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

[End Page 1113] Pre-1940: Šakiai (Yiddish: Shaki), town, apskritis center, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Šakiai/Shakiai, uezd center, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Schaken, Kreis center, Gebiet Kauen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Šakiai, rajonas center, Mariampolė apskritis, Republic of Lithuania

Šakiai is located 56 kilometers (35 miles) west of Kaunas, close to the German-Lithuanian border. The available demographic records show that a total of 1,281 Jews resided in Šakiai in 1923. By June 1941, the number of Jewish residents had decreased slightly, a change caused by the emigration movements of the 1930s. There were about 1,000 Jews living there when the Germans arrived, plus about 100 Jewish refugees who had fled from German-occupied Poland.

The German army occupied Šakiai on June 22, 1941, the first day of its invasion of the Soviet Union. Only about 50 Jews succeeded in fleeing. The local Lithuanian nationalists established an administrative authority and a police force immediately. These bodies worked together and organized the initial measures against the Jewish population, many of whom they accused of collaborating with the Soviets. The Lithuanians confined all Jewish males aged 15 and over in a large barn on the outskirts of town. Jews were ordered to give up all their valuables, and they had to conduct physically demanding forced labor. While they worked, they had to face all kinds of mistreatment, harassment, and abuse from local antisemites. In addition, Jews were forbidden to appear in public places and banned from any private contacts with non-Jewish Lithuanians. The Jews had to wear yellow patches on their outer clothing, and they also had to give up radios and other similar equipment. In addition, a curfew between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. was declared for the Jewish population.

On July 5, 1941, in the first Aktion against the Jews in Šakiai, Lithuanian auxiliary police took all the male Jews they had confined to a place in the woods outside of town, where they had already forced some of the Jews to dig a large trench. There the Lithuanians shot them all. There was some resistance, and one young Jew, Benjamin Rothschild, managed to beat one of the executioners severely before he was killed. When the men were all dead, the Lithuanians brought out 40 of the wealthier Jewish women and killed them as well.

The Lithuanians forced the remaining Jewish women and children into a ghetto in the poorest part of the town. Although few specifics are available, it is known that conditions in the ghetto were terrible. Lithuanians were forbidden to give food to the Jews, so hunger was rampant. More direct abuses were also common. In the first days of the ghetto’s existence, a group of Lithuanian youths abducted six Jewish girls and raped and killed them. Similar incidents continued in the weeks that followed.

The Lithuanians liquidated the open ghetto of Šakiai on September 13, 1941. During this Aktion, Lithuanian police shot 890 Jews at the same site where they had killed the others in July. On September 16, 1941, the Šakiai district was officially declared to have been cleared of Jews.¹ The total of 890 victims also included Jews from the villages in the vicinity of Šakiai, including Kriukai, Lukšiai, Šiaudinė, Sintautai, Griškabūdis, and Sudargas. The Lithuanians loaded the victims’ belongings onto carts, brought them back to town, and distributed them to the local population.