A study of Jewish life in the Polish-Lithuanian town of Ejszyszki (Eisiskes), based largely on interviews with former residents of the town. Pt. 6 (pp. 557-697), "The Bitter End: 1933-41, " deals with the Holocaust period. The story of the destruction of the Jewish community is interlaced with the story of Eliach's family, the Sonensons, and their experiences during the war. Many Jews were killed by the Nazis and local collaborators on 25-26 September 1941. The Sonensons were among the few who managed to escape; they passed through some small ghettos and were then hidden by a Polish farmer, Kazimierz Korkuc. They returned to Eisiskes after the liberation, but Eliach's mother and baby brother were murdered in their home by rampaging Polish AK partisans in October 1944. Contends that, despite the relatively large number of rescuers, the majority of Poles were antisemitic and wished for a "Poland without Jews." The Nazis would not have been able to carry out the genocide of the Jews without widespread Polish and Lithuanian collaboration.