Notes from the Valley of Slaughter

"The diary of Dr. Aharon Pick is a historical document of extraordinary importance. A talented physician and intellectual who was steeped in Jewish culture documented the events pertaining to the Jews in the city of Šiauliai during the Holocaust, from the Soviet regime through the ghetto years under Nazi German occupation. Pick meticulously chronicled and analyzed the events, enlightening his "future readers" with profound insights into human nature and the essence of humanity exposed in what he termed the "Valley of Slaughter." The diary sheds light on numerous aspects of Holocaust research: the history of medicine in extreme situations, the Jewish society's reaction pattern to gradual destruction, ethical dilemmas, philosophical reflections on the unique nature of the Holocaust, and more. Pick's first-person testimony of coping with the Germans' decrees to murder fetuses in their mothers' wombs is singularly powerful, making the diary essential reading."—Miriam Offer, Western Galilee College

"In this important account — part memoir, part diary — of Jewish life under Bolshevik and then Nazi occupation in Siauliai, Lithuania, the English-language reader gains access for the first time to the observations and reflections of Aharon Pick, a medical doctor active in Jewish communal affairs and politics. Pick wrote with a journalist's flair for an important story and a humanist's care for the individual. His searing record offers scholars fresh insights into Jews' experience of the Holocaust in Lithuania and will be suitable for classroom use as well."—Alexandra Garbarini, Charles R. Keller Professor of History, Williams College

"Dr. Aharon Pick's memoir and diary open a new window into the wartime history of Šiauliai, the site of one of Eastern Europe's lesser-known ghettos. Superbly edited and introduced by Gabriel Laufer and Andrew Cassel, this deeply personal account, suffused with a spirit of intense anguish, forces us to confront the day-to-day reality of the persecution and death which the Nazis and local collaborators inflicted on one of Lithuania's oldest and most prosperous Jewish communities."—Saulius Sužiedėlis, Millersville University of Pennsylvania