ORT vocational schools

George Kadish, born Zvi (Hirsh) Kadushin (1910- 1997), was a Lithuanian Jewish photographer who documented life in the Kovno Ghetto during the Holocaust. Prior to World War II he was a mathematics, science and electronics teacher at a Hebrew High School in Kovno, Lithuania. As a hobby, Kadish was a photographer. He was skilled at making home-made cameras. During the period of Nazi control of Lithuania he successfully photographed various scenes of life and its difficulties in the ghetto in clandestine circumstances. Kadish constructed cameras by which he could photograph through the buttonhole of his coat or over a window sill. He was able to photograph sensitive scenes that would attract the ire of Nazis or collaborators, such as scenes of people gathered for forced labor, burning of the ghetto, and deportations. He enlisted the help of Yehuda Zupowitz, a high-ranking officer in the ghetto's Jewish police to help hide his negatives and prints. Kadish retrieved the collection of photographic negatives upon his return to the destroyed ghetto. After Germany's surrender on May 8, 1945, Kadish left Lithuania with his extrordinary documentary trove for Germany. There in the American Zone, he mounted exhibitions of his photographs for survivors residing in displaced persons camps. He also filmed and photographed life in the displaced persons camps in Germany.

Born in Kovno, Lithuania, Jacob Oleiski (1901-1981) was committed to the idea of Jewish agricultural labor for independence and survival. He served as Director of ORT in Lithuania from 1927 to 1941, when the Germans forced the Jews of Kovno into a ghetto. In 1942, he was permitted to set up an ORT school in the ghetto, offering a substantial program of vocational studies. General education was delivered in secret. Oleiski survived the liquidation of the ghetto and imprisonment in Dachau concentration camp. It was his extraordinary optimism and courage that enabled him to open ORT classes in the newly liberated Landsberg camp in 1945, teaching metalwork, car repair, mechanics and other skills. ORT then opened programs in other camps for Holocaust survivors. Oleiski brought his wealth of experience to the fledgling organization in Israel in 1948, where he became administrator and then Director.

Max (Mordchai) Rubin came from Kovno, Lithuania and was forced to work at the Dachau subcamp Kaufering (KZ Dachau prisoner #85581). After the war, Max was responsible for the chemical and bacteriology laboratories at ORT Munich. He emigrated to the US at the end of the 1940s and lived most of his life in White Plains, NY. After Max died, funds were donated in his name to build laboratories at the ORT high school at Kiryat Tivon. On August 18, 2020, the Israeli Air Force flew over Dachau concentration camp and Major T., Deputy Commander of Squadron 105, carried Max's Dachau prisoner badge in his pocket.

Adi Ribon (Poretzky-Rubin), was born on December 5, 1929 in Kaunas, Lithuania. In June 1941, the Nazis occupied Lithuania and even before they entered Kaunas, the Lithuanians began carrying out terrible pogroms in their Jewish neighbors, Adi was saved from the first pogrom thanks to his stepfather, Mordchai Rubin, who bribed the Lithuanians who wanted to kidnap him from home, his parents decided to hide him in the attic, where he stayed until the day they entered the Kaunas ghetto on August 15, 1941. Adi grew quickly from an 11-year-old child into a young man that suffered the day to day ghetto life just like the rest of the adults. He managed to escape “children and elderly Aktion” in March 1944 but saw the Nazis take his grandmother, Chana-Riva Lescinski and push her to the truck that took her and others to the 9th Fort where they were all murdered. In the summer of 1944, when the Russians began to approach Kaunas, the family started to build an underground hideout so when the order came to report and be evacuated, they went into hiding, a few days later they were discovered by SS personnel, accompanied by dogs and were marched to the Kaunas train station, crammed into cattle rail-cars on their way westward. They were stopped at the Stutthof Concentration Camp where they underwent a "sorting and disinfecting" process, women and children were forcibly separated from the men, this is the last time Adi saw his mother who later was shot during the death march. Adi and his father were transported to the Kaufering Concentration Camp (a part of KZ Dachau), the prisoners were exploited to hard work in heat or snow and were given a meager food ration and a water-thinning soup. Weighing about 30 kg, Adi was forced to carry bags of cement double his weight, while running to create a bunker to protect the production of the Third Reich planes. In the spring of 1945, as the Allied forces progressed, the Germans forced the remaining prisoners to a death march towards southern Bavaria. On April 30th, the American soldiers arrived and liberated the camp, Adi crawled to receive the liberators because he had no strength to stand up. After regaining his strength Adi volunteered to join the Jewish forces fighting for the independence of Israel, he was trained by the “Haganah” in the French Alps and sailed to Palestine under an alias to join the fighters both on the northern and southern fronts. When the war was over Adi joined the Israeli Air Force and played an important part in building the technical array of the IAF and trained generations of air force technicians for planes and supporting systems maintenance. Adi served in the IDF for 35 years and retired as a Lieutenant-Colonel. He continued to work in the Military Industries until his retirement in 1995, afterwards he traveled all over Israel and gave lectures to thousands of high school students, soldiers in army bases and anyone who would lend an ear about the importance of the Jewish state to the Jewish people. Adi Ribon lived a full life, mostly as a free man in his own country, he passed away on November 22, 2011. He and his wife Chasida have three children and 10 grandchildren keeping his legacy alive.