Lithuanian Shtetls

Click on the 'Lithuanian Shtetls' Link above to see information and links to the many Shtetls located in Lithuania.

They do remember every day!  A Lithuanian woman walking past the Jewish Memorial to the Jews Murdered in the Holocaust.  This statue is located in the "Jewish Ghetto Park" in Svencionys.  

                    Photo taken  by Ted Margulis, August,1994 in Svencionys

Lithuania (Liutuviskai, Lietuvi, Litovskiy, Litewski, Litauische)

Situated along the Baltic Sea.  The main seaport is Memel  (under German rule) and today it is known as Klaipeda.  Lithuania is an independent country that was formerly occupied by  Russia.  Jews from central Europe first settled in the country during the second half of the 14th century.  Jews, in this country, enjoyed tremendous political and cultural influence that reverberated throughout the entire Diaspora.

Most of Lithuania was annexed by Russia in 1795.  Independent Lithuania was re-established in 1918, formed from Kovno, eastern Vilna and northern Suwalki Guberniyas (and a small piece of East Prussia).  Vilna was annexed by Poland, 1919-1939, Capital: Kaunas (Kovno). Independent 1990, Capital: Vilna.

What's a Litvak?  The borders of modern Lithuania have nothing to do with being a Litvak.  In fact, in Yiddish a Lithuanian (non-Jew) is called a "Litviner," not a Litvak.  I'm not exactly sure, but the term Litvak means anyone who lived under Lithuanian rule in the 16th to 17th century, which includes a vast area to the east, south, and west of Lithuania today.  This would include Bialystok in Poland, Minsk in Belarus and beyond.  Moreover, in the 19th century, Litvaks moved all over, into what is Poland today - to Lodz where they set up the textile industry.  It is also estimate that about 1/3 of Warsaw's Jewry in the late 19th century was Litvak, even though Warsaw was not part of the traditional Litvak homeland.  Warsaw, like Lodz, was a town of immigration, and Litvak streamed there to find work and set up businesses.  From a posting by Harold Rhode on LitvakSIG on 2-17-98

Litvak comes from the word 'Lite' which is Lithuania in Yiddish.  It applies to Jews in the ill-defined borders of the Dukedom of Lithuania in the 17 and 18th centuries, which included parts of Belorussian and Poland, but not most of Latvia (Courland).  It also refers to Yiddish speakers with a Litvak accent, a version of Yiddish that extended through the Lomza-Suwalki and Vitebsk Guberniyas, a least.  From a posting by Zvi Griliches

Censuses from as early as 1670 have been located in the Lithuanian State Archives proving that Jews have lived in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.  

Further proof can be found in my Lithuanian Shtetls page under Vilnius. The Duchy constituted the entire northern half of what became the Pale of Settlement including the Guberniyas of Grodno, Kovno, Minsk, Mogilev, Vilna and Vitebsk.  Census Lists from 1765, 1784 and 1795 - three censuses of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.  Only the 1795 census supplies ages for family members.  All earlier dates must be estimated. In Lithuania about 1775, there were about 75,000 Jews.

1897 All-Russian Census
http://www.mindspring.com/~peggyf/97c_des.htm

http://www.jewishgen.org/belarus/intro_1897_russian_census.htm

Portions of the 1897 census are stored in the Grodno archive.

A 1923 census of the Jewish population of Lithuania shows about 130,000 individuals; on the eve of WW I, the figure was approximately 160,000.  The second half of the 19th century saw an explosion in the Jewish population, but research suggests that the 18th century Jewish population was only about 48,000.  Some of this information was obtained from an article entitled "Methodology for Researching 18th-Century Lithuania" authored by Len Yodaiken and published in Avotaynu volume XX, Number 3 Fall 2004.

Brest-Litovsk and Grodno, today both are located in  Belarus, were originally part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.  Duke Vitold gave the Jews from  Poland charters to establish themselves in these two communities, similar to those granted by Bolislav the Pious to the Jews of Great  Poland.   Some of those Jews originally came from  Oriental countries, including a few of them from Khazar stock.

The border between Lithuania and Kourland was always a subject of
disputes and disagreements. Documents for 1473, 1505, 1535, 1541, to 1545 are published by K. Gadebush. "Livlaendische Bibliothek nach Alphabetischer Ordnung". Riga, 1777. Th. 1. Ab. 2 ## 71, 101, 128, 134, 138.

Documents for 1566 and 1585 are published in the same place Th. 2. Ab. 1. ## 51, 179.

"Statue of Great Dukedom of Lithuania 1588"  This is about the rights and responsibilities of the Jews and there is a photocopy of an original text and an adapted text (original text written with modern letters created on Dmitriy Levit). Note that there is both Lithuanian and English text on the page.
http://litvaki.cjb.net

These borders repeatedly changed. The Russian Imperial Government
changed borders between Kovno province  and Kourland province. Borders changed also after the First world war. Submitted by Anatolij Chayesh. St. Petersburg. Russia.

Of the 220,000 Jews who lived in  Lithuania under the Nazi occupation, 212,000 were murdered during the Holocaust, many, if not most, by local Nazi collaborators. That's about 95% of the prewar Jewish population! This is one of the highest rates of killings in Nazi-occupied Europe - the largest percentage of all European countries.

Yahrzeit (Memorial) Dates of Lithuanian Jewish Communities
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/memel/memel.html

Scroll down to bottom and click on the link to the Yahrzeit Page

Not one known collaborator has ever been prosecuted for their crime in  Lithuania to date.  In 1939, after some territorial adjustments, the population of Lithuania was just under 3,000,000 of which about 9% (270,000) were Jews.  Only 6,000 survived the Holocaust.  There is still a Jewish community in Lithuania numbering 5,000 and most living in Vilnius.  Most are pensioners.

Many Jewish records from four formerly (Southern) Lithuanian districts are known to be in the State Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno; other Jewish records for the same towns are in Vilnius.

Vilnius (Vilna) once had a population that was 55 percent Jewish and at the turn of the century was called the 'Jerusalem of Lithuania'.  That ended with a genocide beginning in the summer of 1941 that was finished, for most part, by November of the same year.

Shirley and I traveled the roads from Vilnius (Vilna in Yiddish) to Memel (Klaipeda today), with a short detour to Plunge where we had the opportunity to meet the only Jew left in that small town --- Yossel Bunka.   You may (or perhaps will) hear of Yossel if you ever travel Lithuania, for he is a world renown wood sculpture. Most of what he hand carves deals with either a Jewish or Holocaust theme. I have several of his wood carvings on my desk top to remind me of our meeting.  This will be a story that I must tell you, while I've got your attention.  It's worth sharing.

We used an interpreter while traveling  Lithuania and he was explaining something to Yossel, who would then reply in Lithuanian  when both of us detected a Yiddish word coming from Yossel.  My wife speaks Yiddish, so she asked Yossel if he too spoke Yiddish and he answered with a rather surprised yes.  Then Shirley apologized for her rather crude use of  Yiddish and stated that she hadn't really had the opportunity to speak Yiddish for more than 50 years.  Yossel looked at both of us, and we could see a tear roll down his cheek, as he said to us in Yiddish "neither have I!"  That moment will always be treasured by the three of us as we had found a common ground.

My maternal grandmother's family had lived in both Plunge and Telsai, which is only a few miles further down the road, which explains why we were there visiting the area.  Other known relatives also were known to have lived in, or around the area and include the Blochs and the Gordons. Our travels also took us to Klaipeda where my great grandparents (Cohen) had lived until their deaths in the late 1800s.   We spent a night in Klaipeda.  We also did a day trip to  Svencionys, a small shtetl near the border of  Belarus where family had also lived.

We received from Galina Baranova, the Chief Archivist of the State Historical Archives in Vilnius, a number of documents that she had found relating to my ancestors including Revision Lists. By the way, Galina was born in Russia and has lived in Lithuania for many years.  

Lithuania Home Page - don't be fooled by the display as it does contain much information as you work through the links.
http://neris.mii.lt/homepage/lietuva.html

"A Forgotten Yiddish Past" - an article by Michael Tarm
http://www.haruth.com/yidish.htm

A very moving photo essay by Laurence Salzmann, who spent a month in Lithuania photographing the remaining Jews can be viewed at
http://www.musarium.com/LITHUANIA/lithuania.html

How to Find Your Relatives in Lithuania
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6133389/The-8-Steps-to-Finding-Your-Relatives-in-Lithuania

Typical Lithuanian Street in 1994.  Note the Soviet Style Apartment
Building in background.   Photo taken  by Ted Margulis in 1994

  Books

Books published by the Jewish State Museum of Lithuania can be purchased by writing to:
Rachel Kostanian
Jewish State Museum of Lithuania
Pamenkalnio 12
2001 Vilnius, Lithuania

"A Book Review" -  "Lituanie Juive, 1918 - 1940" authored by Joost van Beek
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/lituanie.htm

"A Vanished World" - authored by Roman Vishniak.  There are some photographs taken in Vilna in 1937 including a street scene taken in 1937, Old men of Vilna and a basement storefront with women standing at the basement window behind her vegetables.

"Accessible Vital Records For Jews, Germans, Ukrainians and Poles in Galicia, Volhynia, Lithuania and Latvia- A Second Zabuzanski Collection" available at the downtown branch of the Vancouver Public Library.  Other Libraries may also have a copy. Brian Lenius is Chairperson and Editor of East European Genealogist.  E-mail eegsociety.com  
www.eegsociety.org  

"Afrikaner Yidishe Tzeitung" - just one of many articles available at this site 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"A Genealogical Trip to Lithuania: The Host's Perspective" - authored by Yakov Shadvich and published in Avotaynu VII: 1 (Spring 1991, pp, 3 -5
http://www.avotaynu.com/subindex/indexl.htm

"A Jewish Life Under The Tsars: The autobiography of Chaim Asonson, 1825-1888" - authored by Ira Leibowitz.  To read the review of the gook, which gives some insight into life in that period in Serednik, Russia (now Seredzius, Lithuania) as well as in Shadova (Seduva), Kurtovian (Kurtuvenai), Mitau (Jelgava, Latvia) and Telz (Telsai)
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/jewishlife_tsars.htm

Published in Totowa, N.J. by Allanheld, Osmun & Co., 1983. Translated from the Hebrew by Norman Marsden. 287 pages,
ISBN: 0865980667

"AJHS Manuscript Catalog"  
www.jewishgen.org/databases/ajhs.htm

"A Look at the Censuses of Poland" - authored by Gayle Schlissel Riley and published in the Nov/Dec. 2000 issue of Heritage Quest

"Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry" - author Rabbi Ephraim Oshry and published by The Judaica Press in Brooklyn, NY in 1995.  47 towns are listed. Available from Judaica Press, Inc. 1 800 972 6201 (In NYC: 718 972 6200 E-mail: JudaicaPr@aol.com

"Baltic Jews Under The Soviets" - authored by Dov Levin, Centre for Research & Documentation of Eastern European Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1994.  The book is in English

"Barak - Soldier Number One" authored by Ben Caspi and Ilan Kfir and published by Alfa Communication in Tel-Aviv, May 1998.  This is Ehud Barak's biography and includes information about a small Jewish community in Lithuania where a grandfather is killed by Goyim.

"Can Jewish Genealogists Successfully Research 18th Century Poland?" - authored by Sallyann Amdur Sack and published in Avotaynu Vol. XVI, No. 3 Fall 2000

"The Case of Zheimelis" (The Expulsion of the Jews from Lithuania in the Spring of 1915") - authored by Anatolij Chayes and published in St Petersburg.  Translated by Gordon McDaniel.  There are a lot of excellent articles at this site
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/expulsion.htm

http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/whatsnew.htm

"The Children of the Vilna Gaon" - authored by Chaim Freedman. One of the important books published by Avotaynu was "Eliyahu's Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family." It documents more than 20,000 descendants of this great Jewish scholar. Equally important, its author, Freedman, theorized on the genealogy of the immediate descendants of the Gaon -- his children and grandchildren--from the scant documentation available when the book was published. Freedman recently  stated that one of his theories, that the Goan's son Avraham Vilner was born in 1765, has been confirmed. A 1795 Vilna census/tax list includes Abraham and records his age as 30. Information about the book can be found at
http://www.avotaynu.com/books/gaon.htm

"The Complete Bibliography of the Works of Professor Dov Levin, 1945-2000" 
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html 

"Crime and Punishment" - compiled by Advocate Joseph Melamed.  It is a very comprehensive history of the Holocaust in Lithuania.  The history of the Holocaust in most of the larger cities and towns is given in detail.  Several thousand of the  known perpetrators of the mass murder in Lithuania are listed by name.  There is an Association known as "Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel".  They publish a newsletter, Gachelet, in Hebrew, Yiddish and English. Their address is 1 David Hamelech Blvd., Tel Aviv 64953, Israel.
http://www.lithuanianjews.org.il/HTMLs/article_list4.aspx?C2014=14314&BSP=14307&BSS59=14430

"Demographic and social-Professional Structure of the Jewish Community in Vilnius" - based on the Census of 1784.  "The Gaon of Vilnius and the Annals of Jewish Culture"; Materials of the International Scientific Conference, - compiled by Dr. Lempertas and Edited by Larisa Lempertiene.  Published by University Publishing House in Vilnius in 1998. The link is to a pdf file.
www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/9781847183552-sample.pdf 

"Eliyahu's Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and his Family" 
authored by Chaim Freedman and published by Avotaynu in 1997.  It includes 20,000 names and a host of biographical and historic details.
http://www.avotaynu.com/gaonbook.html

"Experiences with Jewish Genealogical Requests and a review of the records stored in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives": authored by Galina Baranova, Chief Archivist of the State Historical Archives in Vilnius - LitvakSIG online Journal 
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/journal.htm

"The Expulsion of the Jews from Lithuania in the Spring of 1915" - a description of political events preceding and accompanying the expulsion of Jews from the western part of Kovno Guberniya, based on the periodical press of 1914-1915, the stenographic minutes of the State Duma, and publications primarily from the interwar period - authored by Anatolij Chayes and published in the February, 2000 issue of LitvakSIG Journal
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/expulsion.htm

You can also find week-to-week reports in English-language Jewish newspapers of the era, such as the Jewish Chronicle of London.

"Fighting Back" - the story of Jewish soldiers in the Lithuanian Division of the Red Army during the years 1941-1945.  The second, revised edition, was published in 1997 by Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc. 160 Broadway, East Building 9th Floor, New York City.  Phone: 1 (212) 374 0100.  Professor Dov Levin was the author and he indicated that he has hundreds of files of interviews he conducted to create this book.  dovlevin@cc.huji.ac.il
http://www.holmesandmeier.com/titles/levin.html

"From Here to Kovno" - an article - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"From Yerushalayim d' Lita" - authored by Debbie Berliner and published in the July, 2000 issue of LitvakSIG Journal in a pdf file
www.yivo.org/downloads/yivo_80.pdf 

https://www1.jafi.org.il/papers/1991/july/jrjuly19.htm

"Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust" - authored by Yitzchak Arad.  Published by Yad Vashem and ADL Bnai Brith in Jerusalem 1980

"The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen By Its Perpetrators and Bystanders"- authored by Klee, Dressen, Riess, and Trevor-Roper and published by Konecky & Konecky.

HaMagid - the first weekly Hebrew newspaper appearing from 1856 to 1903.  Jeff Marx Rabjamarx@aol.com has information on this subject.  Jeff has created a full index to shtetl names which appear in the donor lists of HaMagid for all issues between 1856 and 1900. Though each issue is entirely in Hebrew, the year, volume, month and day are printed in English letters on the front page of each weekly issue.  Pages are also numbered.  City and town names appear in slightly larger fonts and are often in bold face.  Usually they appear under the Hebrew word "nedavot" (donations), and are, more often than not, found in the supplement section to the weekly issue.

Jeffrey Maynard mentioned that there are 70 lists from 57 locations - almost 5,500 names.

For the most part, all that is available in HaMagid, according to Jeff Marx, is a name on a list. These lists may enable one to ascertain that a specific family member was actually living at a given date and was residing in a particular city or shtetl as of that date (give or take a few months' lag between the time the donation was made and the donor's name was published in HaMagid)  Now and then, the donor may be identified as coming from a smaller town outside the city where the collection took place.  Now and then, in HaMagid, the donor is listed with other family members and their relationship is spelled out ("son-in-law of so and so" or "son of so and so")

Finally, when donors are listed in descending order of contributions, it provides a slight clue as to the family member's economic status in the community.  While, for the most part, the donor lists in HaMagid do not yield any other significant pieces of information, other than the name, they are worthwhile checking for those rarer times when a 'gem' may be found.

The HaMagid Persian Famine Donation Lists - Donors from Lithuania - 1871 and 1872 provide a resource of the names of over 40,000 Jews from the Pale of Settlement, including over 5,000 Lithuanian Jewish heads of families.

Microfilms of HaMagid are found at the following repositories:  Brown University; Columbia University; Cornell University; Harvard University; Hebrew College, Boston; Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati and Los Angeles; Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem; Jewish Theological Seminary, New Your; Library of Congress; New York Public Library; Northwestern university, Chicago; Stanford University; University of Ann Arbor; University of California, Berkeley; Washington University, St Louis; Yale University

"Heroism and Bravery in Lithuania, 1941-1945" - authored by Alex Faitelson in 1996 a Lithuanian Jew who lived in Kaunas, and who entered the Jewish Resistance when he was about 18. He was imprisoned in the Ninth Fort of Kaunas, from where he organized a daring escape with 63 other people.  Eve Line Blum-Cherchevsky translated the book into French and it is available in various French bookshops.  The title in French is: Courage Dans La Tourmente En Lituanie (Souvenirs du ghetto de Kovno - 1941-1945) by Alex Faitelson

"Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto" published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1997 and can be viewed on the Museum's web site.

"Holocaust in Lithuania 1941-1945, The: A book of Remembrance."  A four volume set records and documents over 50,000 Lithuanian Jewish Holocaust victims and edited and compiled by Rose Lerer Cohen and Saul Issroff. 
ISBN: 9652292991

"In Jewish Autonomy in Poland and Lithuania until 1648 (5408)" authored by Professor Shmuel Cygielman and published in Jerusalem, 1997.

"Jewish Cities, Towns and Villages in Lithuania Until 1918" - authored by Berl Kagan.  A copy is at the YIVO Library in New York.  The original printer was Simcha Graphic Associates, 4311  15th Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11219  Telephone: 718 854 4830.  The book is out of print.

"Jewish Craftsmen in Kaunas Guberniya" - an article by Anatolij Chayes in which the author surveys the typical documents preserved in the Russian State historical Archives and much more
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/craftsmen.htm

http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

The Jewish Family History Foundation - dedicated to the preservation, acquisition and dissemination of Jewish records from archives and other repositories in Eastern Europe
http://www.jewishfamilyhistory.org

"Jewish Kahals in 18th Century Lithuania" - The Gaon of Vilnius and the Annuals of Jewish Culture.  Materials of the International Scientific Conference, (Vilnius, September 10-12, 1997). Compiled by Dr. Lempertas, Edited by Larisa Lempertiene and published in Vilnius by University Publishing House in 1998

"The Jewish State Museum of Lithuania" - authored by Rachel Kostani - available at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.  It provides a condensed history (with photographs) of the Jewish State Museum and of Lithuanian Jewry and includes a summary of ongoing publication projects.

"Jewish Vital Records, Revision Lists and Other Holdings in the Lithuanian Archives" (English) authored by Harold Rhode and Sallyanne Sack and published by Avotaynu, Inc. in Teaneck, NJ in 1996

"Jewish vital Statistic Records in Lithuanian Archives" - authored by Alex Friedlander and published in Avotaynu VI; 4 (Winter 1990), pp; 4-12, (The complete story with inventories)

"The Jews of Lithuania" - authored by Masha Greenbaum is a history of a remarkable community from 1316 to 1945 and published in Jerusalem in 1955/5755 by Gefen Publishing House Ltd. There are at least four volumes in this series and include "The Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel"; "The Holocaust: 1941-1945"; "Lita" published in Yiddish; "Heroism and Bravery in Lithuania 1941-1945"

"Jews of Lithuania to 1918" - edited by N. Goren and L. Garfunkel and published by Am Hasafer in Tel Aviv in 1959

"Kaisadorys and Zasliai Cemeteries" - an article - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"Kaunas Archive Resources" - an article - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"The Kovno Ghetto: A Buried History" - a video produced by A&E TV Channel is available on-line The catalogue number is 40276 - Phone: 1 800-652-9000
http://store.AandE.com  

"Kovna (Kaunas): Surviving the Holocaust, The Kovno Ghetto Diary": - edited by Avraham Tory and published by Harvard University Press in 1990 and Pimlico Press in 1991

"Landscape and Memory" - authored by Simon Schama - has a large section devoted to Lithuania

"The Last Days of Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939-1944" in English, is a translation of Yiddish diaries of Herman Kruk, a Bundist activist from Warsaw, who fled to Vilna at the beginning of WW II.  The book is published jointly by YIVO and Yale University Press with assistance from the Nusach Vilna Society and was edited by Professor Benjamin Harshav, Blaustein Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Yale, and translated by Barbara Harshav.  Available from JewishGen Mall at 
http://www.jewishgen.org/jewishgenmall 

"Light One Candle" - authored by Solly Ganor in 1995 deals with the Kovno, Lithuania Ghetto.

"Lite" (Volumes 1 and 2) - At the end of October 2001, Lite (Lithuania)
Volumes 1 
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/lita/lita.html 

and Lite 2 
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/lita2/lita2.html  

Yizkor Books were added to the Yizkor Book Translation Donation Fund.  
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html  

Contact Max Heffler max@texsys.com if you have a particular town/name you wish translated, and he can determine the amount it will cost to have it translated A translator should run about $25 per page.  The Yizkor Book web pages contains translated tables of contents and lists names appearing in each 1000+ page book.

"Lithuanian Archives in the Past and at Present" - authored by Laima 
Tautvaisaite, Director of the State Historical Archives - LitvakSIG Online Journal 
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/journal.htm

"Lithuanian Jewish Communities" - authored by Nancy and Stuart Schoenberg is an excellent descriptive book of the many shtetls of Lithuania.  A good resource.

"Lituanie Juive 1918-1940" a book review by Joost van Beek and published in the March, 2000 issue of LitvakSIG

"The Litvaks" - authored by Dov Levin, a professor at Hebrew University and the author of a number of books on the Jews of Lithuania, including "Pinkas Hakehillot - Lita" (Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities: Lithuania) and "Fighting Back: Lithuanian Jewry's Armed Resistance to the Nazis". 

"The Litvaks" provides an English language history of Lithuanian Jewry since the 13th century and includes a lexicon of Lithuanian towns showing their Yiddish and modern spellings, statistical tables, sample documents and photographs of Jewish life in Lithuania.  The Table of Contents is available at 
http://www.avotaynu.com/books/litvaks.htm

http://tinyurl.com/5dmq5k

"Litvaks and the Founding of Brandeis University" - authored by Steven Weiss and published in the July, 2000 issue of LitvakSIG Journal  
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"Litvaks and Their Calendars or How to Navigate Between the torah Portion and the Hebrew, Gregorian, and Julian Calendars" - authored by Jacob Bleadon and published in the April, 2000 issue of the LitvakSIG Journal 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm

LitvakSIG " The LitvakSIG Poetry Page" - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"The Lords' Jews, Magnate - Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the 18th Century" - authored by M. J. Rosman.  It an informative work of research on the "Arrendator" or lessee system. Published in Cambridge, MA by Harvard University Press in 1990

"The Lost Wooden Synagogues of Eastern Europe" - features a journey by filmmaker Albert Barry to Lithuania to try to find the few remaining wooden synagogue buildings still standing.   Information about the film and how to order a copy is available at  
http://www.woodensynagogues.com  

"The Militias of Magnate's Towns in Byelorussia and Lithuania in the 16th to 18th Centuries" - authored by Anatol Hrtckiewicz. In Kwartalnik Historyczny, 77, no. 1 published in Minsk in 1970

"Native Realm - authored by Czeslaw Milosz and also the author of "The Issa Valley"

"New Sources of Genealogical Information in the Kaunas Regional Archives" - authored by Vitalija Gircyte, Chief Archivist of the Kaunas Regional Archives LitvakSIG Online Journal  
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/journal.htm

"On Foreign Soil" - an autobiographical novel authored by Falk Zolf and 
written in English.  It is a rich story first-hand, in the author's own words.  More about it at 
http://www.onforeignsoil.com/  

"On the Front Line in Lithuania, 1915" - stories of Jewish Eyewitnesses, by Anatolii Chayesh, translated by Gordon McDaniel and appearing in the August, 2001 issue of the LitvakSIG Journal  
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"Pinkas Hakehillot: Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities from their Foundation till after the Holocaust: Lithuania" - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html 

"The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th Century 1697-1935" (Liberty's Folly) - authored by Jerry Tadeusz Lukowski and published by the Cambridge University Press in 1951

"Privilege to Jews Granted by Vytautas the Great" - authored by Stanislovas Lazutka and Edwardas Gudavichius in English and Russian and published in Moscow by the Jewish University of Moscow in 1993

"Research and Travel in Suwalki Guberniya Towns - authored by Bruce Kahn and published in Landsmen IV 4 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-5
http://www.jewishgen.org/SuwalkLomza/

"Researching 18th-Century Census and Tax Lists from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania" - see Avotaynu Vol. XVII, No. 3, Fall 2001
http://www.avotaynu.com/subindex/indexl.htm

"Revisiting Roots in Lithuania" - authored by Hedy Pagremanski Page and published in the October, 2000 issue of LitvakSIG Journal http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"The Rosen Legacy" - authored by Claire L. Datnow.  The Rosen Legacy waves a complex tapestry that ranges across time and space, chronicling the fate of nine generations of Rosens and the Torah they inherit.  Through the lives of its custodians the Torah becomes entangled in astonishing and brutal events shaping the fate of a family, a people, and a nation.  At the heart of the novel is an intriguing question: how does a family's sacred legacy shape the identify of those who inherit it?  Excerpts from this book are available at http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/excerpts_
from_the_rosen_legacy.htm 

"Scrolls of Testimony" - authored by Abba Kovner in 2001 relates to the Kovno Ghetto.

"Thoughts On Lithuania's Shadows of The Past: A Historical Essay On The Legacy of War"
http://www.btinternet.com/~ablumsohn/linkuva.htm

"The Shtetl and I" - authored by Dvora Rogovin Helberg ""On Sunday, Elul 17th , 5702, (8/30/1942), the Vishnive ghetto was annihilated. The church bells began ringing early in the morning, announcing to the gentiles of the surrounding villages about the slaughter. By the thousands, they poured into town, filled its streets and gathered near the synagogue. They watched the victims burning, some still alive." (from the Vishnive Memorial Book, Published in Israel, 1972). Read the book at 
e_index.html

"Some Problems in Researching Eastern European Records" - authored by Boris Feldblyum and Yakov Shadevich and published in Avotaynu IX: 3 (Fall 1994), pp. 3-7
http://www.avotaynu.com/subindex/indexl.htm

"The Tale of a Litvak" - authored by Morris S. Schulzinger and published in 1985 by Philosophical Library, New York. Contains references of  Balbarishok, Grodno, Halinke, Kovno, Lazde, Mariyampole, Serei, Vilna and Yagustov.

The book  mentions these families: Dunsky, Frankel, Golden, Goldin, Gootman, Gurvitz, Horwitz, Krutzel, Leemon, Lucas, Marmet, Prebell (Pribulsky) Ravad, Rutshtein, Schulzinger, Sereisky and Slavaticki.   The author was born in  Serei  in 1900 and later lived in  Cincinnati until his death.

"There Once Was A World" authored by Masha Greenbaum and Professor D. Yaffa Eliach at Brooklyn College. Story is about Jews of  Lithuania. and she also states that in relation to the early Jewish settlement of  Eishykok, "whether the original Jewish settlers were Karaites or Rabbinates, no one really knows."  "Some remnants of distinctly Karaites practices survived into the twentieth century in several families, but they hardly constitute proof of any kind."

"Unbelievable Truth" - authored by Jeanne Ran Tcharnyi who was born in Russia in 1920 and now living in Israel.  She wrote about her growing up in Jonava, life in the Vilnius ghetto, working for Nazi headquarters in Minsk posing as a non-Jew, spying for the partisans, and ending up in the Russian Gulag.  Originally published in Russian and Lithuanian it is also now in English.  Contact Howard Margol homargol@aol.com to purchase.

"Unmarked Lives" mount an exhibition of textile artistry inspired by doing Litvak genealogical research
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm

"Using Litvak Naming Patterns to Derive Names of Unknown Ancestors" - is an article written by Harold Rhode and published in Avotaynu Vol. XI, No. 3 Fall 1995 issue of Avotaynu  
http://www.avotaynu.com

Videos by Alexanders Feigmanis, the well-known genealogist is available.  
http://www.jewishgen.org//  (then go to the "mall")

"The Vievis Jewish Cemetery" - an article -  
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum" - an article - 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"What Does a Litvak Look Like?"  - an article by Judith Shulamith Langer-Surnamer Caplan asking "How many of you have ever wondered what a Litvak looks like '?" and published in the July, 1999 issue of LitvakSIG
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm

"What Rite or Ritual for Prayer Was in General Use Among the Jews in Lithuania?"  - authored by Shalom Bronstein and published in the June, 2000 issue of LitvakSIG Journal  
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

"Yahadut Lite" - Historical Introduction in Hebrew, authored by Israel Klausner -vol. I, published in Tel-Aviv in 1968

"Yidishe Shtetl un Shtetlach in Lita" - authored by Berl Kagan.
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm

"Yidishe Shtet, Shtethlekh un Dorfishe Yishuvim in Lite: biz 1918: Historish- Biografishe Skitses" (Jewish Cities, Towns and Villages in Lithuania until 1918)  - authored by Berl Kagan.  (Out of print)
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html 

Yizkor Book Project - Martin Kessel is the Project Manager kessel@jewishgen.org 

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/

Very few Lithuanian towns have individual Yizkor books, but there are other similar sources including  Yehudit Lita; Lithuanian Jewish Communities; Lita: Yiddishe Shtetl; Pinkas ha

"Zeimelis  Jewish Cemetery" display photographs of Jewish memorial Matzevot in Lithuanian shtetls
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm

"Zemaiciu Naumiestis Cemetery Visit" - an article - http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm 

  Books Resources

LitvakSIG
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/publications.htm

General
Lithuanian Genealogy
Information

I would suggest to the researcher of the following sites, to also check the other two  Baltic Country sites, including Estonia and Latvia, as well as Poland and Belarus and Russia as there may very well be some cross references as the country borders changed many times between wars.

Sites of Pre-war Jewish Residences in Lithuania - a map is located on the 
LitvakSIG Welcome Page
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/

An excellent site to find information about most European countries is at http://searcheurope.com  

and type in the name of the country you wish to research in the search field.  This site is a great source to find information for almost every European country.  Another valuable site to help find a person, maps, etc. is 
http://www.webhelp.com/home  

and type in the name of any country you wish to research. This service is free.

Global Gazetteer is a great web site. It is a directory of  2,880,532 of the world's cities and towns, sorted by country and linked to a map for each town.  A tab separated list is available for each country 
www.calle.com/world/ 

Agricultural Colonies in South-Eastern Ukraine

This was a fascinating and unique episode in modern Jewish history.  Commencing in the early 19th century, Jews were encouraged to leave the densely populated urban communities in Lithuania and Byelorussia and travel far to the south  to establish Jewish agricultural colonies.  The incentives were exemption from military service (for varying periods) and government aid to set up the new communities.  Two Guberniyas hosted groups of colonies: Kherson and Yekaterinoslav.  There were colonies in other regions but they did not constitute significant numbers as did the 30 or so colonies in the above regions.

The Kherson colonies were established in the first decade of the 19th century while the Yekaterinoslav group was colonized initially from 1846.  The 17 Yekaterinoslav colonies reached their peak in population in the 1890s with about 19,000 people.  The colonists were prone to pogroms in the  1880's and suffered particularly during the Civil War 1917-1922 when several were completely destroyed by marauding bandits such as Machno. During the Soviet period most of the Yekaterinoslav colonies were incorporated in a Jewish Autonomous region which, in its turn, was decimated by the Holocaust.

There are very few sources in English for the history of this colonization.  I have researched the subject for about 35 years, initially based on oral family stories, then supplemented by written sources.  I have been joined in my research by Prof. Melvin Comisarow who has discovered rare  maps and aerial photographs as well as interviewing the last of the family elders who recall life on the colonies.  I published my research in two books of family history (now out of print) which included the historical and statistical details, and family details appear in "Eliyahu's Branches".

The main sources were several old Russian texts, in particular "Yevreiski Zemlyedeltsi" (Jewish Agriculturalists) by Nikitin (St. Petersburg, 1887).   This book includes very detailed descriptions of the development of the project with much statistical material.  A good summary of this Russian source is included in a Hebrew work "Khaklaim Yehudiim Bearvot Russia" (Jewish Agriculturalists on the Russian Steppe, Tel Aviv 1965). In addition I discovered about fifty letters and articles in the Hebrew newspapers published in Russia, "Hamelitz", "Hamaggid", "Hatsefirah". Personal details of individual colonist families is had to come by, but there are a number of Prenumeranten lists from the colonies.

This year saw a major development in our research with the discovery in an Ukrainian archive of the 1858 Revision Lists. Initially we commissioned only specific families and 500 people were identified in six of the seventeen colonies.  We are now commissioning the entire lists for all the colonies, which may include about 8-10,000 people.  Our initial experience demonstrated that this approach is necessary as errors were found in the translations and certain families were overlooked (even though they appeared on the photocopies sent to us).

What is of particular interest is the fact that the place of origin in the north is recorded for each family group in the 1858 lists.  Oral family tradition held that my ancestors of the Komisaruk family came from Kovno.  I discovered a reference to the birth of my gg-grandfather in Rassein, which led me to suspect that  "Kovno" may have meant "Kovno Guberniya" with Rassein being the specific town.  Indeed the family group of my ggg-grandfather includes the notation that they were part of the Rassein group of settlers.

We are now eagerly awaiting the material to be commissioned by the Rassein sub-group of LitvakSIG to widen our knowledge of the families' pre-1846 origins.  The original 1846 settlers in the Yekaterinoslav colonies responded to the invitation of the Russian authorities and 324 families were selected from  amongst the applicants.  This group was made up of candidates from the following Guberniyas:

Mogilev 83
Vitebsk 175
Courland 11
Kovno 41
Kiev 14
(Individual Towns were not recorded)

The group was further reduced to 285 families as follows by town of origin:
Mogilev and Orsha 83
Lutzin (in Latgala, now Latvia) 160
Polotsk 1
Rassein 11
Salant 30

Convoys set off from Mogilev and traveled southwards to establish the first seven colonies.  Further settlers arrived and established the remaining ten colonies until about 1860.  These came from additional northern cities: Vilna, Kovno, Miyadzol, Svientzian, Shavli, Kobilnik, Svir, Sokolka and others.  The families retained their communal unity based on these towns of origin.  In fact come of the colonies were referred to by the Jews by nicknames indicating their origin: Nadezhanaya was called "Der Vilner", Zelionoepole was called "Myadler", and Sladkovodnaya was known as "Kobilnya".

A study of surnames amongst the colonists compared with surname lists for the towns of origin showed a remarkable similarity.  Thus colony Zelionoepole (Myadler) included families Svidler, Gordon and Khodosh - the same names that appeared concurrently in Miyadzol and Kobilnik. Novozlatopol had many families from Lutzin; Zmood, Lev, Weisman, Ezeritz, Amiton, names which also appear in records of Lutzin until the Holocaust.

Beider's lists of towns for particular surnames gives another indication of the parallel development of certain families.  As Lithuanian, Latvian and Byelorussian archival records are extracted, it should be possible to correlate branches of families which remained in their ancestral towns with lateral branches which sought their new homes in the southern colonies.  That exercise will add a new dimension to the research of these families as well as enriching our knowledge of an important episode in Jewish history.  The above information was posted by Chaim Freedman Petah Tikvah, Israel; E-mail: fridman@ultinet.co.il Web Page: http://www.avotaynu.com/gaonbook.html

All Lithuanian Database (ALD)

A great searchable database created by the efforts of the LitvakSIG membership. To find which records have been entered, which are in process, and which are yet to be processed 
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/all.htm

Archives

Vilna Archives - records go back to the 1600s.  They also retain some Byelorussia records.  The Russian Empire's archival system is different from the U.S. Archival System in that they use "fond" (a record group), "opus" (an inventory number) and "delo" (item number) to file everything.  If you have the fond, opus and delo numbers, any archivist can find the original document in the archives.  You can verify by looking on the copy of the log sheet itself, where the page number is tamped in the upper right hand corner and the line is numbered on the left side of each half of the log sheet.

Archives

Remember when writing to these sources to be polite, patient and include pertinent information such as names, dates, places - whatever else that can aid the researchers in locating your family. Include an IRC (International Reply Coupon) which is used in place of the SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) when mailing outside the US.  If a fee is requested for research, obtain a Personal Money Order from your bank, copy it, and mail the money order - registering it, and attaching a Return Receipt for International Mail.

"Explanation of Abbreviations" - used in the Catalog of Jewish of Jewish Holdings of the Kaunas Regional Archives which can be found at
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/HTML/abbdesc.htm

"Never Judge an Archival collection by Its Description or, Never Judge a Book by Its Cover" - the contents of YIVO' s Lithuanian Communities of the Interwar Period Collection and authored by Deena A. Berton as published in the April, 1998 issue of LitvakSIG Journal

Centrinis Valstybinis Civilinis Metrikacijos Archyvas (holds vital records for 1895-1940)
Kalinausko St.
Vilnius, Lithuania

Central State Archive of Lithuania (Siauliai)
Vilniaus Gatve 160
23 Siauliai, Lithuania

Central State Archive of Lithuania (Vilnius)
Generolo Obuchovo Gatve
232016 Vilnius, Lithuania

Family History Library has nearly finished their filming of Jewish vital records in the State Archives of Lithuania.   Kahlile Mehr is the collections acquisitions specialist for the territory of the former Soviet Union.  The library has received and catalogued all of the Jewish vital records from opis 1* of Fond 728* stored in the Historical Archive in Vilnius. To determine if records of interest to you are available, check the on-line catalog at 
http://www.familysearch.org 

* Fond and opis are archival designations of the record storage system that enable an archivist to retrieve records.  A "Fond" is a record group, and an "opis" is an inventory of a subset of records within a specific fond.  Fond 728 consists of four opis and includes vital records from many parts of Lithuania.  It also includes records for some sites that are now in the northeastern part of Belarus
 
Internal Passport - The Lithuanian Archives contain hundreds of thousands of police and court records.  However, they are not indexed and are filed only by date.  In order for the archivist to find a police or court record, you must know the location, the event and the exact date.  With the information from this Internal Passport record, the police report can probably be found. For a full explanation of Internal Passports, and to view the various types of documents contained in the files
 http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Lithuania/InternalPassports.htm

"Jewish Genealogical Resources at the Kaunas regional Archives" - a presentation made at the 18th Annual Seminar on Jewish Genealogy on July 13th, 1998 by Vitalija Gircyte and published in the December, 1998 issue of LitvakSIG Journal. If requesting information from the available records, it could take as much as a year to receive a response. 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/journal.htm

Jewish State Museum of Lithuania (Holds Shavli and Vilnius Ghetto Prisoner Lists)
Palmenkalnio 12
Vilnius 2001
Lithuania
Att: Rachel Kostanian, Director

The "Jewish Vital Records" book can also be purchased from Avotaynu 
http://www.avotaynu.com/catalog.htm 

Kaunas Regional Archives - "The Catalog of the Jewish Holdings of the Kaunas Regional Archives"
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/kaunasix.htm

For information on obtaining genealogical records from the various Lithuanian archives, consult the LitvakSIG FAQ's at
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak

You can search for records which have already been entered into the All Lithuania Database by name and by town from that same website.

Kaunas Regional Archives
Kauno Apskrities Archyvas
Ms. Vitalija Gircyte
Chief Archivist
Maironio 28A
LT-3000 KAUNAS
LITHUANIA

Ms. Vitalija Gircyte is the Head Archivist of the Kaunas Regional Archives. The archive requires a $100 research fee.  There is a "Catalog of the Jewish Holdings of the Kaunas Archive" which summarizes the great variety of types of documents and records in the archives, for each town and every year. 

Lithuanian Central Civil Register Archives (Lietuvos Centrinis Metriku Archyvas) - located at Kalinausko 21, Vilnius 2600 in Vilnius, contains Metrical Books, which is totally different and is not a list.  Metrical books are registry books where births, marriages, deaths and divorces were recorded.  All of the vital records obtained from the Lithuanian archives are recorded in metrical books and are called metrical records.  Usually there are multiple metrical records on one page, as opposed to a single birth, death or marriage record like those in the United States. This Archive contains Birth, Marriage, Divorce and Death Records from 1915 to present.  There is no research fee.

Lietuvos Valstybinis Istorijos Archyvas (Lithuanian State Historical Archives) (Holds records of the Jewish Community until 1915)
Gerosios Vilties 10
Vilnius 2015
Lithuania

Lithuanian Central State Archives
O. Milasiaus 21
Vilnius 2016 Lithuania

Laima Tautvaisaite is the Director of the Vilnius Lithuanian State Historical Archives.  

Lithuanian State Archives - Galina Baranova is the Head Archivist of the Lithuanian State Archives.  It is located at Gerosios Vilties 10  Vilnius 2015 Phone: 237 482 or 370-5-213-7484. Fax 237 612  The archive requires a $100 research fee.

Lithuanian Vital Statistics Records Archives (Holds records from 1916 - Birth, Marriage, Death)
K. Kalinausko 21
Vilnius 2600
Lithuania

Locality Index to Lithuanian Jewish Vital Records Currently Available at the Family History Library - these microfilmed records for birth, marriage, death and even some divorce records are in both Hebrew and Cyrillic
http://www.avotaynu.com/lithuanialist.htm

Main Archival Administration
Mindaogo 8
232600 Vilnius, Lithuania

State Historical Archive of Lithuania (Holds vital Records before 1895)
Lietuvos Valstybinis Istoriyos Archyvas
Gerosios Vilties Gatve 10
LT-2015 Vilnius, Lithuania

Association of the Lithuanian Jews in Israel -

publishes the GACHELET, a Newsletter of the association. They list their address and telephone number as: Tel-Aviv 64953, 1 David Hamelech Blvd., Tel. 6964812, FAX 6954821

Bal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name; Besht) -

opposing the perceive over - intellectual and under-emotional Talmud Judaism of the early 16th century, Hasidism ('pietism') stressed simple faith and a joyous expression of piety.  The movement's founder, Bal Shem Tov, taught that even Jews unable to read the prayer book could pray meaningfully to HaShem.

As Hasidism spread rapidly through Eastern Europe, many of its practices engaged rabbinical authorities.  "They associate among themselves and their ways are different," complained the rabbis." ...they belittle the study of Torah, and repeatedly claim that one should not study much, nor deeply regret one's transgressions ..."  In April 1772, the Jewish communities of Vilna and Brody tried to halt the spread of Hasidism by casting its adherents out of the faith.  Led by renowned rabbinical scholar Elijah ben Shlomo of Vilna, the edict ruled that "All leaders of our people must wear the mantel of zealotry ... to destroy and expunge, and to sound to them the voice of excommunication and banishment.  

However, this ban and similar ones that followed failed. Today, Hasidism continues to attract thousands of Jews in Europe, America and Israel and its Chabad movement is active on many college campuses.  The Vilna Baal Shem Tov information was obtained from an article written in "This Month in Jewish history" by Alexis Rubin - a Jewish history teacher, writer, researcher and syndicated columnist.

Balt-L - The Lithuanian Z-Line -

an excellent discussion list, finds people and 
places and is a good source for Balts to learn more about themselves. http://www.angelfire.com/ut/Luthuanian/jewish1.html

Basketball (huh?) -

Basketball was first played by women at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts on March 22, 1893, where it was introduced by Senda Berenson Abbot, a native of Lithuania ... and one of three women enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.  She was considered the 'Mother of Women's Basketball'.  She was born in Vilnius in 1868 and came to the U.S. in 1875.  She also wrote the first women's guide to basketball in 1901.

Box Tax and Houses -

There were many different kinds of taxes which the Jews might have been expected to pay including Box, Candle and real Estate and Property.  These files (ALD) include real estate records, lists of apartment dwellers, farmers and estate holders, charitable donations, and lists of financial assistance to the poor, as well as inheritance and other court records.  they also include Petition for Mikvah Maintenance; Kosher meat; Care of Need members of community, etc.; and the 1890 Siauliai District Merchants.

"In researching Box taxes throughout the Pale of Settlement for a paper presented at the International Seminar in London in Summer 2001, Vitalija Gircyte and I concluded that during most of the 19th century, most of the small towns, such as Rumsiskes, consisted entirely of wooden houses.  But some, like Kedainiai, could boast of having quite a few stone houses already by the 1840s. There must have been a considerable difference in financial status of the owner of a wooden house and a stone one."

"It may not seem to make sense to repeat 'wooden' if there were no stone houses in the town but the clerk was following a form that required him to state what it was that was being taxed. Many tax lists also included 'inns,' 'taverns,' 'mills' and son on (and of course, many of the mills were built of stone.) The amount of the tax indicates the value of the property which was 'owned' but it does not necessarily mean that your ancestor lived in that house, or in that town.  Put another way, the owners (not renters) paid the tax and it is possible that the owners did not live in the house, although usually they did or they had in the past."

"Some mid-19th century tax lists were specifically called property owners' lists.  A valuable thing about hem is that they often gave the number of the property.  If you are fortunate enough to find a matching map for the town, you will be able to see the exact house that your ancestors lived in.  We have an 1869 plat (map) showing every numbered house and all of the Jewish community buildings for Ariogala and the corresponding property owners' list, and many members of our research group have been able to find their ancestors' homes.  While after several fires and wars repeatedly destroyed the town, none of the same buildings exist today, when you walk the streets of the shtetl you get the feeling that homes were rebuild on the same foundations over the years."  This information was posted to LitvakSIG by David Hoffman DBH12345@aol.com  on 12-02-02

The Box Tax Payers Lists do contain clerical errors; lots of people listed twice or even three times in the Kelme tax payers lists, though usually there were several people with the same surname and given name in each community.  Box tax payers lists were made in advance for the next 4 years for the estimates of possible income and expenditures. Each person is supposed to be listed there only once.

The ALD (All Lithuania Database) contains full or partial Revision Lists, Family Lists, Census Lists and town residents Lists for 1816, 1834, 1851, 1858 and 1874 for most of the districts in Vilna and Kovno Guberniyas, and for many towns within Disna, Kaunas, Lida, Oshmiany, Panevezys, Raseiniai, Siauliai, Telsiai, Trakai, Vilkomer and Vilnius districts.

Byelorussians in Lithuania

There are approximately 63,000 Byelorussians in Lithuania as of 1993.  More information available at
http://www.belarus-misc.org/bel-diasp.htm  

'Run' -- the newspaper or Byelorussians of Lithuania 
http://www.runbel.lt/

Cemeteries

Bruce Kahn has a searchable photographic database of this and many other cemeteries -  Follow the links and you will find around 2,000 photos of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania and Belarus.
http://jgsr.hq.net/  

The Lithuanian government requires that all architectural relics to be preserved and looked after.  This applies also to Jewish cemeteries and Synagogues and other buildings.  Most cemeteries have been identified and often cleared and the stones put upright, and cleaned. 
http://www.jewishgen.org/Cemetery/e-europe/lithuania.html

Consolidated Jewish Surname Index

Includes the Jewish Records Indexing - Poland; All-Lithuania Database; All-Belarus Database; All-Latvia Database and JewishGen Family Finder is available at
http://www.avotaynu.com/csi/csi-home.html

Courland Research Group - 

http://www.jewishgen.org/Courland/ 

Documentation of the Mass Murder of Lithuanian Jewry

A copy of a secret Reich letter by the SS Einsatzgruppen dated 1 December 1941 in Kaunas (Kovno, Kauen).  This site lists the date of extermination, the town location and the totals of males and females and Communists killed http://www.angelfire.com/ut/Luthuanian/doc1.html

Dvinsk Rail Line

The rail line ran between Dvinsk and Riga, both of which were in Latvia.  Rakishok was the second stop, in Lithuania, after Abel.  After Rakishok, the train stopped in Panemunke (Panemunilis), a farming community, to pick up flax but not passengers; then Kupishok and Ponevezh.  After Ponevezh, the rail line swung north to Siauliai, Telsiai and ended in Riga.

Europages

Business 2 business company directory and business in Europe, yellow pages access, international and European business directory (professional services, addresses and business classifieds
http://www.europages.net

Explanation of Abbreviations

Abbreviations used in the Catalog of Jewish 
Holdings of the Kaunas Regional Archives  and the link to the Kaunas Archives and "Description of Documents in the Catalog".
http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/  

Fort9

A former Soviet prison where more than 30,000 Jews were shot.  You can still see the bullet-riddled wall where Jewish prisoners were lined up and murdered.
http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/holocaust.html

http://www.axt.org.uk/antisem/archive/archive1/lithuania/lithuania.htm

Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia -

http://www.geocities.com/albaruthenia/IA/history.html

Hasidim (Chasidim)

"One of the first things one finds out about the Jews of North-east Lithuania is that they are described as being mostly "Chabad Hasidim". Naturally this is surprising since the first thing Litvak researchers learn is of the historical Litvak division between the Mitnagdim and the Hasidim.  Nevertheless, all of the reference books describe the towns of Rakishok, Abel, Ponimunok and surrounding communities as having a majority of Hasidim.  From a posting by Steven Weiss

Lithuania was the only major place in Eastern Europe where Hasidism did not predominate (largely because of the opposition of the Vilna Gaon), but groups such as Lubavitch, Slonimer, and Stoliner Hasidim too hold and grew.  The Hasidim of Lithuania definitely were shaped by the milieu of the Litvaks in general.  They had a stronger emphasis on learning Torah than other Hasidim as a result of the strong influence yeshivos and Torah learning among the Lithuanian Jews.

"Lithuanian Hasidism" - authored by W Z Rabinowitz and published by Vallentine Mitchell in 1970.  It deals almost exclusively with Karlin Hasidism.

Holocaust

A database is currently being created which will eventually list some 200,000 to 240,000 Jews who were murdered as victims of the holocaust in Lithuania.  The database is being created by Saul Issroff and Rose Lerer Cohen.  Help in creating this database is being solicited and to supply names, contact Dr. Saul Issroff, 29c Elsworthy Rd., London, England NW3 3BT; e-mail saul@swico.demon.co.uk or Rose Lerer Cohen, P.O. Box 11456, Jerusalem, Israel 91114; e-mail roseron@shani.net

Jewish Community of Lithuania

The Jewish Community of Lithuania
The University of Vilnius
Vilnius 2600, Lithuania

http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/Vilna.asp

"Jerusalem of Lithuania" - the newspaper of the Lithuanian Jewish Community
http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=95

Jewish Demographics

"In a statistical studies of Jewish demographics in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth during the 18th century, it shows that early teen marriages were the norm among one-quarter of the Jewish population, ostensibly the more affluent class, i.e. it was in those families best able to support grandchildren while they still had children to support that the mother's age at first birth tended to be lowest."

The traditional ages for Jewish marriages were 18-20 for boys, 16-18 for girls.  The couple was billeted in their parental home, usually the bride's, at least until the husband was old enough to support his family on his own." From a posting on JewishGen by Norman H. Carp-Gordon on 2/14/01

Jewish Family History Foundation

It's current major project: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania/Kingdom of Poland 18th century censuses and 19th century "bridge record" revision list project.
www.jewishfamilyhistory.com

The Grand Duchy Research Project identifies documents relating to the lives of Jewish families who lived in Poland-Lithuania during the 17th and 18th centuries, and translates and publishes them on the Jewish Family History Foundation Website. Poll-Tax/census lists made in 1784 and 1765 are the primary documents included in this phase of the project.

A searchable "Heads of Household" Index of 1816 revision lists for the following 28 towns:

Batakai, Cekiske, Dotnuva, Davkinlava, Erzvilkas, Gaure, Girkalnis, Grinkiskis, Josvainiai, Jurbarkas, Kvedarna, Nemaksciai, Siline, Pajuris, Raseiniai, Rietavas, Seredzius, Silale, Skaudville, Sveksna, Taurage, Upyna, Vainutis, Veliuona, Vidukle, Veivirzenai, Vilkija, Zeimaiciu Naumiestis.  

You can use the search engine to determine if your ancestor is in the database before making a tax deductible contribution to help complete the translations for our online database.

Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain

Working on a guide for Lithuania.  Contact: Rosemary Wenzerul Dandr@wenzeds.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.gould.com.au/A-Guide-to-Jewish-Genealogy-in-Lithuania-p/ffh350.htm

JewishGen ShtetlSeeker

Locate your town (shtetl) - http://www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker/loctown.htm

Jewish History in Lithuania

Includes a database of genealogical information about the Jewish community in Lithuania 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Lithuania  

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/lithtoc.html

http://www.jewishfamilyhistory.org/

http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/

http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Religion/LITHUANIA-JEWISH.html

Jews in Lithuania

A web site that deals with the construction and restoration of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius
http://daugenis.mch.mii.lt/litvakai/index.en.htm  

This novel site also offers information on Vilnius, Culture, Religious Traditions and Languages.  Check it out.

Jews of Lithuania web site is at
http://litvakai.mch.mii.lt/index.en.htm  
  
http://litvakai.mch.mii.lt/ 

To view the online exhibit (in Lithuanian Language)  "Jews of Lithuania at the Beginning of the 20th Century," go to:
www.archyvai.lt/struktura/paroda/paroda.htm

Jewish Vital Records

There are more than 20,000 Jewish Vital Records that are searchable on the ALD (All Lithuanian Database) http://www.jewishgen.org/litvak/all.htm   

LitvakSIG volunteers are working on an indexing project which will include thousands of records within fond 728.  To learn how to become part of this group contact Jeff Miller singingtm@aol.com

To get copies of records write to Galina Baranova at the Archives in Vilnius to initiate a search for the particular surname you are interested in.  (When I used Galena's services in 1994, she charged $50, but I understand that the services are more like $70 per name search and about $20 for a copy of a record  found with an English translation) 

Lithuanian Archives:
Lietuvos Valstybinis Istorijos Archyvas
Gerosios Vilties 10 
Vilnius 2015  Lithuania (Lietuva)

Standard Fees for Non-Lithuanian Nations:
$70.00 for initial research
5.00 per Photocopy
13.00 per page:

Lithuania

Plenty of links at this site.  Though not geared to Jewish information, if you want to learn more about the country - it's culture; heritage, surname information; ancient Lithuanian map; immigration to US from 1776-1940 and much more including more links to basic Lithuanian Phrases and pronunciations and the Vilnius Telephone Book 
http://www.webmart.net/~zemaitis/zemaitis.htm 

http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/
eu_members/lithuania/index_en.htm

Lithuanian (Country)

Pinkas Hakehillot; Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities from their foundation till after the Holocaust: Lithuania - The complete bibliography of the Works of Professor Dov Levin, 1945-2000 - Yidishe Shtetl, Shtetlach un Dorfishe Yishuvim in Lite: biz 1918; Historish-Biografishe Skitses (Jewish Cities, Towns and Villages in Lithuania until 1918) http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/translations.html

Lithuanian e-zine - LABAS

THE LITHUANIAN E-ZINE an internet magazine 
primarily for those of Lithuanian heritage or anyone interested in Lithuania.   A good site for every person interested in Lithuania, its history and culture." Contains articles about Lithuania, folklore,   mythology, genealogy, not-for profit organization activities in Lithuania, Lithuanian businesses, Lithuanian publications.  The site also has an archive of previous discussions 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/labas/ 

Lithuanian Global Resources

www.angelfire.com/ut/Luthuanian

Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society.

Lithuanian Heritage Magazine

http://www.lithuanianheritage.com/

Lithuanian History

http://www.geocities.com/albaruthenia/IA/history.html

Lithuanian Jewish community

Looking at the Jewish Communities of the World is also an interesting site that offers  an insight into the Lithuanian Jewish community, its culture and history 
http://www.virtual.co.il/communities/wjcbook/lithuan/  

Lithuanian Jewish Community

Address is
Pylimo Street 4, 2600 Vilnius.  
Phone 370 2 613 003 
Fax 370 2 227 915 

This building also houses the
Vilna Gaon  Jewish State Museum of Lithuania
Pamenkalnio 12
2001 Vilnius, Lithuania
Attention: Jevgenija Sedova
E-mail: jmuseum@pub.osf.lt
www.litjews.org 

Lithuanian Jews in South Africa

 
http://www.angelfire.com/ut/Luthuanian/vilnius.html

Lithuanian Language

Words and meanings. Up until 1840, the court records in Lithuania were written in Polish.  After that date, Russian became the official language for court records.  Some clerks, used to writing in Polish, did not use Russian exclusively for the first several yeas after 1840.  Consequently, many court records during the 1841-43 period contained some Polish words along with the Russian.

Podszkolnik - an assistant director of a synagogue

Szkolnik - the title of an official with the synagogue or Kahal - a position we would call today 'an Executive Director'.

The term 'shkolnik' is sometimes used in the records pertaining to synagogues, prayer houses or schools.  For some years and some Uyezds there are lists of 'houses of worship' with the board of each house of prayer, consisting of three men, enumerated.  Thus, there are such lists of approximately 1868-1869 for all the Uyezds of Kaunas Guberniya, but each Uyezd mad e the list in a different form.

In Raseiniai Uyezd, most of the boards of each prayer house consisted of a 
Rabbi, Gabi and Shkolnik; the prayer house of the small town of Batakai in this list, is said to be administered by shkolnik who substitutes for a rabbi, a chairman and a treasurer; in Erzvilkas, for some reason, there was shkolnik - the board consisted of a rabbi, a chairman 'otherwise-Gabbai' and a treasurer.

For Panevezys Uyezd, it is said that the boards of all the prayer houses consisted of 'elected by the community Gabi, Neyman and Sch