DAUGIELISZKI
[End Page 1048] Pre-1939: Daugieliszki (Yiddish: Daugelishok), village, Wilno województwo, Poland; 1939–1940: Novye Dovgelishki, Vileika oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1940–1941: Naujasis Daugėliškis, Sventsiany uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Daugielischki, Kreis Schwentschionys, Gebiet Wilna-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Naujasis Daugėliškis, Ignalina rajonas, Utena apskritis, Republic of Lithuania
Daugieliszki, composed of two parts, new and old Daugieliszki, is located about 98 kilometers (61 miles) northeast of Wilno. In 1930, there were 175 Jews living in Daugieliszki, out of a total population of 350.
On the outbreak of war in September 1939, the Jews organized a self-defense force, which protected Jewish homes from being looted by hostile Christian peasants, until the arrival of the Red Army in the second half of the month.1 Daugieliszki was initially part of the Belorussian SSR, but in 1940 it was transferred to the Lithuanian SSR.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, a few Jews fled with the Soviet forces. Others, especially the elderly, remained behind, not wanting to abandon their property. In the area, a Lithuanian partisan squad was formed, which soon started arresting suspected Communists, Komsomol members, and Soviet activists. According to Soviet postwar investigations, the Lithuanian partisans escorted 16 of the arrested Jews a few kilometers outside the village in the direction of Ignalino and then shot them. The yizkor book reports that among those shot were the parents of some of the younger Jews, who had fled with the Soviets.2 In charge of the Lithuanian activists in Daugieliszki was Kazimierz Ziber.
The remaining Jews were then placed into a small ghetto in Daugieliszki.3 Very little is known about conditions in the ghetto, as no survivor accounts have been located. At the end of September, probably on September 27, 1941, the local police and former Lithuanian partisans, all under the command of Juozas Reinys, assembled the Jews from the Daugieliszki ghetto and escorted them to an overcrowded barracks at the military camp (firing range), also known as the Poligon transit camp, located 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) outside Nowe Święciany.
The Jews were held in the Poligon camp for more than a week under atrocious conditions, together with thousands of Jews brought there from other places in the region. Disease broke out due to the overcrowding, and the Jews were forced to surrender their remaining valuables, supposedly as a ransom to save their lives.4 Then on October 7–8, 1941, most of the Jews assembled in the Poligon camp were shot a short distance away in ditches prepared in the Baranower Forest. [End Page 1049] The mass shooting was conducted by the German Security Police and the men of the Ypatingas Burys Lithuanian killing squad, assisted by 120 local Lithuanian policemen and former partisans. According to the report of Karl Jäger, the commander of Einsatzkommando 3, the 3,726 Jewish victims included 1,169 men, 1,840 women, and 717 children.5 Other sources, however, indicate that as many as 6,000 to 8,000 people may have been killed at the site.6
During the war, the Jewish houses in Daugieliszki were burned down, leaving almost no trace of the village. Several Jews from Daugieliszki served with distinction in the Red Army and the Soviet partisans, including a few who died in battle.
SOURCES
Relevant publications include Shimon Kanc, ed., Sefer zikaron le-esrim ve-shalosh kehilot she-nehrevu be-ezor Svintsian (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Svintzian in Israel and the U.S., 1965), pp. 1170–1184; Arūnas Bubnys, “The Fate of the Jews in the Švenšionys, Oshmyany and Svir Regions (1941–1943),” in Irena Guzenberg et al., eds., The Ghettos of Oshmyany, Svir, Švenčionys Regions: Lists of Prisoners, 1942 (Vilnius: Valstybinis Vilniaus Gaono žydu muziejus, 2009), pp. 83–118, here pp. 99–100; and Christoph Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941–1944” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Freiburg, 2002), section F.1.2.6. The ghetto in Daugieliszki is mentioned also in: Guy Miron, ed., The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010), p. 154; and Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; New York: New York University Press, 2001), p. 298.
Documentation regarding the murder of the Jews of Daugieliszki can be found in the following archives: LCVA; LYA (K 1-58-34823/3 and K 1-58-886/3); and RGVA (500-1-25).
NOTES
1. Kanc, Sefer zikaron … Svintsian, pp. 1170, 1184.
2. LYA, K 1-58-34823/3, pp. 16 and verso, interrogation of D. Kuricka, May 12, 1945, as cited by Bubnys, “The Fate,” p. 99; Kanc, Sefer zikaron … Svintsian, pp. 1172, 1184. This source indicates 18 victims.
3. Kanc, Sefer zikaron … Svintsian, p. 1172.
4. “Poligon in Yor 1941,” in ibid., p. 5.
5. RGVA, 500-1-25, p. 114, report of Einsatzkommando 3, December 1, 1941. This report gives October 9, 1941, as the date of the killing, but some other sources indicate it occurred on October 7–8, 1941.
6. Kanc, Sefer zikaron … Svintsian, p. 1376, gives the figure of 8,000 victims at the Poligon camp. Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik,” uses the phrase “at least 5,000.”
