Note - Buildings of the Jewish Community
Figure 1
The Virtual Exhibition at the website of the Gargzdai Area Museum contains plans of the synagogue complex, dated 1923 (at Museum webpage, click on plan to enlarge). The plans consist of large architectural drawings of the new building (a floorplan, elevations and cross-sections), together with a smaller plot plan (1/5 the scale of the larger drawings) showing the location of several buildings within the synagogue complex. Figure 1 above is possible location of complex as shown on the plot plan. Buildings outlined in red, reading from south to north, are: (1) the old synagogue; (2) the new synagogue, completed approximately 1923, and (3) rabbi's home and four classrooms. In contrast to the plans, some information indicates that the rabbi's home and classrooms were not located at the north of the synagogue complex, but rather to the west. See the drawing in the Gorzd Memorial Book. This western location was confirmed by a Gargzdai resident interviewed in 2008.
(The photograph is shown in its original orientation, with Northeast at the top.)
For comparison, the original aerial without the superimposed diagram is shown below.
Market Area scanned at 600 dots per inch
Photograph Modified with "unsharp mask" function
Area scanned at 1200 dots per inch
Former Gorzd resident George Birman indicates that in the 1930's there were four buildings of the Jewish community in this area: a Bet Midrash (made of wood), a Shul (made of white masonry), a Tiferet Bachurim (for teenage boys, made of brick), and the rabbi's residence/school. A photograph of the aron kodesh (ark) appears in Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry (Brooklyn: The Judaica Press, Inc., 1995), p. 195. No other photographs are known to exist of any of these buildings.
No trace remains of the Synagogue or the street on which it stood.
There are small drawings of the Shul and Bet Midrash in the Gorzd Memorial Book, posted by the New York Public Library (Image 12). This page of the Memorial Book may also show the rabbi's residence/school to the west of the shul.
The diagram at the top of this webpage is constructed assuming a distance of 27 meters from the street east to the complex. The plot plan shows a break in the road, so the distance must be determined from the written dimension. The handwritten figure shown on the plans at first appears to be "97.00," but the other 9's on the page all have a straight downstroke. The first numeral more closely resembles a "2" with a missing horizontal base.
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| other 2's from same document |
other 9's from same document |
setting length of Synagogos St. at 27 meters
To place the buildings on the aerial photo in Figure 1, the size of the plan has been multiplied by a factor of 0.42. This factor was chosen so that the length of Klaipeda street (from the market west to the intersection with the road to Kretinga), according to the scale on the plans, is 850 meters, to match the distance shown on maps.
The placement on the aerial photograph also assumes the road placement on the plans is not exact (for example, if the break shown in the road allows the two ends of the road not to align).
The interior wall shown on the large architectural drawing has been added in Figure 1 to the west interior of the largest building. This internal wall matches a dark line on the aerial photo.
The large architectural plans show the internal wall (and women's gallery on the second floor) on the right-hand side of the plans, and two exterior doors on the lower right corner. (The two doors are probably separate entrances for men and women. Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, Wooden Synagogues, Institute of Polish Architecture of the Polytechnic of Warsaw (1959), p 36.) The floorplan would not necessarily show north at the top, but the accompanying plot plan shows the exterior doors to be at the southeast corner of the building. It is unlikely that the women's gallery would be on the east side, because the aron kodesh (ark) was traditionally placed on the eastern wall. The women's gallery would commonly be on the west side, over the vestibule. Thus, Figure 1 assumes that the plans somehow were drawn in a mirror image of how the building was actually constructed. A path on the ground, shown in the photo, leads to where an entrance would be located, if the entrances were at the southwest corner, not the southeast corner as shown on the plot plan.
The plot plan without these interior walls is superimposed on the aerial photograph below:
For reference to the aron kodesh on the east side of Lithuanian and Polish synagogues, and/or the women's gallery on the west side, see Marija Rupeikiene, "The Sacral Heritage of Jewish Culture," in A. Jomantas, ed., Jewish Cultural History in Lithuania, Department of Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture, Versus aureus (2006), ISBN 9955-699-47-7, at pp. 158, 159, 160, 163, 164; Alois Breier, Max Eisler and Max Grunwald, Holzsynagogen in Polen [Wooden Synagogues in Poland] (1934), p.63; Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, Wooden Synagogues, Institute of Polish Architecture of the Polytechnic of Warsaw (1959), pp. 23, 28; Wooden Synagogues of Lithuania - Bet Tfila.
The photograph aligned to true north is shown below:
Holzsynagogen in Polen states on page 63 that although a movement began in Venice in the 18th century to orient synagogues directly towards Jerusalem, the wooden synagogues of Poland and the stone synagogues of Germany are oriented to the east.
Does any reader have information about the orientation of other Lithuanian synagogues?
The restored synagogue on L. Zamenhofo St., Kaunas (first constructed in 1850), pictured at the website of www.heritage.lt, Sinagoga senamiestyje (Zamenhofo g. 9) bears a resemblance to the plans of the Gargzdai synagogue. The restored synagogue is pictured in Rupeikiene, p. 157, and discussed on p. 163.
Another Kaunas building (likely another of the city's 36 pre-war synagogues), shown in an aerial photograph on an undated postcard, also resembles the Gargzdai plans.
Photo may be looking west along present day Kestucio gatve. Building may be on present day Gedimino g. Can any reader confirm that a synagogue existed in this location?
For animation showing possible placement of Gargzdai synagogue complex on aerial photograph, click here.
Does the photo show an object within the synagogue interior?
For further information, see Military Formations in Aerial Photograph.
Jewish Synagogues of Lithuania at JewishGen
Neishtot-Tavrig (Zemaiciu Naumiestis) at JewishGen
Gallery at Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews
Identification of Features on Aerial Photo | Aerial Photo of Gargzdai