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

Pre-1940: Kėdainiai (Yiddish: Keidan), town, Kaunas apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Kėdainiai/Kedainiai, Kaunas uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Kedahnen, Kreis center, Gebiet Kauen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Kėdainiai, rajonas center, Kaunas apskritis, Republic of Lithuania

Kėdainiai is located about 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of Kaunas. In 1923, the Jewish population was 2,499. On the eve of the German invasion, there were about 2,500 Jews in Kėdainiai.¹

German forces captured Kėdainiai on June 24, 1941. In the short time available, some younger Jews tried to flee into the Soviet interior, but most were forced back by the rapid German advance or lost their lives on the roads. At least 2 Jews were murdered in the first days of the occupation, as Lithuanian “hooligans” went on a rampage. Immediately, local Lithuanian nationalists, including many from the educated middle class, formed a town administration. The local mayor was a man named Povilios, and a police force was established under the command of Vincas Mimavišius. At the end of June 1941, 30 Lithuanian partisans arrested about 100 Jews who were accused of being Communists and having collaborated with the Soviets. The partisans marched them through town in their underwear to the Babenai Forest about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) outside the town, where they shot them.² The new Lithuanian administration implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures. Jews were marked with yellow Stars of David, were ordered to perform forced labor, and were not permitted to maintain any relations with non-Jews. Local antisemites beat and plundered the Jews with impunity. Forced labor tasks included sorting out bombs left behind by the Soviets at the airfield, under close supervision by the Lithuanian police. About 10 Jews were killed during this work.³

On July 23, 1941, a second Aktion was carried out in Kėdainiai. On that day, Germans from Einsatzkommando 3 and Lithuanian policemen arrested 95 Jews (83 men and 12 women), as well as 15 Russian and 15 Lithuanian Communists.⁴ They transported the prisoners on six trucks about 10 kilometers (6 miles) into the Taušiūnai Forest and then shot them. In return for a large sum, a local Lithuanian informed the remaining Jews of the fate of those arrested, but initially their relatives were reluctant to believe that it was true.⁵

At the start of August 1941, on the order of Doškus, the head of the Kėdainiai district, Mayor Povilios established a ghetto in the town. He instructed the Jewish leaders that the remaining Jews in Kėdainiai had to vacate their homes within 24 hours and move onto Smilgia Street to the synagogue; this area, together with the surrounding lanes up to Gaidiminiu Street, was surrounded with barbed wire.⁶ On August 14, 1941, Jews from the village of Žeimiai were resettled into the ghetto.⁷ On the same day, 200 Jews were also resettled there from the village of Šėta. Others were brought in from Josvaniai. Overcrowding in the ghetto was severe, and almost all food reserves were used up. The inmates of the ghetto suffered from hunger and outbreaks of typhus. Povilios ordered the Jews in the ghetto to pay a “contribution” of 100 rubles per head, threatening to destroy the community if the sum was not paid. People gave up their last rubles to meet this demand.⁸ Some Jewish youths wanted to flee to the forests and hide, but the community leaders urged them not to, lest they should endanger the entire community.

On August 16, 1941, on the orders of the director of the police department in Kaunas, all men over the age of 15 in the ghetto were rounded up. Women who allegedly “in the years of the Russian occupation worked for the Bolsheviks and at the present time continued with the same kind of insolent work” were also seized.⁹ In total, 730 men and 183 women were arrested and imprisoned in the barn of the Kėdainiai School of Technology, under close guard. The men were held separately from the women. Among the men were 19 students from the Mir Yeshiva who had arrived in 1939–1940 and had not managed to escape.¹⁰ The prisoners were held under terrible conditions, with almost no food and water for 13 days. The Lithuanian guards deprived them of their last few possessions. Each day they were transported to various forced labor tasks.¹¹

On August 27, 1941, district head Doškus called a meeting to coordinate the destruction of the Jews. About 150 Lithuanians attended, including municipal employees, 20 technology students, 20 railroad workers, and Lithuanian partisans. A German officer addressed the group, saying that it was necessary to help Germany destroy its enemies: the Jews of Kėdainiai. A former bank clerk, Kungys, then spoke, also calling on the assembled Lithuanian patriots to help destroy the Jews, accusing them of having helped the Bolsheviks bring Soviet rule to Lithuania.¹² Those attending the meeting were then assigned to three separate groups: one for escorting the Jews, one for guarding the ghetto, and a third for taking care of the site of the shooting. Volunteer shooters came forward from among the crowd.

The next day, forces of Einsatzkommando 3, Lithuanian policemen, and other local personnel assembled and were issued ammunition. Not everyone from the meeting the previous day chose to show up. First, the sick and the elderly were transported on trucks to the killing site in a ravine 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) northwest of the city, on the road to Dotnuva near the Smilga stream. Here, Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) threw the old people into the pit like sacks before they were fired on. The Jewish men were escorted from the Technology School on foot and were made to undress at the pits. During the shooting of the men, there were several individual acts of resistance. One Jew, Zadok Schlapoberskii, a former officer in the Lithuanian army, managed to grab a pistol from a Lithuanian guard and wounded the German commandant as they grappled with each other, falling into the pit. Other Lithuanian guards jumped in and bayoneted Schlapoberskii, but not before he wounded a Lithuanian, Aleksas Cižas, sufficiently to kill him. Two other Jews were shot as they attempted to flee.¹³ [End Page 1070]

Last to be shot were the women and children; some children were merely tossed into the pit to be buried alive. To cover the screams of the victims, the Lithuanians revved the engines of their vehicles. The shooting lasted until evening, and the murderers had brought with them large quantities of vodka and beer. Present at the site was Mayor Povilios, the high school principal, and a young Catholic priest.¹⁴ Among those who participated directly in the shooting were a restaurant owner, students from the College of Technology, railroad employees, and the manager of the power station. At the end, the Soviet POWs spread lime over the grave, and Police Chief Kurkitis gave his men permission to return home. In total, the few Germans present and their Lithuanian collaborators shot 2,076 people (710 men, 767 women, and 599 children).¹⁵

Local Lithuanians saw piles of tefillin and even baby’s comforters next to the bloody grave site just after the massacre. They observed the ground moving over the following days as gas escaped from the grave. Locals looted the empty ghetto.¹⁶ The more valuable property was taken by the Germans and the police, with less valuable property being sold to the local population at fixed prices. Only three Jews from the Kėdainiai ghetto, Chaim Ronder, Shmuel Smulasky, and Benzel Berger, are known to have survived the massacre by escaping from the ghetto or successfully hiding. They then managed to hide with local farmers before joining the Soviet partisans later in the war.¹⁷