LAZDIJAI
Pre-1940: Lazdijai (Yiddish: Lazdei), Seinai apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Lazdijai/Lazdiai, Seinai uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Lasdien, Kreis center, Gebiet Kauen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Lazdijai, rajonas center, Alytus apskritis, Republic of Lithuania
Lazdijai is located 77 kilometers (48 miles) south-southwest of Kaunas. In June 1941, there were about 1,200 Jews living in the town, including around 150 refugees from the Suwałki region.
German forces occupied the town on June 22, 1941, following a heavy bombardment that destroyed two thirds of the houses in Lazdijai. Only 40 Jews were able to flee in time. On June 23, 30 local Lithuanian nationalists formed an administrative committee for the town, which soon implemented a series of anti-Jewish policies. After electing Antanas Aleliūnas as chairman, they thanked the German army and the “greatest leader, Adolf Hitler” by singing the Lithuanian national anthem.1 On the next day, with the approval of the local German commandant, a Lithuanian police unit was organized, led by Julijonas Geiga. On June 25, 1941, the committee was ordered by the German commandant to resettle “the Jews who were endangering the public order” into two wooden barracks near the church, next to a camp established for the wives and children of Soviet officials, who had been unable to [End Page 1084] evacuate.2 The Jews were ordered to perform heavy labor. They were subjected to public humiliation and assault by the Lithuanian guards and local antisemites. Germans and Lithuanians threatened the Jews with death if they refused to hand over money, gold and silver, jewelry, watches, and other valuables. Some Jews were arrested as alleged Communists and Komsomol members. These people were escorted to Marijampolė and shot there.3
Twelve members of the Lithuanian committee went to Kaunas and returned on July 2 with authority from the Lithuanian provisional government to reorganize the local administration in Lazdijai. Aleliūnas became head of the local branch of Saugumas (the Lithuanian Security Police), and Albinas Karalius became the new head of the Lithuanian police for the Kreis, while the policeman Mikas Radevišius was named head of the Kreis administration in Lazdijai. Among the new anti-Jewish measures was their exclusion from all trade.4
On September 15, 1941, all the remaining Jews of Lazdijai were resettled into a ghetto, which consisted of six Red Army barracks on the Katkiškės estate, 1.5 kilometers (0.9 mile) from the town. The ghetto grounds were cordoned off by barbed wire and placed under the watch of armed Lithuanian guards, commanded by Bronius Kazlauskas, who ran the ghetto. Jews were also resettled there from nearby towns and villages, including Veisiejai, Kapšiamiestis, and Rudamina, bringing the total number of inmates to more than 1,600 people. A Jewish Council (Judenrat) made up of representatives of the various communities regulated the internal affairs of the ghetto. It was headed by a man named Astromsky, a pharmacist from Kapšiamiestis, who consulted also closely with Rabbi Gerstein. A Jewish police force was created to maintain order. Each day the men were assigned to forced labor by a Jewish Labor Office. At first the inmates received a daily ration of 200 grams (7 ounces) of unsalted bread and 300 grams (10.6 ounces) of potatoes, but the portions gradually diminished, and the Jews suffered from hunger. Only those who could trade personal items for food with local Lithuanians or those who received food for their agricultural work fared a little better.5
The ghetto was subordinated to the Lithuanian police chief for the Kreis, Karalius, who issued regulations for the ghetto similar to those applied to German concentration camps. Jews were not permitted to approach within 2 meters (6.6 meters) of the barbed wire, and no contacts were permitted across it. The penalty for leaving the ghetto without permission was death for the offender and his or her entire family.6
At the end of October, rumors spread that mass graves were being prepared nearby. Two Jewish women, who worked in the office of the German commandant, had overheard a conversation in which the head official in Marijampolė criticized his colleague in Lazdijai, asking when he was finally going to clear his Kreis of Jews. On Thursday, October 30, 1941, the ghetto was closed, and no one could leave to go to work. A Lithuanian police officer confirmed that pits were being dug and would be ready in a few days. Jews now tried to escape, but some were killed in the attempt.
The Lithuanians surrounded the barracks and boarded up all the windows and doors. The Jews were trapped inside without food or water. In total about 180 Jews managed to escape in these final days, but their chances of surviving in the countryside remained slim.7
The ghetto was liquidated on November 3, 1941, when the Rollkommando Hamann, assisted by Lithuanian activists and police, shot 1,535 people (485 men, 511 women, and 539 children).8 The Jews were forced to undress and climb into the pits. The Germans used machine guns, while the Lithuanians employed rifles. Local residents were requisitioned to fill in the pits, being forced to stay out of sight behind a hill during the shooting. The clothes of the murdered Jews were taken back to Lazdijai on wagons.9
Of the 180 Jews who escaped, most were killed by local farmers or were captured by the police and put in the Lazdijai jail. Once 35 Jews had been assembled there, they were all taken out and shot in the same mass grave as the others. Two escapees from the Lazdijai ghetto made their way to the Kaunas ghetto in July 1942. Only 8 Jews from the Lazdijai ghetto are known to have survived the war: Riva Gerstein-Michnovski, Zeiv Michnovski, Dov Zeif, Miryam Kuleiski and the sisters Gita and Batsheva Kaufman (all from Lazdijai), as well as Chmilevski (from Veisiejai) and Gedalia Kagan (from Rudamina).10
SOURCES
Much of the information for this entry is based on the work of Christoph Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941–1944” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Freiburg, 2002), section F.1.2.5. Other relevant publications include “Lazdijai,” in Dov Levin and Yosef Rosin, eds., Pinkas hakehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), pp. 349–352; Shalom Bronstein, ed., Yahadut Lita: Lithuanian Jewry, vol. 4, The Holocaust 1941–1945 (Tel Aviv: Association of Former Lithuanians in Israel, 1984), pp. 303–305, available also in English in Josef Levinson, ed., The Shoah (Holocaust) in Lithuania (Vilnius: Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, 2006), pp. 100–104; and Alfonsas Eidintas, Jews, Lithuanians and the Holocaust (Vilnius: Versus Aureus, 2003), p. 299.
Documents dealing with the elimination of the Jews in Lazdijai can be found in the following archives: GARF (7021-94-428); LCVA (e.g., R 409-2-5); USHMM (RG-22.002M, reel 19); and YVA (Koniukhovsky Collection, O-71/131, 132).
NOTES
1. Protocol no. 1, June 23, 1941, in B. Baranauskas and E. Rozauskas, eds., Masinės žudynes Lietuvoje (1941–1944): Dokumentu rinkinys, vol. 2 (Vilnius: Leidykla “Mintis,” 1973), p. 151.
2. Protocols nos. 3 and 4, June 24 and 25, 1941, in Valentinas Brandisauskas, ed., 1941 m. Birzelio sukilimas. Dokumentu rinkinys (Vilnius: LGGRTC, 2000), pp. 240–243, as cited by Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik.”
3. GARF, 7021-94-428; Levin and Rosin, Pinkas hakehilot: Lithuania, p. 351.
4. Brandisauskas, 1941 m., pp. 245–247, as cited by Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik.”
5. Levin and Rosin, Pinkas ha-kehilot: Lithuania, pp. 351–352.
6. LCVA, R 409-2-5, pp. 33–34, Gettui-Taisyklės, September 22, 1941, as cited by Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik.”
7. Levinson, The Shoah, pp. 103–104.
8. RGVA, 500-1-25, p. 114, report of Einsatzkommando No. 3, December 1, 1941; B. Baranauskas and E. Rozauskas, eds., Masinės žudynes Lietuvoje (1941–1944): Dokumentu rinkinys, vol. 1 (Vilnius: Leidykla “Mintis,” 1965), p. 136; B. Baranauskas and K. Ruksenas, Documents Accuse (Vilnius: Gintaras, 1970), p. 237.
9. USHMM, RG-22.002M, reel 19, as cited by Eidintas, Jews, Lithuanians and the Holocaust, p. 299.
10. Levinson, The Shoah, p. 104; Avraham Tory, Surviving the Holocaust: The Kovno Ghetto Diary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 109–110.
