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To Mazheik, July 2005

by Shalom Eilati (Kaplan)

During my visit to Lithuania in July 2005 I went to see the region where my ancestors had lived and some of them perished – in the towns Siad (Seda) and Mazheik (Mazheikiai).

Thanks to earlier contacts, the hospitable and most cooperative director of the museum of Mazheik, Algimantas Muturas, hosted me and treated me very warmly and helpfully. I learned that he pays much attention to the Jewish legacy of the town. He keeps separate files with partial records of Jewish families in the various shtetlach of the region ("apskritis" in Lithuanian). Partially, he retrieved data from the various Jewishgen sources. At the moment, he is also compiling a list of Jewish families of Mazheik, based on various local sources. In 1955 a fire demolished the whole archive (!!)…Therefore his records (as well as maps) are very poor. Nor is there much or any info about lots of land, houses etc. Some additional information could be found in the archive of Kaunas or the State Archive in Vilnius .

Muturas kindly guided me along the main street of M. – Laisves gatve – and mentioned the names of various Jewish owners, tennants and Jewish institutions (like the Folksbank, the mikveh, school, etc.) . I think that it could be a big mitzvah and important mission – to create a map that includes as many Jewish landmarks as possible (see various "Yizkor" books of shtetlech, as Jonava, that includes a reconstructed map ).

I also saw the house of my uncle Zorach Peckl on Vitauto 3, thanks to its earlier identification by father Iting. It is one of the last old houses of the town, and I observed the first signs for its widening.

Muturas led me to the cemetery, that also contains the massgrave. It is located at the southern exit from the town, on the road to Siad and Plunge, Eastern side, before the road crosses the River Venta.

The original, neglected and ruined  Jewish cemetery can be seen between big trees that grew in the abandoned area, on the left side of the road, while  in the front of the marked massgrave lie several well treated graves – of Soviet people that were also murdered here ~ their families maintain these graves properly.

A general note: This is the opportunity to praise the blessed initiative of the British Jewry (Lord Janner is the head of the project) to mark Jewish massgraves across the Baltics. Gradually, they have marked a big part of the massgraves of Lithuania . The commemorative stone is a standard pole of granite, triangular in shape, and on its 'face' are inscriptions  in Lithuanian and Yiddish; an arrow points in the direction of the massgrave. A general map of such marked massgraves can be found on the site www.maps.lt, as well as much additional info. The more comprehensive list and general description of 220 (!!) massgraves across Lithuania ( an indirect testimony to the nation-wide mass participation in murdering Jews simultaneously in hundreds of shtetlach during the bloody summer of 1941 ) can be found in a very important publication:        " The Book of Sorrow", Vilnius 1995, a catalogue in 4 languages with photographs, out of print. The big disadvantage of that book, as well the project of the granite markers, is that it doesn't guide the visitor in detail to the desired spot. Many of the granite markers stand near the massgrave, or cemetery itself. You can detect it  (some of them are already damaged…) only when you are near the target. There is a need for bigger markers where the narrow path into the woods begins at the main road. In addition, the most needed project that could complete the whole enterprise should be a special guidebook that contains all the massgraves across Lithuania , with detailed maps of access to each of them. ( I call any potential benefactor of Litwakish origin to consider the support of such a valuable "Yizkor" projectd. It may also help to encourage the pilgrimage of the younger generations. ). I have to note with grief that those blessed projects have not yet won the public attention which they deserve, nor from the Lithuanian Jews Association.