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

Pre-1940: Joniškis (Yiddish: Yanishok), town, Šiauliai apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Joniškis/Ionishkis, Shauliai uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Joniskis/Janischken, Kreis Schaulen, Gebiet Schaulen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Joniškis, rajonas center, Šiauliai apskritis, Republic of Lithuania

Joniškis is located 39 kilometers (24 miles) north-northeast of Šiauliai. According to the 1923 census, there were 978 Jews living in Joniškis. By June 1941, as a result of out-migration in the 1930s, the Jewish population had declined to around 700 people.

German armed forces occupied the town on June 24, 1941. Soon afterwards, Lithuanian nationalists formed a local administration, headed by Mayor Antanas Gedivilas, and a police unit, headed by Juozas Sutkus. The police unit recruited 104 men, of which 54 were armed.¹ The local administration and police started their activities by arresting Jews and alleged Soviet sympathizers.

On July 11, 1941, the local Lithuanian Committee for Jewish Affairs, with Juozas Tininis as its head, announced a series of anti-Jewish measures. Among them was an order requiring that Joniškis Jews return from the villages. Other regulations included the compulsory wearing of the Star of David, a ban on Jews using the sidewalks, and a prohibition on Jews employing Aryans. Jews also were required to perform forced labor in agriculture and public works. On July 18, the Committee for Jewish Affairs demanded a “contribution” of 20,000 rubles from the Jews, which was to be paid to the local Lithuanian Activists’ Front by the next day.² The contribution was actually paid on July 24.

[End Page 1061] In mid-July 1941, the Committee for Jewish Affairs examined the question of transferring the Jews to a separate quarter (a ghetto). It proposed putting some of the Jews in the synagogues and also housing the others on Dariaus, Girėno, and Pašvitinio Streets or transferring Jews to Žagarė. The same meeting prepared measures for the transfer of Jewishowned farms to Lithuanians.³ A few days later, some Jews were forced to live in the synagogues, and the remainder were relocated to a group of houses adjoining the market square. This ghetto area was guarded by the local police.

The German Security Police in Šiauliai put pressure on the head of the police in Joniškis, Sutkus, to complete the murder of the Jews. At some time in August 1941, two Gestapo officials from Šiauliai, accompanied by other Germans, arrived in Joniškis to organize the murder of the local Jewish men. Sutkus then ordered the local policemen to arrest around 150 Jewish men from the synagogue. These men were put on trucks and taken to a site 5 kilometers (3 miles) outside Joniškis in the Vilkiaušis Forest, where a large ditch had been prepared. The men were ordered to undress and had to surrender their valuables. The Jews were then shot by the Lithuanian policemen (wearing white armbands) under German supervision.⁴ After the Aktion, the clothes of the murdered Jews were brought back to Joniškis, and the participants in the Aktion gathered at the local beer garden to celebrate with alcohol. Sutkus thanked his men for their “good work and sacrifices for the benefit of the Homeland.”⁵

On August 24–29, 1941, another 150 Jews were transferred from Joniškis to Žagarė, where they were murdered with the Jews of the Žagarė ghetto on October 2, 1941.⁶ The remaining 355 Jews in Joniškis, consisting mainly of the elderly, women, and children, were killed at the end of August or in September 1941 by a Lithuanian Self-Defense squad that arrived from outside the town.⁷

A number of Lithuanian collaborators, who were active in Joniškis, were tried by the Soviet authorities after the war. Among them were Antanas Gedivilas and Juozas Sutkus, who were tried in 1947.