Tauragė

The first Jews apparently settled in Tauragē at the end of the 18th century. Since the town was close to the German border many local Jews earned their livelihood from smuggling goods to Germany; others worked in crafts and trade. The Jews of Tauragē benefiited from the economic opportunities of the town, which was considered one of the richest in Lithuania. In 1915, in the midst of World War I, the Russian army deported the Jews of Tauragē, many to Ukraine or outside the Pale of Settlement. When the Jews returned after the war, they repaired their homes and revived their businesses. In 1923 there were 1,777 Jews in the town, comprising 32.5 percent of the total population. In 1940, with the annexation of Lithuania to the USSR, all the town's factories and privately owned stores, both of which were mainly owned by Jews, were nationalized. An end was also put to Jewish political activity and education in Hebrew was banned. The German army occupied Tauragē on June 22, 1941. Heavy shelling of the town led some of the population, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to flee to nearby towns. When the Jews returned, they found that their homes had been looted by their neighbors. During the first weeks of the occupation both the lives and the property of the Jews were at the mercy of Lithuanian nationalists. In September 1941 the Jews of Tauragē were forced into a ghetto that was set up in a number of unfinished barracks in the town. On September 16 the ghetto was liquidated: all the Jews were killed in a forest near the town. The Red Army liberated Tauragē on October 10, 1944.