page_title: Jacob Gens
section_title: Chief of the Vilnius Ghetto police
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob Gens / Chief of the Vilnius Ghetto police
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Arbeitschein im Ghetto Wilna (Vilna, Vilnius) für den Juden Uri Elichski, 1941.
context_page_description: Jacob Gens was the head of the Vilnius Ghetto government. Originally from a merchant family, he joined the Lithuanian Army shortly after the independence of Lithuania, rising to the rank of captain while also securing a college degree in law and economics. He married a non-Jew and worked at several jobs, including as a teacher, accountant, and an administrator.
  When Germany invaded Lithuania, Gens headed the Jewish hospital in Vilnius before the formation of the ghetto in September 1941. He was appointed chief of the ghetto police force and in July 1942 the Germans appointed him head of the ghetto Jewish government. He attempted to secure better conditions in the ghetto and believed that it was possible to save some Jews by working for the Germans. Gens and his policemen helped Germans in rounding up the Jews for deportation and execution in Ponary in October–December 1941 and in liquidating several smaller ghettos from late 1942 to early 1943. His policies, including the attempt to save some Jews by surrendering others for deportation or execution, continue to be a subject of debate and controversy.
context_section_description: In September 1941, Gens was named the commander of the Jewish policemen for the Vilnius Ghetto by the head of the new Judenrat, Anatol Friend. Officially, the duties of Gens and his policemen were to carry out German and Judenrat orders and provide law enforcement for the inhabitants of the ghetto. Included in their first duty, and considered by the occupiers as the single most important task, was the uncovering of any anti-German activity in the ghetto.
  The police force comprised around 200 men at the start, and Gens appointed Salk Dessler as his deputy commandant. Other chief subordinates included Joseph Muszkat and Meir Levas. Dessler was a Revisionist Zionist, and Muszkat and Levas had been members of the Betar, the youth movement of the Revisionist Zionists. The police force included many other former Betar members, and this may have been because Gens favored people coming from his own political leanings. This led to a conflict with the Bund, another Jewish political group. The Bund appears to have wanted the police force to be more of a militia, with Gens and his supporters wishing it to be a more conventional police force. After some initial political wrangling, Gens' faction won, but the Bundists remained strong in the Judenrat.
caption: A faded work permit for Uri Elichski, a Jewish worker in the Vilnius Ghetto (October 1941)
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