TROKI
Pre-1939: Troki (Yiddish: Trok), town, Wilno województwo, Poland; 1939–1940: Trakai, apskritis center, Lithuania; 1940–1941: Trakai, uezd center, Lithuanian SSR; 1941–1944: Traken, Kreis center, Gebiet Wilna-Land, Generalkommissariat Litauen; post-1991: Trakai, Vilnius apskritis, Republic of Lithuania
Troki is located 26 kilometers (16 miles) west-southwest of Wilno. According to the 1931 census, there were around 400 Jews living in the town. By mid-1941, there were about 500.1
German armed forces occupied the town on June 24, 1941. Immediately, Lithuanian nationalists formed a local administration and a police force. The head of the police was Kazys Čaplikas. The head of the local administration initially was J. Navikas. These collaborating organs implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures. Jews were marked with the Star of David, forced into various forms of heavy physical labor, prohibited from appearing in public spaces, and forbidden to have any relations with the local non-Jewish Lithuanians.
A Jewish Council (Judenrat) with 12 members was formed, with Šimonas Kucas as the head, Ovsiejus Levinas as his deputy, and Šimonas Cvi as the secretary. Other members were Chaimas Bavarskis, Boruchas Bunivavišius, Izakas-Nochimas Galperinas, Gedeonas Klauzneris, Edmundas Levinskis, Cemachas Milikovskis, Leiba Percovišius, Chavonas Šneideris, and Abromas Šubas.2
The Jews were permitted to remain in their homes until the end of August. By September 1, 1941, all the Jews of the town were resettled into a ghetto. The ghetto was located at the Bernardinų Lake and was bounded by water on three sides.3 Within three weeks, all the Jews’ personal property and real estate were registered and transferred to the town’s administration by the local auxiliary police.4 Policemen from Troki, Aukštadvaris, Onuškis, and Landwarów guarded the ghetto.5 [End Page 1132]
The ghetto existed until the end of September 1941. According to the testimony of the police chief, Kazys Čaplikas, the head of the local administration instructed him to murder the Jews.6 On September 30, 1941, a detachment of Einsatzkommando 3, commanded by Martin Weiss, and the Ypatingas Burys (Lithuanian execution squad) arrived from Wilno and liquidated the ghetto in collaboration with the ghetto guards, led by Kazimieras Vasilevskis.7 These forces shot all the Jews in the Worniki Forest, about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) outside the town. Jews from Troki were killed alongside Jews from Rudziszki, Landwarów, Onuškis, Žydkaimis (in Onuškis parish), and Aukštadvaris. The shooting started in the early morning and lasted until midday. The total number of victims was 1,446: 366 men, 483 women, and 597 children.8
In the region around Troki, there were a number of cases of Polish and Lithuanian inhabitants who risked their lives by offering aid and shelter to fugitive Jews. In October 1941, the German administration issued instructions to investigate ethnic Poles who worked as administrators on farms, as it was suspected that they were mostly refugees who were also assisting Jews.9 Among those who gave assistance were Juozas and Leosė Didikai, who concealed Mejeris Sinderovskij throughout the occupation, and Irena Bartišauskaitė-Kazlauskienė, who hid two Jews until they were able to join up with a Jewish partisan unit.10
SOURCES
Information about the persecution and murder of the Jews of Troki can be found in the following publications: “Trakai,” in Neringa Latvytė-Gustaitienė, Holokaustas Trakų apskrityje (Vilnius: Valstybinis Vilniaus Gaono žydų muziejus, 2002); Shmuel Spector and Bracha Freundlich, eds., Pinkas ha-kehilot. Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Poland, vol. 8, Vilna, Bialystok, Nowogrodek (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2005), pp. 358–361; and Christoph Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941–1944” (Ph.D. diss., Universität Freiburg, 2002), section F.1.2.6.
Documents describing the fate of the Jews of Troki during the Holocaust can be found in the following archives: GARF (7021-94-431); LCVA (R 685-1-4, R 713-1-1); LYA (K 1-58-P14950); RGVA (500-1-25); and YVA.
NOTES
1. Latvytė-Gustaitienė, Holokaustas; and Voruta (Trakai), no. 9 (531) (2003).
2. K. Čaplikas, Saugojau žmonių gyvybė ir turtą (Vilnius, 2001), p. 191.
3. Ibid., p. 191. See also the report of the Kreis head to the Gebietskommissar Wilna-Land, September 1, 1941, which noted that in Troki and several other towns the Jews had been separated from the rest of the population in their own section of town, facsimilie published in Latvytė-Gustaitienė, Holokaustas, p. 109.
4. LCVA, R 713-1-1, p. 6.
5. Latvytė-Gustaitienė, Holokaustas, p. 39.
6. The heads of the local administration successively were J. Navikas, P. Mašinskas, and P. Brakauskas; see ibid., p. 38.
7. LYA, K 1-58-P14950, p. 52.
8. RGVA, 500-1-25, report of Einsatzkommando 3, December 1, 1941.
9. LCVA, R 685-1-4, p. 24, Gebietsrat Kalendra an die Amtsbezirkschefs, October 6, 1941, as cited by Dieckmann, “Deutsche Besatzungspolitik.”
10. Latvytė-Gustaitienė, Holokaustas, pp. 75–80, cites as many as 41 cases of assistance for the region.
