Pilviškiai

Jews began to settle in Pilviśkiai in the second half of the 18th century. At the end of the 19th century the town had 2,335 Jews, who comprised 53 percent of the total population. The town’s Jews were engaged in crafts, commerce, and the importing of materials for the St. Petersburg-Berlin railway line that passed close to Pilviśkiai. The political changes that took place in Lithuania after World War I had a negative effect on the economic situation of the local inhabitants and many Jews emigrated. The result was that there were only about 700 Jews in the town in 1939, when they then comprised 24 percent of the population.

In 1940 Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union in the wake of the Soviet-German (Molotov-Ribbentrop) non-aggression pact. The annexation of Lithuania led to the nationalization there of private property, which was largely owned by Jews. The nationalization, that affected factories and large stores owned by Jews, was paralleled by the closure of Jewish educational institutions in the town and the curtailment of Jewish cultural and political activity.

The German army occupied Pilviśkiai on June 23, 1941. Under German rule the local Lithuanian police immediately began persecuting the Jews. During August and September 1941 the Germans and their Lithuanian accomplices murdered all the Jews of the town.

Pilviśkiai was liberated by the Red Army in the summer of 1944.