Kaišiadorys

Jews began settling in Kaišiadorys during the second half of the nineteenth century, after a railroad station was set up in the town connecting Kaunas to Liepaja. On the eve of World War II, the Jewish population of Kaišiadorys comprised sixty families, who earned their livelihood from trade and light industry. In June 1940, following Lithuania’s annexation to the Soviet Union, all of Kaišiadorys’ stores and industries – many owned by Jews – were nationalized. In addition, all Jewish institutions were shut down. On June 22, 1941, while the Soviets retreated, local nationalists took control of Kaišiadorys, attacking the town’s synagogue and killing several Jews, among them the rabbi. The German army occupied Kaišiadorys on June 24, 1941. In mid-August 1941, the town’s Jewish men were imprisoned in a crops warehouse near the local train station, along with Jewish men expelled from the nearby towns of Zasliai and Ziezmariai. On August 27, 1941, all of the Jews imprisoned in the warehouse were placed in trucks, transported to the Strosiunai Forest, and murdered. Two days later, the women and children who had remained in their houses were murdered in the same forest. The Red Army liberated Kaišiadorys in the summer of 1944.