Jacob Gens was the head of the Vilnius Ghetto government. Originally from a merchant family, he joined the Lithuanian Army shortly after the independence of Lithuania, rising to the rank of captain while also securing a college degree in law and economics. He married a non-Jew and worked at several jobs, including as a teacher, accountant, and administrator.
A faded work permit for Uri Elichski, a Jewish worker in the Vilnius Ghetto (October 1941)
The Vilna Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the modern country of Lithuania, at the time part of the Nazi-administered Reichskommissariat Ostland.
Vilna Ghetto (Julian Klaczko Street), 1941
Lithuanian Nazi policeman with Jewish prisoners, July 1941
A monument in memory of the Jews of Vilnius who were murdered in the Holocaust. In Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv
Straszuna Street (the Polish name), now Žemaitijos Street, in the former ghetto