Everything is Dead

"In the ghetto, it is as if everything were dead. The offices aren't open. People aren't working in the workshops. No one understands the events that have occurred. Rarely is there clear and certain information. Everything is veiled in fog. Everything looks unlikely. Every rustle is blown out of proportion. Some say the executions were carried out by Latvians. Some know that they were carried out by the 200 Ukrainians brought especially for that. People say that Hingst and Murer didn't know about the events in Ponar. The street seethes and argues incessantly. No one works, not even in the German units. The ghetto and the ghetto Jews are truly depressed. Everything is dead."

~~ from The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939—1944 by Herman Kruk