Murder Story of Olkieniki Jews at the Ejszyszki Jewish Cemetery

... Sunday afternoon, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah [the Jewish New Year] 1941, armed thugs entered the town from all directions. The entire town was surrounded. All the ways out were strictly guarded by strongly armed thugs. All the Jews were taken out of their houses and were forbidden from taking anything with them. While understanding what was going to happen, they were helpless and it was too late for them to do anything to escape. They were taken to the three synagogues in town. The same Sunday Jews from Olkenieki were taken to Ejszyszki and were incarcerated in the stable in the yard of the town’s council building. Armed thugs were placed on guard all around the town. Some Jews from Olkenieki were held in one of the synagogues, where it was impossible to breathe, sit, or lie down. They had to relieve themselves inside the synagogue since they were forbidden from going outside. The crowding and lack of fresh air had a bad effect on the elderly and children. Many could not stand it and fainted, some died…. After being incarcerated in the synagogues for two days, just after Rosh Hashanah all the Jews were taken to the town’s horse market, where the men were separated from the women and children. On the Wednesday after the holiday all the men were taken out of town, to the area of the old cemetery, where they were forced to undress and then shot....

On the evening of Rosh Hashanah 1941 (the eve of the Jewish New Year) all the Jews were collected in three large synagogues. Jews from the towns of Olkieniki, Lejpuny and Salo - a total of 2,000 people - were brought to our town on that evening as well. Some 150 who were mentally ill remained in the town of Salo. While they [the Jews] were incarcerated for three days and nights, peasants from the surrounding villages came to town and looted the Jews’ possessions, taking them away on their carts. For three days we did not get anything to eat or to drink. On September 24, 1941 all the men, women, and children were taken to the horse market, forced to walk in a column with four people in each row. We understood that this meant our death. We were guarded by drunk and murderous Lithuanians, who beat us with the butts of their guns; the crying babies they either flung into in the air or dashed to the ground…. Then they selected strong men, supposedly to take them for work. That is how they took the first group of 300 men. These men were taken to the 350-year old Jewish cemetery, where pits had been already been dug by Polish residents of the town who, before they dug the pits, had been promised that they would get the dead people’s belongings. We received a note from a Jew named Milikowski, who was in the first group. He was forced to write that they were working on the Polish landowner’s estate, that they were well, and had enough food. But we didn't believe this since we had heard the shootings…. All the men were taken and shot by the end of the evening. Only very few managed to be saved by a woman who hid them beneath some packages…. We escaped to the town of Raduń. I ran away together with my wife and two children. According to the news I heard when I arrived in Raduń, all the women and children were shot on the next day, September 26, 1941….