From the Ends of the Earth
The Struggle for Survival of a Jewish Girl from Lithuania on the Banks of the Arctic Ocean
9789653087347
272 pages
Yad Vashem Publications
Overview
Exiled to Siberia, sustained by faith, and driven by hope - a remarkable journey of survival and renewal.In the vibrant Jewish world of prewar Kovno, Gitta Langleben-Klibansky grew up in a close-knit Orthodox family. That world shattered with the Soviet occupation of Lithuania and her family’s deportation to Siberia in June 1941. This occurred mere days before the German invasion of Kovno, a twist of fate that, in retrospect, saved them from Nazi annihilation. Yet their new surroundings brought great suffering and constant danger, and Gitta’s teenage years abruptly gave way to exile in a land of brutal cold and forced labor.
Following a harrowing journey across Siberia, they finally arrived at the remote Arctic peninsula of Bikov-Mis, where Gitta struggled to sustain her family amid hunger, exhaustion, an unforgiving climate, and the constant threat of death. Despite these harsh conditions, it was there that she met her future husband, Mendel, and in 1946 they married, determined to build a life together. After years of hardship, they were finally permitted to return to Lithuania in 1956, where they rebuilt their lives in Vilna, navigated the suffocating constraints of Soviet rule, and waged a determined struggle to immigrate to Israel, a goal they achieved in 1969.
A testament to resilience, faith, and hope, From the Ends of the Earth reveals the little-known ordeal of Jews exiled to Siberia and stands as a powerful reminder of the human capacity to endure and rebuild—an unforgettable journey from exile to homecoming.
Author Bio
Gitta Langleben-Klibansky (1923–2015) was born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, into a traditional middle-class Jewish family. In June 1941, while still a student at the local Hebrew gymnasium, in the midst of her matriculation exams, she was deported with her parents and siblings toSiberia, one week before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. A year later, the family was transferred to the remote Arctic peninsula of Bykov Mys on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, where they were forced to support the Soviet war effort under extremely harsh conditions. In 1946, she was promoted from a worker in a fishing-net workshop to manager
of the workshop. In 1950, she was allowed to leave Bykov Mys and move to Yakutsk, the regional capital, where she studied at a technical college and later worked in the construction sector. In 1956, after sixteen years in exile, she and her family were permitted to leave Siberia and settled in Vilna (Vilnius), Soviet Lithuania, where she worked as an
engineer in the construction administration. In 1969, she was allowed to immigrate to Israel, where she lived and worked for many years at the Ministry of Construction and Housing, raising two children with her husband.
