of Elders"), headed by Dr. Elkhanan Elkes, and his deputy, Leib Garfunkel, also created workshops inside the ghetto for those women, children, and elderly who could not participate in the labor brigades. Eventually, these workshops employed almost 6,500 people. The council hoped the Germans would not kill Jews who were producing for the army. Underground school and Kinder Aktion As an act of defiance an underground school was conducted in the Kovno Ghetto when such education was banned in 1942. A remarkable photo of one of the classes of that school features in the US Holocaust publication, "The Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto". Identification of the teacher visible in that photo is given in a website that deals with the hidden school. On March 27–28, 1944, some 1,600 children aged 12 or less, alongside many of their parents who attempted to intervene, and elderly people aged 55 or more, approximately 2,500 in total, were rounded up and murdered in the Kinder Aktion ("children action"). Forty Jewish ghetto policemen who refused under torture to disclose hiding locations were also murdered by Bruno Kittel. During this time, police cars roamed the ghetto streets and music was blared over loudspeakers to mute the terrified screams of families. Reports of similar actions at other towns had reached the ghetto prior to the round-up, and some parents managed to smuggle their children to non-Jewish foster homes outside the ghetto. However, the vast majority of ghetto children were murdered. Very few Jewish children survived by the time Kovno was liberated by the Russian forces on August 1, 1944. Smuggling babies out of the ghetto From 1942 births were not permitted in the ghetto and pregnant women faced death. However a number of babies of ages from about 9 months to 15 months were smuggled out of the Kovno Ghetto to willing Lithuanian foster mothers. Orchestra The orchestra operated in the ghetto between November 1, 1942, and September 15, 1943. Its leader and musical conductor was the famous pre-war Lithuanian musician Michael Hofmekler. Percy Haid, a Riga born Jew, was the house composer. The orchestra performed about 83 concerts, most of them were held in the building of the former Slobodka Yeshiva. Final days In the autumn of 1943, the SS assumed control of the ghetto and converted it into the Kauen concentration camp. Wilhelm Göcke served as the camp's commandant. The Jewish council's role was