Druskininkai
The Jewish population of the town before WWII was about 900 people. In November 1943 all of them were deported from Druskininkai ghetto the Kolbazin concentration camp in Belarus. After the war none of them returned to the home town. Most probably, there were all murdered.
Druskininkai is a birthplace of a world famous sculptor Zhak Lipshits. He was born in 1891. In 1909 he went to study to Paris. In 1941 Zh. Lipshits emigrated to USA. He died in August 1977 in the Island of Capri. Buried in Jerusalem. The seasonal Zhak Lipshits State Jewish Museum operates in Druskininkai. Its address: Sv. Jokubo street 17, telephone: (37033) 56 077.
Currently the Jewish Community of Druskininkai has 15 members. The spectrum Community’s activities includes commemoration of the Day of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews (September 23), celebration of various Jewish holidays.
Chairperson: M. Vainermanaite
Address: Vytauto St. 19-15, Druskininkai, Lithuania
Tel. (37033) 54 590
Kaunas
Six hundred Jews and their family members belong to the Jewish Community of Kaunas. The Community was reestablished in 1992. Its is headed by the Council and the Chairman.
Community’s activities aim at continuity of Jewish culture, putting in order Jewish cemeteries and sites of mass-killings, organizing celebrations of Jewish holidays and commemorations of tragic dates, supporting the Sundays school-kindergarten and sport club, providing help to the needy Kaunas Jews.
Office hours: Monday to Friday 10-12 and 13-17 o’clock.
Chairman: Gertsas Zhakas
Address: Gedimino St. 26b, Kaunas LT-44319, Lithuania
Tel. (3707) 203 717
Fax (3707) 201 135
e-mail: kzb@pub.vdu.lt
Klaipeda
The Community has been officially reestablished in May 1989 and registered by the Council of the town in December 1989.
The Community has 320 members. Among organizations operating at the community are the Club for the elderly “EZRA”, the Sunday school, the children club “CIANIM” attended by 35 kids. Community’s activities are aimed at strengthening Jewish identity, preserving Yiddish language, Jewish cultural and historic heritage.
Chairperson: Anna Glushko
Address: Zhiedu skg. 3, Klaipeda, Lithuania
Tel./fax: (3706) 493 758
Panevezhys
The Jewish Community of Panevezhys has been reestablished on June 12, 1991. Community’s main aims are:
— strengthening of the Jewish identity;
— preservation and cultivation of the Jewish cultural and religious legacy;
The Community has accomplished substantial work in making the Jewish heritage known to the non-Jewish population of Lithuania, putting in order old Jewish cemeteries and sights of mass-killings in Panevezhys and the area.
Currently the Community consists of 20 members.
Chairman: Genadij Kofman
Address: Sodu St. 32-23, LT-36231 Panevezhys, Lithuania
Tel./Fax: (370 45) 43 52 95
Plunge
Before WWII some 2500 Jews inhabited the town of Plunge and its surroundings. The majority of them were artisans, shopkeepers, several wealthier people. There were two layers, two pharmacists, six doctors. Jews administrated a wealth of organizations: the Jewish national bank, the OZE Association of Jewish health (the head of Plunge department was Nekhemij Ril), the Council of the Jewish Community of Plunge, the Peretz library. Jewish children attended a college, a cheder, three primary schools. There were also four synagogues, one of them built in c. 1864. Jews of Plunge and the area founded various organizations, associations, clubs: sport —“Hapoel” and “Spartak”, Zionist — “Shomer hatsajir”, “Chaluts hatsajir”, “Beitar”. There was also the “Bund” organization.
One of the first burgomasters of Plunge in independent Lithuania was a Jew Boruch-Dovid Goldvaser (1918-1932), later the Deputy burgomaster was also Jewish, named Hirshe Metsas.
2236 Jews from Plunge and the area perished in the flames of the Holocaust. There are ten sites of mass-killings. The largest of them is located in the village of Kaushenai near Plunge. 1800 Jews are buried here in six death-pits. The memorial has been established on the site with matseiva and nine large oak sculptures that remind of the suffering of the Jewish people. Almost all of nine sculptures were created by a folk artist Jakov Bunka. Each year on the last week of July Jews from Klaipeda, Telshiai, as well as many Lithuanians gather here to remember the perished. They say kaddish and yizkor.
In 1972 a Lithuanian secondary school was built on the territory of the old Jewish that dated back to 15th century. 85 matseivas survived. They were brought back to the untouched territory of the cemetery in 1989. On 52 matseivas the names of the deceased are still readable.
The postwar Jewish Community of Plunge received the official status in 1992. Currently the Community has 13 members. Part of them derive from mixed families. Nonetheless all the members very actively participate in Community’s life. The head of the Community if is Jakov Bunka, a well-known folk artists, sculptor.
Wood sculptures in the (Kaushenai) Koshan forest where the Plungyan Jews were shot and buried in 6 mass graves.
by Jacob Josef Bunka
One of Plunge’s streets is called the Synagogue street. The naming of the street was initiated by the local Jewish Community. The Community often organizes exhibitions dedicated to cultural and religious Jewish life. At the moment there are about 100 items that will in a long run become the basis for a permanent museum exposition. News from Jewish social, cultural life are highlighted in the local press.
Jakov Bunka (Josl Bunk), Community’s chairman, wrote the Yiddish history of Plunge Jewry (1348-1995). The history has been translated into the Lithuanian, German, and English. The English version is available on the Internet at: http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html
or http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/plunge/plunge.html.
There exists an incomplete list of the murdered Jews of Plunge.
Chairman: Jakov Bunka
Address: V. Macernio St. 6-16, Plunge, Lithuania
Tel. (370448) 52156
Shiauliai
The prewar Jewish Community of Shiauliai, whose membership in 1939 reached 8500 Jews, was highly developed with sophisticated systems of education and health care.
In 1988 Lithuanian Cultural Fund’s Association of the Jewish Culture of Shiauliai region was set up. In May 1992 the Jewish Community of Shiauliai area was registered at the Ministry of Justice.
The Community has 230 members. Many of the town’s inhabitants use the facilities of Community's library. The Community support the work of the “Makkabi” sport club, the Shiauliai branch of the Union of the Union of the Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners. It also celebrates all Jewish Holidays.
The Community has accumulated a rich archive of materials dealing with prewar Jewish life, as well as the Catastrophe.
The highest Community's governing body is the Council.
Chairman: Boris Steinas
Address: Visinskio 24, Šiauliai, LT-77155, Lithuania
Tel. (370 41) 426796
Fax: (370 41) 426678
Shvenchionys
Jews settled down in Shvenchionys (Sventsian) about 650 years ago. In 1795 the town was proclaimed the administrative center of ujezd. After WWII a significant part of the Shvenchionys district otoshla Belarus. Before WWII the Jewish population of the town was 3900 (the total population of Sventsian at that time was 8200). The Jewish life in Sventsian resembled that of the Jews living in Vilna during the period of the flourishing of Jewish culture in Lithuania (so called "period of Jerusalem of Lithuania"). Two seven-grade Jewish schools were open in the town. A Jewish college operated here in 1920-1928. There were two cultural societies with rich libraries (several thousands of volumes in each): books in Yiddish, Russian, French etc. The libraries contained extensive collections of Jewish classical writings, as well as books by L.N.Tolstoj, F.Dostojevskij, A.Pushkin, Rabindranat Tagor, H.Heine and others. There were two drama theaters, five synagogues (2 of them were Chassidic), a yeshiva, various sport societies. Shvenchionys brought to the world a number of famous scientists, writers, artists.
During WWII the Jews of Shvenchionys shared the tragic fate of the entire Lithuanian Jewry — thousands of them perished in the flames of the Holocaust.
Today the Jewish population of Shvenchionys amounts to 14 people. Seven of them live in Shvenchionys, five — a small town of Pabrade, the remaining two — in Shvenchioneliai. All of the are pensioners. There are four cemeteries, the oldest of whom belongs to the end of 17th century. There is also a mass-grave of 8000 Jews, murdered on October 6, 1941, as well as other seven sights of mass-killings with various numbers of Holocaust victims.
Chairperson: B. Katz
Address: Vilniaus St. 5-7, Shvenchionys, Lithuania
Tel. (370 387) 51 930
Ukmerge
The Jewish community of Ukmerge (Vilkomir) is first mentioned in a document of 1685. In the census of 1766, 716 Jews were counted there, and by 1847 their number had risen to 3758, the majority of them engaged in commerce and crafts including tanning, by the 1880's the number of Jews reached 10,000.
In Ukmerge is also a mass-grave of 10239 Jews, murdered on September 5, 1941.
Today the Jewish population of Ukmerge amounts to 30 people. The Jewish Community of Ukmerge has been reestablished in 1989.
Community’s main aims are: preservation and cultivation of the Jewish cultural and religious legacy, strengthening identity, providing help to the needy Ukmerge Jews.
Chairman: Arturas Taicas
Address: Veterinarijos 12-65,
Ukmerge LT-20137, Lithuania
Tel. +370 61007961
mail: jewish_ukmerge@mail.lt
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