Samuel Bak was born in Vilna on August 12, 1933. He was an artistically gifted child; his work was first exhibited, in the Vilna ghetto, when he was nine years old. Bak and his mother were the only members of their family to survive the Holocaust. After the war, they lived at the displaced persons camp at Landsberg, Germany, before immigrating to Israel in 1948. Bak studied painting in Munich, Jerusalem, and Paris. Since 1959, his art has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe, Israel, and the United States. In 1993, after living on three continents, Bak settled in Weston, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife, Josée.

William Begell was born Wilhelm Beigel in Vilna on May 18, 1927. With the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in 1943, Begell was sent to the local HKP labor camp along with his mother and grandmother. With their encouragement, he escaped the camp the following year; his mother and grandmother were deported and killed four days later. His father had been shot by the SS in 1943. After the war, Begell completed his studies in Germany. In 1947, he immigrated to the U.S., where he established a publishing business, Begell House.

Yitzhak Dugim was born in Vilna on August 4, 1916. After the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto, he was forced to work at Ponar, the site of the mass murder of thousands of Jews from Vilna. He escaped and joined the Russian partisans. Dugim died on September 17, 2001, in Israel. He was survived by his second wife, Tsila—herself a survivor of the Vilna ghetto—and was a father and grandfather.

Henny Gurko (née Durmashkin) was born into a prominent musical family in Vilna on November 16, 1923. During the war, she was deported from the Vilna ghetto to Kaiserwald, the first in a series of concentration camps where she was subjected to forced labor. As an accomplished opera singer, Gurko was also compelled to sing with an orchestra for SS officers. After liberation, she continued to perform with the orchestra in displaced persons camps. In 1950, Gurko and her sister—the only two members of their immediate family to survive the war—immigrated to the U.S.

Mira Verbin (née Swecki) was born in Vilna on October 25, 1919. During the occupation, she joined the United Partisan Organization, the Vilna ghetto resistance. She was the only one of her immediate family to survive the war. In 1946 Verbin arrived illegally in Haifa, in then-Palestine. Along with her friend Arie Liebke Distal, she soon joined a group of fellow Jews from Vilna in a kibbutz that became known as Kibbutz Yakum. Verbin died on April 20, 2016, in Kibbutz Yakum.

Abram Zeleznikov was born in Vilna on May 25, 1924. In 1943, he escaped the ghetto of Vilna through more than 30 miles of sewers and joined the United Partisan Organization, a Jewish resistance group first formed in the ghetto. Zeleznikov was the only one of his family to survive the war. From 1948 the couple lived in Paris, until in 1951 they immigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where they opened a cafe that was a popular gathering place for Holocaust survivors. Zeleznikov died in Melbourne on June 8, 2013.

Haim Bassok was born in Vilna on June 16, 1923. During the war, he escaped the Vilna ghetto and joined the partisans. In 1947, Bassok immigrated to Israel, where he studied law and, in 1953, married Nechama Ben-Dov. His professional accomplishments included serving as deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. He died on November 28, 2006, survived by his wife, five children, 17 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren.

Mira Berger (née Kanishtshiker) was born on April 5, 1920, in Vilna. After the war, she moved to Italy, where in 1946 she married Gustav Berger. Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to then-Palestine, where they had two sons. In 1954, the Berger family immigrated to the U.S., settling in New York. Berger was an active writer throughout her life. Her memoir, We Are at War, was published in 2006. Berger died in Manhattan on February 7, 2020.

Arie Liebke Distal was born on November 26, 1922, in Vilna. Shortly after the war, he moved to Israel, where in the late 1950s he met his wife, Hela. In addition to Hela’s daughter, Distal and Hela had two children and seven grandchildren. Distal died on July 26, 2000, in Kibbutz Yakum.

Wiera Goldman (née Shoag) was born in Vilna on February 28, 1921. After the war, she moved to the U.S., settling in Cleveland with her husband, Samuel Goldman, and their children. She died on February 19, 1995, and was survived by her son and daughter as well as three grandchildren.

Herman Kruk was born in the central Polish city of Plock on May 19, 1897. During the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, he fled from Warsaw to Vilna, where, after the formation of the Jewish ghetto, he organized a library and became its librarian. The diary he kept from 1941 to 1943 offers an extensive and essential account of everyday life in the Vilna ghetto. With the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943, Kruk was sent to a concentration camp in Klooga, Estonia, where he continued to make diary entries until he was murdered there on September 18, 1944.

Zenia Malecki (née Berkon) was born in Vilna on July 31, 1921. During the occupation, she worked with the United Partisan Organization alongside her parents, smuggling food into the Vilna ghetto. After the war, she immigrated to the U.S., settling in New York. She married Alfred Malecki, and worked as an editor for Zukunft, a Yiddish-language monthly. Malecki died on October 27, 2006, and was survived by her daughter, Sophie.

Nisan Resnick was born in Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (now Dnipro, Ukraine), on June 22, 1918. During the Nazi occupation, he was a partisan and member of the Jewish underground in Vilna. Resnick arrived in Israel in 1947 and settled in Kibbutz Nitzanim. During the Battle of Nitzanim in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he was captured by the Egyptians and spent nine months as a prisoner of war. Resnick died on December 2, 2016, and was survived by two daughters.

Sheila Zwany (née Oszmian) was born in Vilna on January 5, 1921. She and her family hid from the Nazis during the war. Sometime after the war, Zwany settled in the U.S. with her husband, Sam Bezprozwany, with whom she had two sons. Zwany died on February 27, 2000, and was buried in New Jersey. She was survived by her sons and six grandchildren.