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

Pre-1940: Kuršenai (Yiddish: Kurshan), town, Šiauliai apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Kuršenai/Kurshenai, Shauliai uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Kurschenen, Kreis Schaulen, Gebiet Schaulen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Kuršenai, Šiauliai rajonas and apskritis, Republic of Lithuania [End Page 1081]

Kuršenai is located 26 kilometers (16 miles) west-northwest of Šiauliai. In 1939, there were around 900 Jews living in the town, out of a total population of 2,892.

Immediately after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941, many Jews from Kuršenai tried to escape into Russia. However, only 30 families succeeded, as the Soviet authorities forced many to turn back at the Latvian border. On the night that German forces first arrived in Kuršenai, towards the end of June, they murdered two Jews.

Immediately following the Germans’ arrival, a Lithuanian partisan squad was formed in Kuršenai, which was headed by Antanas Petkus and soon comprised 70 men. The Lithuanian partisans arrested alleged Communists and supporters of the Soviet regime. They also ordered the Jews to assemble daily in the marketplace, and from there they assigned the Jews to various forced labor tasks, which included clearing rubble from the streets and interring fallen Soviet troops and dead horses. The forced labor was accompanied by frequent beatings. New regulations forbade the Jews from using the sidewalks and ordered them to wear yellow Stars of David.

In the first half of July, the male Jews were confined within the synagogue and Bet Midrash. In mid-July 1941, the Lithuanian partisans seized around 150 male Jews from the prayer houses and escorted them into the Padarbos Forest, about 3 kilometers (2 miles) outside the town. Together with four Germans, the Lithuanian forces then shot the Jews into a large pit. The shooting lasted about five hours. The pit then was filled in by other local inhabitants, requisitioned for this task by the Germans. The Lithuanian partisans took some of the Jews’ clothing for themselves, and some subsequently moved into Jewish houses. After the Aktion, the participants returned to Kuršenai to drink in celebration at the local canteen.¹

In July, a ghetto was established for the women and children, which was guarded by armed Lithuanian partisans, also known as “white-stripers.” The Jews were confined within a small area of a couple of streets, which became very overcrowded. The women could only leave the ghetto for one hour per day to secure food from the locals, who cursed and chased them away from the stores.

After a few weeks the Lithuanian partisans were reorganized into a regular police force, which was headed by Povilas Vidugiris. In August or September 1941, the remaining several hundred Jews, mainly women and children, were transferred to the ghetto in Žagarė on about 50 carts, escorted by the local Lithuanian police. Before the transfer, the local police stripped them of any valuable possessions. Some non-Jews said farewell to their Jewish friends but were forbidden to reveal that they knew the cruel fate of the Jewish men.² The Jewish women and children from Kuršenai were all murdered on October 2, 1941, when the Žagarė ghetto was liquidated. Only one Jewish woman and one Jewish man from Kuršenai are known to have survived until the area was recaptured by the Red Army in 1944, having found refuge with sympathetic Lithuanian farmers.

After the war, the Soviet authorities tried and sentenced almost 40 former members of the Lithuanian partisans and local police from Kuršenai.