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

Pre-1940: Tauragė (Yiddish: Tavrik), town, apskritis center, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Tauragė/Taurage, uezd center, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Tauroggen, Kreis center, Gebiet Schaulen-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Tauragė, rajonas and apskritis center, Republic of Lithuania

Tauragė is located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Šiauliai. In 1940, there were approximately 2,000 Jews in Tauragė, including a number of refugees from the Memel region who had fled there when it was occupied by the Germans in March 1939. In the summer of 1940, Tauragė came under Soviet rule. In June 1941, just before the German invasion, 17 Jewish families (about 60 people) were deported to the Komi SSR as “unreliable elements.”

On June 22, 1941, the first day of the German invasion of the USSR, German armed forces captured the town. The town was bombarded, destroying many Jewish homes and injuring about 20 Jews. Many Jews left the town because of the bombardment. When they returned, they found that local Lithuanians had looted their homes.

Immediately after the German occupation, Lithuanian nationalists formed a local administration and a police force in the town. Jonas Jurgilas was appointed mayor, and F. Mintautas became the chief of police. The administration and police implemented a series of antisemitic measures. The Jews were ordered to hand over valuable items, forced into compulsory labor of various kinds, and subjected to robbery, assault, and degradation by local antisemites. They were forbidden to appear in public places and to have any relations with their non-Jewish Lithuanian neighbors.

On July 2, 1941, a Gestapo and SD detachment from Tilsit, with the assistance of local Lithuanian policemen, shot 133 Jewish men, who had been arrested in Tauragė. A few days later, the Border Police post (Grenzpolizeiposten) in Laugszargen, under which the Tilsit Gestapo served, arrested and shot 122 Jewish men in Tauragė and its vicinity.¹ Arrests and murders of Jews continued after this on an almost daily basis. Among the many victims was the town’s rabbi, Rav Levi Shpitz, who was asked to give the Germans a list of the local Communists.

On September 6, 1941, V. Milimas, the head of Kreis Tauroggen, sent Orders No. 227 and 228 to the mayor and police chief in Tauragė. These orders instructed that all the Jews be concentrated in one place. All Jews had to be registered and [End Page 1130] wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing. In addition, a Jewish Council (Judenrat) was formed, Jewish property was confiscated, and Jewish doctors were only permitted to treat other Jews. In response to these orders, all the remaining Jews in the town—composed mainly of women, children, and the elderly—were gathered into hastily constructed barracks on Vytautas Street, which were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by Lithuanian policemen. Able-bodied women and children in the ghetto were sent to work, and it was forbidden to bring food into the ghetto. The Jews were housed under filthy conditions in the ghetto for about 10 days, with very little food. On September 13, they were informed that they needed to prepare themselves for transfer to another place with better living conditions.

On September 16, 1941, the ghetto in Tauragė was liquidated, and 513 Jews were taken on trucks out to a small forest 6 kilometers (4 miles) to the northwest of the town, where Lithuanian policemen shot them.² A few Jews, who were needed for economic reasons, were kept alive in Tauragė for a few weeks longer before they in turn were murdered or committed suicide. Several Jews had gone into hiding with peasants in the vicinity, but most of these people were also captured and killed.