Eisiskes is in Lithuania today, unlike most of Lida
District, which
is in Belarus. Since not many villages were grouped with Radun in the
1929
Polish Business Directory, Radun is grouped with Eisiskes.
Fairly rural even today, the city of Lida (designated: miasto powiat or
county town) is and was the largest population center in the district.
The next largest towns (miasteczko) were Eisiskes, Iwje, Lipniszki,
Ostryna, Radun, Szczuczyn, Voronovo, Wasiliszki, and Zaludok. Over two
hundred small communities existed, ranging from hamlet (volost) to wies
(village) to gmina
(town). The area also included work "colonies." Therefore, for web
considerations, we have decided to group communities roughly by
geographic proximity, using the ShtetlSeeker's distance function as a
guide. The
table of locality names may take time to load. Please be patient.
Links to the Shtetl Coordinators for each town exist. If you do not
see a coordinator for "your" town, please consider volunteering!
Other Names
Since a primary source for information on these communities is the 1929
Polish Business Directory, names reflect Polish spelling. The alternate
spellings list is not exhaustive. Using the listed latitude and
longitude for localities of interest in the ShtetlSeeker may
generate a more complete list of names.
View Eisiskes via MapQuest (Latitude
54°10´, Longitude 25°04´)
(Then click your browser's "Back" button to return here.)
Pictures
YIVO's marvelous on-line
photgraph collection has 7 pictures of Eisiskes and 9 of Radun.
You'll have to register to use the site - it's free.
Enter the town names as I've spelled them here.
Yaffa Eliach led a group of people on a trip to Eisiskes, which
was made into a PBS program narrated by Ed Asner, whose family is from
here. Also called "There Once Was a World", it's available
whereever PBS
videos are sold.
An unusual recent book is There Once Was a World: A 900-Year
Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok, by Yaffa Eliach, Little Brown
& Company (1998) ISBN 0-316-23252-1. Review
by Lisa Thaler, reproduced by permission of the author
and the editor of SHEMOT, the copyright holder, from Dec. 1998 SHEMOT,
the journal of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Great Britain.
Shlosberg, Liba Ahuvah Mi-tokh ha-esh: Radin 'ayarato shel
Maran ha-"Hafets Hayim", mesaperet 'al Sho'atah Jerusalem: Oraita,
1986/7. Part of the series Sidrat sefarim min ha-hayim ba-Sho'ah
ba-shanim. In Hebrew, the personal memoir of a Holocaust survivor
from Radun.
The Holocaust in Radun is described on the Simon
Wiesenthal Center web pages. The center keeps reorganizing its site
& I can't keep up with the changes. A web search with key words
Radun or Radin and Holocaust will let you locate their current position.
Holocaust Martyrs in Radun compiled by
the Soviet Extraordinary Commission. See http://einewhouse.0catch.com/index.html for a link to a browsable version. This
list will be translated by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and
included in their massive translation of all the Extraordinary
Commission lists, which whill be searchable from Jewishgen..
Summary of the testimony of Nathan Ballon,
a man from Eisiskes, who was in Voronovo during WWII, from records at
the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives
Incorporation papers location for a Landsmanshaft for Eisiskers:
go to the JGSNY home page,
click on "New York Landsmanshaftn and other organizations: & then
scroll down to "Incorporation Papers". The town name is in the
right column.
Incorporation papers location for two Landsmanshaftn for people
from Radin: go to the JGSNY
home page,
click on "New York Landsmanshaftn and other organizations: & then
scroll down to "Incorporation Papers". The town name is in the
right
column.
A recent trip to Lithuania and Belarus, including a stop in Radun
by Rabbi Nosson Zev Grossman. Search for
"Radin" if you're in a hurry
Skladance, The Polish Genealogical Society of America used to have a number of translations from Geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego online. This is no longer true; but you can buy a CD version of the reference work from them.
Famous Sons
Eliezer Elijah b. Solomon Ẓebi Hirsch Deiches
(1797-1881) was Rabbi in Voronovo & Eisiskes at one time,
though he was born & died in Vilnius. See
Jewish Encyclopedia online under Deiches
Rabbi Benyamin Ha-Cohen Shekowitski (1871 - 1938), the last
Maggid of Minsk. His father was from Eisiskes, his mother a
Dolinski from Radun. See pp 124 - 128, Yaffa Eliach, There
Once was a
World, Little Brown, 1998.
Tzivia
Walkin nee Sachrof, raised in Radun. Her family were
neighbors of the Chofetz Chaim. Her husband, David Walkin, was
Rabbi in Traby before WWII. They fled to Vilnius and were able to
leave there for Shanghai, where they spent the war.
Information on Eisisker
Landsmanshaftn burial society plots in New York City - courtesy of the Jewish Genealogical Society of New
York. Enter 'Eisiskes' into the town search box.
HaMelitz Lithuanian Charity Donors Database Entry for Eisiskes
Use your browser's "Back" button on your browser to return to here.
Would you like to connect with others researching Eisiskes? Click
the button to search the JewishGen Family Finder database.
Would you like to connect with others researching Radun? Click
the button
to search the JewishGen Family Finder database.
General Information Entries from the 1929 Polish Business
Directory
Note: A * in the column "TOWN" indicates that the town was not given
in the 1929 Directory, but was assigned based on geographic
coordinates. A hyperlink in the "YIZKOR" column brings up the town's
entry in the Yizkor Book Database.
Clicking on highlighted locality names will bring up the 1929
business directory listings.
Grodno (Belarus): Belorussian Historical Archive in Grodno; from
Elyashevichopus 166 Radunskaya Synagogue in Lidski uezd. #456, 9
chronicles, 1897-1900
This site is hosted at no cost by JewishGen, Inc., the Home
of Jewish Genealogy. If you have been aided in your research by
this site and wish to further our mission of preserving
our history for future generations, your JewishGen-erosity
is greatly
appreciated.
