Accounts
Roger Cohen wrote down his thoughts prior to the dedication.
Click Here.
Following the ceremony several of the descendants wrote about
the experience. Their accounts can be accessed below:
Here is the first paragraph of Rose’s account:
It is late afternoon and the sun has started its downward
trajectory over the shops and dwellings on the western side
of the town square. For centuries it had been the market
place of Zagare; on 2 October 1941, it became the site of
the massacre of the town's Jews. Click here to access the full account.
- Rod
Freedman
Here is the first
paragraph of Rod’s account:
I recently spent a
memorable two days participating in a commemoration
and reconciliation event in Zagare (Zhager in
Yiddish), where a memorial plaque to the former
Jewish population was erected in the town square.
Zagare is the shtetl in northern Lithuania in which
Uncle Chatzkel’s parents, Avraham and Rachel
Lemchen, lived. After their town of Papile (Popelan)
was destroyed in the First World War, they settled
in Zagare and established a small wool dyeing
factory behind their house. Uncle Chatzkel lived
there for some time as well. Click here to access the
full account.
Here is the first
paragraph of Rod’s account:
I recently spent a memorable two days participating in a commemoration and reconciliation event in Zagare (Zhager in Yiddish), where a memorial plaque to the former Jewish population was erected in the town square. Zagare is the shtetl in northern Lithuania in which Uncle Chatzkel’s parents, Avraham and Rachel Lemchen, lived. After their town of Papile (Popelan) was destroyed in the First World War, they settled in Zagare and established a small wool dyeing factory behind their house. Uncle Chatzkel lived there for some time as well. Click here to access the full account.
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Here is a link to a program on Australian Radio National where Rod discusses the occasion: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/spiritofthings/nazi-dreams- and-realities/4327230
Zagare – the shtetl town in northern Lithuania, on the Latvian border, where Grandmother Berthe/Batya Moeller was born, where she married Grandpa David, and where Uncle Jack (Harry Towb's father) was born. Lithuania was then part of the Russian Empire, and increased repression of the Jews led to mass emigration in this period. The Towbs left Zagare in 1890 and settled in Britain where my father and five more siblings were born. Zagare was forgotten, never mentioned. Click here to access the full account. Click here.
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Here is a link to Dovid Katz’ account on his website: http://defendinghistory.com/trilingual-memorial-plaque-unveiled-on-zhagers-town-square/37963
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Here is a link to an account (partly in Lithuanian) by Zilvinas Beliauskas of the Jewish Public Library in Vilnius and others on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqwaAED_eDc
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Here is how the story was covered by the local newspaper:
Introduction
History
Notable personalities
Memorial Plaque Dedication - July 2012
Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony
- March 2013
Žagarė CemeteriesFormer Jewish Buildings Today
Family Histories
General
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Copyright © 2009 Cliff Marks |