BIRŽAI
Pre-1940: Biržai (Yiddish: Birzh), town, Panevėžys apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Biržai/Birzhai, uezd center, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Birsen, Kreis center, Gebiet Ponewesch-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post–1991: Biržai, rajonas center, Panevėžys apskritis, Republic of Lithuania
Biržai is located 94 kilometers (58 miles) east-northeast of Šiauliai. In 1934, there were about 3,000 Jews in the town, making up just over one third of the population.
German troops captured Biržai on June 26, 1941. Immediately, Lithuanian nationalist activists formed a town administration and a local auxiliary police force, commanded by a man named Ignatavicius. A series of anti-Jewish measures were promptly imposed. They ordered the Jews to wear yellow Stars of David and forbade them to use the sidewalk. Jewish houses were marked with the letter J. Jews were dismissed from their jobs, and the authorities compelled them to perform forced labor in the course of which the Lithuanian overseers taunted and beat them.1 The killing of individual Jews began immediately. Among the first victims was the rabbi, Rav Yehuda Leib Bernstein, who was shot by local Lithuanian antisemites who bore a personal grudge, as he had once reported them for breaking the windows in the synagogue. The community managed at some risk to bury him in the Jewish cemetery. [End Page 1044]
On July 26, 1941, the town authorities ordered all the Jews to move into a ghetto, for which purpose they had designated several small streets in the vicinity of the synagogue. Any Lithuanians living in this area were also forced to move out, exchanging houses with Jews who moved in. Barbed wire surrounded the area, and armed Lithuanian policemen guarded it. A lack of resources caused widespread hunger in the ghetto.
The Biržai ghetto existed for only about two weeks. On August 4, 1941, a group of about 500 Jewish men were sent out of the ghetto with spades, while the women, children, and elderly were locked up in the synagogue, guarded by Lithuanian auxiliary police (wearing white armbands). The men dug a ditch more than 30 meters long and 2 meters wide (98.4 by 6.6 feet), which took them three days. Then on August 8, German forces of Einsatzkommando 3, assisted by Lithuanian auxiliaries, surrounded the ghetto. The Jews were told that they would be sent to Palestine and were ordered to assemble. The men were marched out to the ditches first and were beaten and cursed on the way. Dr. Levin, a local physician, refused to go and was shot on the spot. They were taken to the ditches in the Astravas Forest, about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) outside the town.2
About one hour later, the women and children were marched off in the same direction, waving good-bye to local acquaintances. At this time the sound of shooting could already be heard in the distance. Jews from the hospital were taken to the killing site on trucks.3 At the ditch the Jews were made to undress and then shot in the graves in groups of 10, piled up on top of each other. Some of the Jews had their gold teeth ripped out of their mouths. The murderers drank heavily during the Aktion.4 In total about 2,400 Jews (720 men, 780 women, and 900 children) were murdered. Several days later about 90 Lithuanians were shot into the same mass grave for alleged collaboration with the Soviets.5 After the Aktion, local Lithuanians looted property from the empty ghetto, handing only the most valuable items on to the Germans. In September 1941, Einsatzgruppe A reported that Kreis Birsen was “cleansed of Jews” (judenrein).6
One Jewish girl, Helena Nosova, is known to have escaped from the murder Aktion and survived with the aid of local Lithuanians until the arrival of the Red Army. After the war, Jewish survivors and returnees to Biržai placed a memorial at the site of the mass killing.
SOURCES
Information on the fate of the Jews of Biržai during the Holocaust can be found in the following publications: Henry Tabakin, Only Two Remained (Cleveland, OH: Private Edition, 1973); B. Baranauskas and E. Rozauskas, ed., Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje (1941–1944) Dokumentų rinkinys, vol. 2 (Vilnius: “Mintis,” 1973), pp. 115–118; Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, The Annihilation of Lithuania Jewry (New York: Judaica Press, 1995), pp. 184–186; Arūnas Bubnys, “Mazieji Lietuvos Zydu Getai Ir Laikinos Izoliaviavimo Stoyvyklos 1941–1943 Metais,” in The Year Book of Lithuanian History, 1999 (Vilnius: Metai, 2000), pp. 151–179, on p. 178; and Dov Levin and Yosef Rosin, eds., Pinkas ha-kehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), pp. 172–178 (an English translation of the article on Birzh [Biržai] by Yosef Rosin can also be found via jewishgen.org).
Documentation on the murder of the Jews of Biržai can be found in the following archives: BA-BL (R 58/217) LYA (K 1-46-1294); TsGAMORF (335/5136/151, pp. 36–37); USHMM (RG-50.473*0099); and YVA.
NOTES
1. USHMM, RG-50.473*0099, testimony of Regina Drevinskiene.
2. TsGAMORF, 335/5136/151, pp. 36–37.
3. USHMM, RG-50.473*0099.
4. TsGAMORF, 335/5136/151, pp. 36–37.
5. Ibid.
6. BA-BL, R 58/217, Ereignismeldung UdSSR no. 88, September 19, 1941. In this report Biržai is misspelled as Perzai, but it is correctly spelled in the Tätigkeits- und Lagebericht no. 5, for the second half of September; see Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42 (Berlin: Hentrich, 1997), p. 203.
