Dr. Aharon Pick diary

Dr. Aharon (Aaron) Pick (also spelled Pik or Pieck) (1872-1944) was born in Kėdainiai, Lithuania and practiced medicine and participated actively in Jewish cultural life in Šiauliai (Shavli). He and his family were forced into the Šiauliai ghetto in 1941, and Aharon worked in the ghetto hospital until his death following an illness in June 1944. His wife, Dvorah (Deborah) Tatz Pick, survived the ghetto but perished at Stutthof. Their son Tedik (David, 1922-1975) escaped the ghetto shortly before its liquidation, led Jewish survivors west for the Bricha after liberation, and immigrated to Palestine in 1948. In 1949 he married Haia Nudel (b. 1928), who had survived the Šiauliai ghetto and the Stutthof concentration camp. Dr. Aharon Pick (also spelled Pik or Pieck) created his diary in the Šiauliai ghetto between 1941 and 1944. In it, he remembers life in Lithuania before the Soviet take over in June 1940, life under the Soviet regime, his efforts to have his son be accepted at Vilna University, and the situation in Lithuania and in Šiauliai, particularly on the eve of the German invasion in June 1941. He then describes Šiauliai ghetto, educational and cultural activities in the ghetto, unsanitary conditions and public health in the ghetto, and Judenrat activities in the ghetto. David Pick buried the diary after his father’s death in June 1944 and retrieved it following liberation in July 1944.