The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

Pre-1939: Hoduciszki (Yiddish: Haydutsishok), village, Wilno województwo, Poland; 1939–1940: Godutishki, Vileika oblast’; Belorussian SSR; 1940–1941: Adutiškis/Adutishkis, Sventsiany uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Hoduciszki, Kreis Schwentschionys, Gebiet Wilna-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Adutiškis, Švenčionys rajonas, Vilnius apskritis, Republic of Lithuania

Hoduciszki is located 97 kilometers (60 miles) east-northeast of Wilno. In 1921, there were 875 Jews living in Hoduciszki. By mid-1941, this number had probably declined somewhat.

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, in late June 1941, a number of Jews attempted to flee from Hoduciszki, but they were prevented from escaping by Lithuanian collaborators of the Nazis. German armed forces occupied the village on July 1–2, 1941. As soon as the Germans arrived, the Lithuanian militia murdered around 200 Jews. A number of Jews from nearby villages also fled towards Hoduciszki, but some of these people were intercepted and killed.

In July 1941, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) governed the village. At this time a Jewish Council (Judenrat) was established in Hoduciszki, which was required to provide a number of Jews daily for forced labor. In addition, the German authorities required Jews to wear markings bearing the Star of David and banned them from going outside the village limits.

In August 1941, authority was transferred to a German civil administration. Hoduciszki became part of Gebiet Wilna-Land within Generalkommissariat Litauen. On August 15, 1941, the German authorities established a ghetto in Hoduciszki. This timing roughly coincided with an order issued by Gebietskommissar Horst Wulff, on August 18, 1941, for the marking of the Jews and their confinement within ghettos and another order, issued by the police chief in Święciany, in mid-August, preparing for the transfer of the Jews of the Święciany subdistrict to the barracks near Nowe Święciany, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northwest of Święciany, and the confiscation of their property.¹ The Jews of Hoduciszki were ordered to vacate their homes within two hours and were resettled into the run-down houses on Vidžių Street. Local Lithuanians then plundered the vacated Jewish houses. The overcrowding in the Hoduciszki ghetto was unbearable. Lithuanian policemen guarded its entrance.²

The village of Stojaciszki, located about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from Hoduciszki, was also subject to German regulations issued in Hoduciszki, which the Polish village elder passed on. The Jewish inhabitants in Stojaciszki became increasingly nerv ous by August 1941, as refugees from massacres elsewhere in Lithuania began to arrive there. On September 19, two policemen arrived from Hoduciszki to register all Jewish property. Then on September 26, four armed Lithuanian civilians informed the Jewish representative, Yisroel Gantovnik, that the Jews would all have to move to Nowe Święciany.³ Apparently, the roughly 300 Jews from Stojaciszki were then brought briefly into the Hoduciszki ghetto at the end of September.

In late September 1941, the German authorities liquidated the Hoduciszki ghetto. The Jews were assembled, and the bulk of them (probably around 1,000 people) were escorted to Nowe Święciany. The sick and elderly Jews were placed on about 50 carts that were provided, and the rest of the Jews had to walk the roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) on foot, guarded by Lithuanian policemen. A number of skilled craftsmen and their families were left behind in Hoduciszki at this time. On arrival in Nowe Święciany, the Jews were placed in an overcrowded barracks at a military camp (or shooting range) also known as the Poligon transit camp, located about 1.8 kilometers (1 mile) outside the town. During their brief stay in the barracks, the Jews suffered from hunger, thirst, abuse, and murder at the hands of the guards. Then, on or around October 9, 1941, the Jews from Hoduciszki were shot along with many other Jews from the region, who also had been assembled in these barracks.

A number of Jews managed to escape at the time of the roundup, during the transfer from Hoduciszki to Nowe Święciany, or possibly also from among the skilled workers that remained in Hoduciszki thereafter. On October 14, 1941, the head of Kreis Schwentschionys reported that the police in Hoduciszki had shot 19 Jews who had tried to escape.⁴ Some of the Jews who escaped successfully from the Hoduciszki ghetto subsequently joined the anti-Nazi partisans, while others ended up in various camps and ghettos. Only a small [End Page 1055] number managed to survive until the Red Army drove the Germans from the area in 1944.