DARBĖNAI
[End Page 1047] Pre-1940: Darbėnai (Yiddish: Dorbian), town, Kretinga apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Darbėnai/Darbenai, Kretinga uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Dorbianen, Kreis Kröttingen, Gebiet Schaulen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Darbėnai, Kretinga rajonas, Klaipeda apskritis, Republic of Lithuania
Darbėnai is located 133 kilometers (83 miles) west of Šiauliai, near the Baltic coast. On the eve of the German invasion, there were around 700 Jews living in Darbėnai.
On June 23, 1941, German forces occupied the town. On the same day, Lithuanian nationalists seized control of the local administration and formed a militia. Both these organizations later were subordinated to Hans Gewecke, the Gebietskommissar Schaulen-Land. Shortly after the Germans arrived, a fire broke out, and the Lithuanians blamed it on the Jews. In the ensuing chaos, Darbėnai’s rabbi was beaten to death. After order was restored, the local administration introduced a series of anti-Jewish measures: Jews were required to perform forced labor and to wear the Star of David. The Jews were constantly beaten and harassed by local antisemites who also stole their property.
On June 29, the local Lithuanian militia rounded up 144 Jewish males aged 16 and older and shot them in the nearby woods. The remaining women and children were confined on the grounds of the old synagogue with little food or water and under hot and unsanitary conditions, guarded by members of the militia. On August 15, 1941, the chief of police in Darbėnai reported that he was holding 400 Jewish women and children in his “ghetto” and sought authority to hire contract policemen to guard it.1
This improvised ghetto was liquidated during the course of two further Aktions conducted during August and September. On August 24, 300 women and children were shot in the woods on the edge of town. On September 22 (Rosh Hashanah), the remaining prisoners were shot at the same site.2 According to the testimony of a Jewish survivor, R.A. Šateliene, the local police (militia) played an active role in the Rosh Hashanah massacre.
When the Soviet authorities exhumed the mass graves in November 1944 following the German retreat, they found iron bars and wooden clubs that had been used to murder the Jews. Two memorials mark the site where the Jews of Darbėnai were murdered. The site is located on the edge of the forest, about 100 meters (328 feet) from the road, in the direction of Lazdininkai.
SOURCES
Additional information on the fate of the Jews of Darbėnai during the Holocaust can be found in the following publications: Hitleriniai Žudikai Kretingoje (Vilnius, 1960), pp. 36–40; and “Darbenai,” in Dov Levin and Yosef Rosin, eds., Pinkas ha-kehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), p. 209.
Documents dealing with the persecution and murder of the Jews of Darbėnai can be found in the following archives: GARF (7021-94-422); LCVA (R 1665-2-36); and YVA.
