2017 Auros History of Jewish Vilkaviskis

NATIONAL COMPETITION FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN
"THE HISTORY OF THE LITHUANIAN FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
AND THE HISTORY OF THE VICTIMS"

Written by
Dovydas Grigas
Justinas Grumblys
Tomas Vizgirda

"Historical memory of Vilkaviskis Jews and the Holocaust"

Introduction

It is important for everyone, regardless of age, social status or gender, to know their roots - the history of their nation, their place of birth. As K. Vonnegut said: "Whether it is a tiny oasis in the desert, a red, fat clay, a mountainside, a rocky seashore or a patch of city street. Each of us is rooted in a patch of dirt, a swamp or a strip of white loose sand, a stone, a patch of asphalt, or a patch of carpet, so that we can call this place by the one word that counts: "home"

It doesn't matter what kind of environment a person is in, it is simply important, because a lot of things happen here for the first time: the first step taken, the first word spoken, the first smile given... And so it goes on for centuries, millennia... A generation replaces a generation... And only history is allowed to bring back the forgotten events of millennia, centuries, decades ago. To recall the stories of the people who lived. In our work, we would like to open one page of the history of our hometown - the fate of the Vilkaviskis Jewish community during the Second World War. We will try to discuss what happened to the representatives of this nation, and we will look at the fate of individual people.

Vilkaviskis is a small town in south-western Lithuania with about 11,000 inhabitants. It is a border town that was politically very important during the Second World War. Vilkaviskis as a town was never very famous in Lithuania.

Vilkaviskis was first mentioned in written sources at the beginning of the 16th century, around 1545, when Queen Bona Sforza provided wood for the construction of a Jewish synagogue. This historical event not only introduces the town, but also suggests that there must have been a large Jewish community already living in the town at that time, which needed a religious building in order to to be able to uphold the traditions of their people. Paradoxically, it was also the Jewish population that made Vilkaviskis famous, because people knew that "the oldest and most precious manuscript of the Jewish Scriptures of Lithuania" was kept in the Vilkaviskis synagogue.

As the years have passed, the city has grown and its community has grown. As far as we know from various stories, our grandparents used to tell us that there was a very large Jewish community in Vilkaviskis before the Second World War. This national minority was the most numerous in Vilkaviskis. According to A. ilinskas, "According to the data of 1923, out of 7263 inhabitants, as many as 3206 (44%) were Jews. Jews made up almost half of the pre-war town council. They presided over the county council." Thus, the Jewish community was not only large, but also influential, and was able to bring about important changes in the city. It can also be assumed that the local population must have got on well with the Jews. In general, in retrospect, the Lithuanian nation has been known for its tolerance of people of different religions and nationalities; for example, in historical sources, our capital Vilnius was often referred to as the Jerusalem of the North" and Lithuanian Jews as "Litvaks".

The fact that the Jewish community in Vilkaviskis was in a unique position is also reflected in the abundance of buildings for various purposes. First of all, the Great Synagogue of Vilkaviskis operated from 1545 to 1941 The synagogue was the most important Jewish spiritual and cultural center in Vilkaviskis. It was wooden, three-storied and served a congregation of more than 4,000 people during festivals and various celebrations. The synagogue consisted of a large oak Holy Ark, decorated with carved wooden ornaments, facing Jerusalem. It housed several ancient Torah scrolls brought by Jews who had been exiled from Spain, as well as other Torah scrolls. The religious center of the synagogue consisted of several buildings: the Great Synagogue, the Lesser Synagogue, the "Beit Midrash" (for the study of the Torah), the "Vaad-Ha'Kehilla" (for the administration of the community and the Rabbi's office). In addition to this synagogue, there were several smaller synagogues in Vilkaviskis between the wars in Lithuania. They were headed by rabbis: in the second half of the 19th century by L. Liandau and in the first half of the 20th century by E. J. ereevskis. A Hebrew Real Gymnasium was also established in Vilkaviskis, where education was conducted in Hebrew. As Y. Ankorion (an Israeli resident) said in his letter to the Vilkaviskis Regional Museum, "The Hebrew Gymnasium was active and flourished between the two world wars, in the years 1919-1940, during the years of the freedom and independence of the Lithuanian state. Also there was a Jewish home for the elderly.

This golden age of the Lithuanian people was also a time of culture and prosperity for people of Jewish origin (for almost 600 years, Jews made up about 60 percent of the population of Vilkaviskis).

In addition to the synagogues and the Hebrew Real Gymnasium, the Jewish community also owned other important sites in the city. First of all, the bristle and horsehair processing factory which was of particular importance to the people of that time, and was co-owned by S. Sobolevitch. This factory was famous not only in Vilkaviskis, but also throughout Lithuania. Taborikis had a mill and an oil press, I. Zilberis had a printing press, and I. Hazon had a famous sewing factory. Even ladies from Kaunas used to come here to sew some fashionable clothes. Various shops and restaurants were also owned by Jews at that time. Thus, the Jews of Vilkaviskis were influential and occupied a high social status in the town community. The town's trade and crafts were in Jewish hands, and they lived peacefully with the local population.

1939-1945 is a period of testing human values. It is a time when the true faces of human beings came out, a period that took the most lives in human history, The world was turned upside down, there were no rights or wrongs, only the strong and the weak... Unfortunately, during the Second World War, the large Jewish community of Vilkaviskis found itself in the ranks of the weak.

Lithuania was not granted neutrality during the Second World War, so both our territory and our people experienced what war meant. First of all, Lithuanians experienced the Russian occupation in June 1940. The Russian authorities quickly nationalized the private hospitals, factories, workshops and other businesses in Vilkaviskis. Vilkaviskis, as a border town, was soon overrun by Russian troops. However, these were only the initial steps of the occupiers. On 13 June 1941, at around 23:00, Russian soldiers were told to "transport fascist elements to distant areas of the Soviet Union". Thus, from 13 to 15 June, some 569 people were deported from Vilkaviskis County: 294 men and 275 women. This was only the first wave of the occupation. No one could have guessed what the people would expect when the Germans invaded their territory...

In 22 June 1941, at 7 a.m., German planes bombed the town of Vilkaviskis. There was panic as people fled from their homes as the town was engulfed in fire and smoke. At about 11 o'clock the first German soldiers appeared in Vilkaviskis They occupied the offices and took all the uniformed civil servants prisoner. However, the Russian soldiers did not surrender and the shooting continued. On the first day of the war, the town of Vilkaviskis was already badly affected, as the Evangelical Church, the shoe factory, the bristle and horsehair factory, the Bravol tobacco factory, the Forum cinema, the hospital, the synagogue, two mills, bookshops, the Kodino candy factory, a bank, a power station, a ruined seminary and a courthouse. 645 families were left homeless.

According to sources, the western part of the city, where many wooden buildings were located, was the worst affected. There was a rumor among the locals that the Germans did not allow the fires in the Jewish houses to be extinguished when a fire broke out in the western part of the town. The genocide of the Jewish people in Vilkaviskis gradually began..
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As we have already mentioned above, there was a large Jewish community in Vilkaviskis before the Second World War. It is known that the Germans, after the invasion of Poland, rounded up many Jews near Vitytis (Vilkaviskis district) and after several days of negotiations handed them over to Lithuania. The Smetona government accepted the Jews and distributed them among the larger towns. The Jews of Vilkaviskis took in their compatriots and took them in or rented apartments for them. Among the newcomers were many intellectuals: doctors, engineers, teachers. Thus, at the height of the Second World War, Vilkaviskis was not only home to local Jews, but also to Jews from Poland.

[I think they mean the Jews of Vizani not Vistytis and the Jews had to be smuggled from Poland….. Ralph]

During the first days of the occupation, Jews were still living in their own homes and apartments. Then they were all herded into the ghetto, which, was the priest's seminary.. According to local residents, many Jews did not believe that they were going to be killed and thought that they would be taken back to the old Jewish lands. Jews tried to adapt to the changed living conditions: "they were taken to work in the villages at the request of farmers. But, according to the locals, I never heard of a single one escaping." The German authorities tried to involve the local population in their policy of exterminating Jews. The guards, who were usually drawn from the local rabble, taunted the Jews and tortured them in various ways. But all this was only the beginning of what was to follow.

The first massacre. Gestapo officers from Tiltzכs were shooting, while Lithuanians guarded the execution site and the barracks. 500-600 Jewish men and 60-70 Lithuanian communists were shot that day.

On 28 July this time the Jews of Vilkavikis were shot by Vilkavikis policemen. The property of the murdered was later sold off to the local population.

On 24 September, Jewish women and children from Vilkaviskis were shot.

The last people were killed on 15 November. The report of the German Security Police and SD commander K. Jהger, dated 1 December 1941, states that 115 Jews (36 men, 48 women and 31 men) were killed that day.

As we can see, the genocide of the Jewish people was partly assisted by some Lithuanians who were loyal to Nazi policy. It is difficult to say what might have prompted Lithuanians to join in the execution of the Jews: perhaps a desire for power or wealth... But such actions are, have been and will continue to be shameful for us as a nation.

Have we ever wondered what a person thinks when he knows he is about to die? If it is a punishment for his crimes, perhaps he has repented of them. If it is the natural end of the road of life, perhaps the person reflected on his fate and said goodbye to his loved ones and friends forever. But how do you come to terms with death when you have done nothing wrong to man, state or politics... How does it feel to be a mother who carries her child to the grave alive? How does it feel for a child to know that, for some unknown reason, he is doomed to die? What is it like to wait for death to come?... Probably we would find it difficult to answer these questions. However, as an example, we would like to present a fragment of a letter from a Jewish woman, Dvora Alexnansky, who lived in the Vilkaviskis region. She was condemned to die, but in her last hours she wrote a letter to her brother who lived in Cuba.
To read this letter click here