1-198-996 - From the Jewish Chronicle Archive/Heritage Images

Barefoot boy in Vilna Ghetto, USSR, World War II, 1939-1944. Formerly the foremost centre of rabbinical learning in Europe, the Polish city of Vilna was occupied first by Soviet troops in 1939, and then by Nazi Germany during the war. The city's large Jewish population was exterminated; thousands were shot or sent to the death camps. Vilna became Vilnius, capital of Lithuania.