RUDAMINA
Pre-1940: Rudamina (Yiddish: Rudomin), village, Seinai apskritis, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Seinai uezd, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Kreis Lasdien, Gebiet Kauen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Lazdijai rajonas, Alytus apskritis, Republic of Lithuania
Rudamina is located about 75 kilometers (47 miles) south-southwest of Kaunas. In 1923, there were 98 Jews living in Rudamina, constituting about 30 percent of the total population. On the eve of World War II, around 20 Jewish families resided in the village.
At the time of the German invasion on June 22, 1941, Rudamina suffered heavy bombardment, and several Jewish homes were severely damaged. Initially many Jews tried to escape deeper into the Soviet Union, but soon most were forced to return to the village. Lithuanian partisans seized power in [End Page 1112] Rudamina and started to rob Jewish homes, beating the occupants. Jews were also forced to perform degrading work. The new authorities introduced a series of anti-Jewish measures, including a prohibition on buying certain food items and the requirement to wear a yellow patch in the shape of the Star of David. Disobeying these orders was punishable by death. In July 1941, the Jews had to pay a fine of 500 rubles per person. A makeshift ghetto was formed for the Jews, which included the Bet Midrash and several damaged houses.
On September 15, 1941, all the Jews were expelled from Rudamina and taken to the ghetto on the Katkiškės estate, where the Jews from Lazdijai and its surrounding villages were incarcerated. They all lived there under subhuman conditions for about six weeks. On November 3, the Jews from the Katkiškės ghetto were all murdered in the nearby forest. A number of Jews managed to escape from the Katkiškės ghetto just before its liquidation, and these people tried to hide with farmers in the area, but most were caught and killed. Only Gedalia Kagan from Rudamina is known to have survived until the end of the occupation.
SOURCES
Much of the information for this entry is based on “Rudamina,” in Dov Levin and Yosef Rosin, eds., Pinkas hakehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Lithuania (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), pp. 631–632. The ghetto in Rudamina is mentioned also in Guy Miron, ed., The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010), p. 668.
