Jacob Gens (1 April 1903 – 14 September 1943) 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.
When Germany invaded Lithuania, Gens headed the Jewish hospital in Vilnius before the formation of the ghetto in September 1941. He was appointed chief of the ghetto police force and in July 1942 the Germans appointed him head of the ghetto Jewish government. He attempted to secure better conditions in the ghetto and believed that it was possible to save some Jews by working for the Germans. Gens and his policemen helped Germans in rounding up the Jews for deportation and execution in Ponary in October–December 1941 and in liquidating several smaller ghettos from late 1942 to early 1943. His policies, including the attempt to save some Jews by surrendering others for deportation or execution, continue to be a subject of debate and controversy.
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. His Lithuanian wife and daughter escaped the Gestapo and survived the war.
Early life
Gens was born on 1 April 1903 in near Šiauliai in what was then the Russian Empire and is now Lithuania. His father was a merchant and Gens was the oldest of four sons. Gens attended a Russian-language primary school and then a secondary school in Šiauliai. He was fluent in Lithuanian, Russian, German, and Yiddish, and knew some Hebrew, Polish, and English. In 1919, Gens enlisted in the newly formed Lithuanian Army. He was sent to officers' school and completed the training as a junior lieutenant. N. Karni, who was a cadet with Gens, said that he "had great personal charm. I do not remember him ever being in a bad mood." Karni also felt Gens had "leadership qualities, he had personality, he was a man of principles". Gens' participation in the Polish–Lithuanian War and the completion of his secondary schooling earned Gens a promotion to senior lieutenant.
Gens was transferred into the army reserves in 1924 and moved to Ukmergė to teach physical education and the Lithuanian language at a Jewish school. In 1924, Gens married Elvyra Budreikaitė, a non-Jewish Lithuanian. He appears to have wanted to transfer from the infantry into the Lithuanian Air Force, but at the time it was accepting only unmarried men. The couple had a daughter, Ada, in 1926, and moved to Kaunas the following year. Gens studied at Kaunas University and worked as an accountant at the Ministry of Justice. He graduated in 1935 with a degree in law and economics. He was called back to the regular army in the late 1930s and promoted to captain. He worked for the Shell Oil Corporation for two years from 1935, then took a job with , a Lithuanian co-operative.
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. He belonged to Brith ha-Hayal, a Jewish organization for military reservists.
Administrator of Jewish hospital
After the formation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in July 1940, Gens was fired from his job. He was unable to secure a work permit nor was he allowed to continue to live in Kaunas. He 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 Ūsas. 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. During June 1941, when thousands of the Lithuanians were exiled to Siberia, Gens remained in hiding and was not deported.