Klovainiai

A walk through Jewish Klovainiai, the way it was a few years before 1941.

Chapters:  1    2    3        stories from: Elzbieta    Stefa  

chapter 1

            
Klovainiai (‘Klovian’ in Yiddish) is a neighbouring village of Rozalimas. In Part I, I have told you about the Jewish men of Klovainiai who were shot in the forest of Rozalimas during the summer of 1941. In this part I shall tell you more about this atrocious event in detail. With the help from our dearest friend Birute Maiksteniene, our guide and interpreter, and one local eye-witness Emilija Mikolaitiene, we could find out more about the Jewish presence in Klovainiai some years before the big tragedy of 4-8-1941.

I presume that the Jewish families of Klovainiai were in the company of the Jewish families of Rozalimas on a regular basis and vica versa. In Rozalimas stood a synagogue, and on Shabbath (and on other special religious days) the Jewish families of Klovainiai must have attended the services held there. Their children must have gone to the Jewish school in Rozalimas. The rabbi of the Jewish community of Rozalimas must have been the rabbi of the Jewish community of Klovainiai too. No-one told me about this, but according to the facts we have gathered I believe this to be the way it was back then.

The Jewish men of Klovainiai were either traders or shopkeepers. No Jewish families from either Rozalimas or Kloviainiai were related, but they certainly met and spoke with one another.

Let’s start  our walk through Jewish Klovainiai, and let’s see if we can find some information about the Jewish families who used to live there. 

At the beginning of the Pušalotasgatve, on the left, we see a wooden house. The house was divided into two parts; for three Jewish people to live in. In one part of the house lived a Jewish family called ‘Chaike’, a mother and daughter who earned a living by baking and selling all kinds of bread. One can see that part of the house they used to live in very clearly in the picture. In the other part of the house lived a Jewish man called ‘Motkes’, who earned a living by slaughtering calves and selling the meat afterwards. The family Motskes consisted of father, mother and daughter.

Continuing our walk through the Pušalotasgatve we stop in the middle of the gatve and see the Roman- Catholic church at a short distance from were we are standing. This church is on the left hand side. 

On our right we see a yellow wooden house. It belonged to Kaimukas, a shopkeeper. He married Irshkis’ sister, whom I mentioned before in Part I, and Kaimukas and his wife had two daughters. One of their daughters, Merinka (‘Marite’ in Lithuanian), was a student of Stefa who taught her how to knit in 1939. Nowadays this address is called ‘Pušalotasgatve 10’.

The Lithuanian family presently living there told us that their father bought the house from the Soviet -State in 1951. Their father tried to save Kaimukas from the German Nazis  in 1941 and  took Kaimukas with him on his horse, but he didn’t know where to take him and eventually brought him back home. Later on I will tell you the end of this story.