to survive.

Jacob Gens sought to save at least some of the population by working for the Germans and to do that he relied on the police force.

In July 1942, the Germans ordered Jacob Gens to give up 500 children and old people, but by late July he had persuaded the Germans to abandon the order for children to be surrendered.

Jacob Gens bribed Martin Weiss, commander of the Ponary killing squad, to accept the lower quota.

Jacob Gens joined his policemen when the train went through Vilnius and was arrested along with them when the train arrived at Ponary.

Jacob Gens justified the participation of the Vilnius ghetto police in these roundups by claiming that their participation saved at least some of the ghetto residents when otherwise the Germans would have shot them all.

Jacob Gens allowed some resistance members to escape the ghetto, but opposed the plans for resistance because he felt they would threaten the entire ghetto's existence.

Jacob Gens did provide money, taken from the various Judenrat funds, to the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye, a resistance group in the ghetto.

Jacob Gens provided funds to another resistance group, the "Struggle Group" established by Boris 'Borka' Fridman.

Jacob Gens provided a pistol to the Struggle Group, its first.

On 26 June 1943, Jacob Gens ordered the arrest of Josef Glazman, who had previously worked for Jacob Gens but now was a leader of the FPO.

Jacob Gens then negotiated with the FPO and secured Glazman's rearrest in return for assurances of Glazman's safety.

In May 1942, Jacob Gens secured German permission for residents of the ghetto to sell belongings or property they left with gentiles outside the ghetto.

Jacob Gens started a theater in the ghetto, where poetry readings as well as the production of new and old plays took place.

Jacob Gens continued the policy of supporting the ghetto library and in March 1943 he ordered that all ghetto residents should turn their privately owned books over to the library, except for textbooks and prayer books.

Jacob Gens's wife used her maiden name rather than Gens'.

Jacob Gens did not refute the rumors, as he thought they would help protect his family.

Elvyra Jacob Gens was opposed to her husband taking a leading role in the government of the ghetto and urged him to "pass" as a Lithuanian.

Jacob Gens was not required to wear the yellow badge of the Star of David on the front and back of his clothes; instead, he wore a white and blue armband with the Star of David.

Jacob Gens was allowed to enter and leave the ghetto at any time, and his daughter was not required to live in the ghetto, even though other half-Jews were confined within the ghetto.

Jacob Gens was urged to flee but chose to go, telling others that if he fled "thousands of Jews will pay for it with their lives".

Jacob Gens was shot by Obersturmfuhrer Rolf Neugebauer, head of the Vilnius Gestapo, on 14 September 1943.

Jacob Gens himself has been called "one of the most controversial Jewish ghetto leaders".

Jacob Gens is one of the main characters in Joshua Sobol's plays Ghetto and Adam.