The German Army entered Vilnius on 24 June 1941, as part of their invasion of Russia in World War II. After their arrival, Gens was put in charge of the Jewish hospital. The occupying authorities ordered the creation of the Judenrat, or Jewish Council, with community-selected members. In early September 1941, the Germans murdered most of the Judenrat, which left the Jewish community leaderless before and during the relocation of the Jews into two ghettos in Vilnius. During this period, the hospital sheltered several prominent Jews from Vilnius. When the ghettos were formed, the Jewish hospital was included within the confines of the larger ghetto, an unusual arrangement for a Nazi-period ghetto. Most ghettos were organized to exclude any Jewish hospitals, forcing the inhabitants to either do without a hospital or set up a makeshift one.