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2007-09-10
Fania returns to Vilnius

Fania Brancovskaja, the librarian of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, a former Vilna Ghetto inmate and partisan in the forests north of Vilnius, has just returned from Darmstadt, Germany, where she shared her memories of the Ghetto and life in the anti-Nazi partisan movement, with pupils of the Darmstadt Secondary School. The event was organized to commemorate the German major, Karl Plagge, who was a graduate of the school. As commandant of the Jewish forced labor camp HKP in Vilna during World War II, Plagge rescued as many Jewish people as he could and he is acknowledged by Yad Vashem by the awarding of its Righteous Gentile Award. Fania’s visit to Germany was widely reported in the city’s press, and all of her colleagues at the VYI welcome her back.

Fania’s 85th birthday is celebrated this year around the world by surviving Vilner (as natives of the city are called in Yiddish). One of the tributes comes from the institute’s director of research, Prof. Dovid Katz, in a recent Yiddish essay on Fania published in New York’s Algemeyner Zhurnal.