the Telsiai Ghetto

Telšiai (Yiddish: Telz, Telzh) On the eve of the German invasion, about 2,800 Jews lived in Telsiai, representing roughly half of the townlet’s population. From the late nineteenth century, Telsiai’s large Yeshiva produced Jewish rabbis and leaders who later became active and important contributors in various countries and communities abroad. The Jews of Telsiai earned their livelihood mainly from commerce, artisanship, and light industry, as well as from providing accommodations to the hundreds of Yeshiva students who settled in the townlet. Jewish educational institutions included a high school and a seminary for girls. While Agudat Israel was the primary political force among the townlet’s Jews, Zionist parties and youth movements were active, as well. After Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940, the townlet’s factories were nationalized, parties and youth movements were disbanded, and Hebrew institutions were closed. In June 1941, a number of Jewish businesspeople and Zionist activists were exiled to Siberia. The German army entered Telsiai on June 26, 1941. The following day, the townlet’s Jewish inhabitants were driven out of their homes and their property was plundered. They were then imprisoned under very harsh conditions in cowsheds and barns on the Rainiai estate. The commander of the Lithuanians appointed a council to represent the Jews, which strove to improve living conditions. On July 14, 1941, a number of Germans and Lithuanians appeared at the estate and began to abuse the Jews as a crowd of Telsiai residents looked on. That day and the next, all the Jewish men at the estate were murdered, as were Jews from Alsedziai* and from a number of nearby townlets and villages. On July 22, 1941, the women and children were taken from the Rainiai estate to the Geruliai camp, where they endured severely overcrowded conditions. They were held together with the women and children of nearby townlets, totaling close to 2,000 people. On Saturday, August 30, 1941, the women and children were driven out of their huts. Five hundred women and young girls were then marched to Telsiai, while the others were murdered by Lithuanians. In Telsiai, the 500 women and children were imprisoned in a ghetto near the lake under very harsh conditions. Encircled by a high wooden fence topped by barbed wire, the ghetto’s gate was guarded by Lithuanians. A number of the women toiled for Lithuanian farmers, who fully exploited their workers, while others worked in Lithuanian homes as servants. Female doctors who were inhabitants of the ghetto, Dr. Blat, Dr. Shapira, and Dr. Srolovits, established an makeshift clinic to treat women that were ill or in labor. Despite their efforts, all of the babies born in the ghetto died shortly after their birth. Epidemic typhus also raged in the ghetto. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of 5702 (September 1941), the women of the ghetto gathered to pray—as several led the prayers—in the Beit Midrash inside the ghetto. Other women, having undergone brutal hardships and suffering, turned to the local priest seeking to convert to Christianity. From December 22, 1941, the women who worked in the villages were returned to the ghetto. The development was construed as a sign of the ghetto’s impending liquidation, prompting many women to flee from the ghetto via the lake or under the fence. Dozens of the women who escaped reached the Siauliai* ghetto. On December 24-25, 1941, all of the women that remained in the ghetto were taken to the vicinity of the Rainiai estate, where they were murdered. Of those that escaped, sixty-four survived and lived to see the day of liberation.