Ukmergė

Among the Jews, the town of Ukmergė was known as Vilkomir, or Valkemir (Wiłkomierz in Polish). In all likelihood, Jews began to settle in Vilkomir-Ukmergė in the late 16th - early 17th centuries, when the local economy was on the rise. The all-Russian census of 1897 recorded 7,287 Jews in Vilkomir, who made up fifty-four percent of the total population. In the early 20th century, the leftist anti-Zionist Bund party had many adherents in Vilkomir. In 1887, a cell of the proto-Zionist “Hovevei Zion” (Lovers of Zion) association was established there. Meanwhile, Jewish emigration from the town proceeded apace, with the most common destinations being South Africa and the United States, rather than the Land of Israel. During World War I, the Russian authorities expelled Jews from Vilkomir. After the war, the town became part of independent Lithuania and received its present name, Ukmergė. In 1923, it was home to 3,885 Jews, who made up thirty-seven percent of the total population. At the time, Jews played a prominent role in the local economy: In 1931, sixty-six out of eighty-seven light industrial enterprises in Ukmergė were owned by Jews. In 1920, a Yiddish gymnasium was opened in Ukmergė, followed by a Hebrew gymnasium in 1922. The Hebrew gymnasium proved to be more successful, and in 1932 it absorbed the Yiddish one. In 1940, Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union. All the Jewish shops and factories in Ukmergė were nationalized, and all the Jewish parties and organizations were disbanded. The unified gymnasium was transformed into a Yiddish-language Soviet school. In June 1941, the Soviets deported several dozen affluent Jewish families and some "unreliable" individuals eastward, mainly to Siberia. On June 22, 1941, the Soviet-German War broke out. The Soviet officials and military personnel abandoned Ukmergė on the second day of the war, June 23. German troops entered the town on June 24-25. Anti-Jewish orders and decrees followed, and they were enforced by the new Lithuanian administration and police. In the chaos caused by the rapid retreat of the Soviets, local Lithuanian "activists" (or "partisans", also known as the "white armbanders") arrested and imprisoned seventy-nine Jewish intellectuals and professionals. Several days later, they shot them near a Christian cemetery (in all likelihood, it was the Russian cemetery at the southern edge of the town). Two mass murders of Jews took place in the Pivonija Forest in August 1941, and these targeted not only the Jews of Ukmergė, but also Jews brought in from nearby towns and villages. After the first of these massacres – which took place on August 1, 1941, and claimed the lives of 296 Jews – a ghetto for the remaining Jews of Ukmergė was set up south of the town center. On September 5, 1941, the Nazis and their local collaborators liquidated the ghetto, killing 4,709 Jewish inmates. Even after this date, the Germans and Lithuanian policemen would periodically kill Jews, both individuals and small groups, who had been caught hiding in the nearby villages or forests. Ukmergė was liberated by the Red Army in July 1944.