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Shavl - שאַװל

The Holocaust

The community was decimated during the holocaust: of 8,000 Jews still living in Shavl in 1941, only 500 survived. Only a handful of Jews remain there today.

Much information can be found on the website www.holocaustinthebaltics.com, administered by Dovid Katz. In relation to Shavl, Dr. Katz recorded the following videos in Yiddish:

Video 1: Holocaust survivor Shmuel Shrage, 85, a native of Shavl (Šiauliai) recalls the precise moment of liberation in July 1944 when a Soviet officer told him that he would never again have to worry about being a Jew. Interview recorded in Yiddish in Kaunas, 18 Nov 2010.
Video 2: Shmuel Shrage, 85, a native of Shavl (Šiauliai) explains how farm-owner Jurgis Šniuolis saved his life (more than once) in 1941. Interview recorded in Yiddish in Kaunas, 18 Nov 2010.

Levi Shalit wrote a Shavl Yizkor Book in Yiddish, recounting experiences in Shavl during the holocaust period. The original Yiddish text is downloadable from the National Yiddish Book Center. A translation of the table of contents and index in English may be found here.

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