Dora Pilianskiene
“God helps me. Everything is in His hands. He gives me life.”
Dora’s family lived in the shtetl of Zeizmariai for generations. She grew up in a religious household and trained as a seamstress under her father, a master tailor. She was popular among her clients whom she decked out in the latest Paris-inspired fashions. When the war broke out, she was pregnant with her first daughter, Frida. She had only one thought: to run, run, run. Today, she shares a home with Frida in Vilnius. Dora draws her memories; the past is a vivid landscape she returns to time and again.
“I feel pain. I am in pain. I see everything before my eyes, and all has disappeared. There are no people, people disappeared. Children. Do you see? Do you see? This is Kazuk. He used to work for the Jews. He is drunk on vodka. They collected the children and threw them into the pit alive. They brought them in a truck, like day-old cabbage, and that was the end. And after that, they brought women, and threw them on top. So in this pit, there are children and on top, women, do you understand? And the earth was moving for several days, because many were buried alive.”
“God helps me. Everything is in His hands. He gives me life.”
Dora’s family lived in the shtetl of Zeizmariai for generations. She grew up in a religious household and trained as a seamstress under her father, a master tailor. She was popular among her clients whom she decked out in the latest Paris-inspired fashions. When the war broke out, she was pregnant with her first daughter, Frida. She had only one thought: to run, run, run. Today, she shares a home with Frida in Vilnius. Dora draws her memories; the past is a vivid landscape she returns to time and again.
“I feel pain. I am in pain. I see everything before my eyes, and all has disappeared. There are no people, people disappeared. Children. Do you see? Do you see? This is Kazuk. He used to work for the Jews. He is drunk on vodka. They collected the children and threw them into the pit alive. They brought them in a truck, like day-old cabbage, and that was the end. And after that, they brought women, and threw them on top. So in this pit, there are children and on top, women, do you understand? And the earth was moving for several days, because many were buried alive.”
