Other's Histories
Compiled by David Conway
My paternal grandfather Benjamin Cohen 1 came from Zagare (also known as Zhager, Zhagory, Zhagarren, Zhagare, Zagere, Zagor, Zagger and Zager) currently in northern Lithuania near the Latvian border (north of Siauliai) but for many of the last two hundred years under Russian rule. Jews lived in Zagare from perhaps the sixteenth century.2 The shtetl was divided into Old and New (Alt and Nai in Yiddish) by the Shventa (Sventa) River, the Old on the left bank and the New on the right. Each had its own Jewish community with ecclesiastical court,shochet (slaughterer), schools, yeshiva, synagogues and cemetery.3,4 The Jewish population in Zagare in 1897 was 5,443 but in 1923 was 1,928 as after World War I many Jews emigrated to America, South Africa and Palestine. Currently no Jews live there. This article lists sources of information about the town, once a thriving place but now a rural backwater with a population of about 2,500.
UK Naturalization Documents
The National Archives 5 in Kew store
naturalization application papers which record place and date
of birth. My grandfather, Benjamin Cohen, applied for
naturalization in 1919 (ref. HO 144/1590). The documents note
he was born in Zagger (also spelled Zagar), Kovno Gubernia
(gubernia means province), Russia, January 25th
1891 to Abraham and Elka Cohen. The Certificate of
Naturalization issued by the Home Office in 1920 gives the
place and date of birth as Zagar, Kovno , Russia, December 18th
1888 (ie. a different date of birth).
His brother, my great uncle, Harry Cohen applied for naturalization in 1920 (ref. HO 144/1596). In one section it is written that he was born (near Zagare) in Popolan, Kovno, Russia in July 1890 but elsewhere it is recorded that he was born in Zagger. He married Annie Miller in Zagger July 30th 1910.
Books on Lithuanian Jewry
“Lithuanian Jewish Communities” by N. and S. Schoenburg2
devotes four pages to a history of Zagare Jewry with many
facts and figures including the names of rabbis and prominent
inhabitants. “The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry” by E.
Oshry4 gives similar information with four black
and white photographs.
“The Jews of Lithuania” by M. Greenbaum6 and “The Litvaks” by D. Levin7 don’t have specific sections on Zagare but supply useful information about Lithuanian Jewry as a whole, while “The World that was Lithuania”8 by Y. Kasnett provides insight into religious observance by Lithuanian Jews and facts about some specific communities and rabbis.
Autobiographies, a Biography and a Novel
“Worlds That Passed” by A. Sachs9 and
“Shalecheth” by S. Fedler3 were written by men
who grew up in Zagare over one hundred years ago but left for
America and South Africa respectively. They describe local
people and events in the town during their formative years.
Lev (Leon) Mandelstamm was the first Jew to graduate from a
Russian university. He was born in Zagare in 1809. Chapter 12
“The Golden Tradition”10 (ed. L. Dawidowicz)
contains an autobiographical account of his early life.
Rabbi Israel Salanter, the founder of a movement to teach a
noble ethical approach to religious observance (Musar),was
born in Zhagory in 1810. His early years are described in the
biography by M. Glenn.11
Part one of the novel “Linking the Threads”12 by H. Ruddick is set in Zagare in 1905 and describes orthodox Jewish practices.
Family Website
The Coussins website (www.coussins.org/Family/
Genealogical Guidance
S. Aaron’s “A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in Lithuania”13
does not deal with Zagare specifically but gives
guidance about what old Lithuanian records are available,
where to find them and how to use them. Similar guidance can
be found in the Shemot article by J. Diamond.14
Len Yodaiken15 is a genealogist (living on Kibbutz Kfar Hanassi, Israel) who specialises in the Zagare area.
Lithuanian records relating to Zagare
The Soviet governor of Siauliai County, in which Zagare is
situated, burnt virtually all county records in 1990 prior to
Soviet withdrawal (Yodaiken, personal communication).
From the early 18th century to the late 19th
century family details were recorded in “revision lists” drawn
up intermittently by Czarist authorities, the idea being to
obtain a list of taxpayers that was also used for
conscription.14 In between Revision List censuses
the authorities tried to find people who had fallen through
the net, their names being published in “Additional Revision
Lists”. Incomplete sets of these lists have survived, thus
allowing Mr Yodaiken to find in the 1866 Additional Revision
List possible ancestors of mine living the the shtetl Popolan
(or Papile), the birthplace of my great uncle Harry Cohen.
I have a letter from the Lithuanian State16 Historical
Archives, dated 18/10/2007, signed by the director and the
head archivist, informing me that they hold “vital (ie. birth,
marriage and death) records for Zagare Jews from 1922 and
nothing before.”
The Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation, Inc website (www.rtrfoundation.org) shows that the Kaunas Regional Archive has documents relating to land and business owners in Zagare
JewishGen
The JewishGen Lithuania Database can be accessed via www.jewishgen.org
and a search for Zagare will list 353 records (October 2008)
as well as providing a map. The records include revision
lists, births, marriages and deaths.
Holocaust
During the German occupation of Lithuania in 1941 a ghetto
was established in Zagare, to which Jews from nearby towns and
villages were brought. An order was issued that every Jew
passing Rabbi Yisroel Riff (Reif) should spit in his face.4
Some who refused to do so were shot. Others were killed
in New Zagare cemetery in June 1941. After killing Jews in the
market square on Yom Kippur, October 1941, Germans of the
Einsatzgruppen forces and Lithuanians shot the rest in the
municipal Naryshkin Park where they lie buried in a mass
grave. An obelisk records in Lithuanian and Yiddish that “In
this place on 2 October 1941 the Nazi executioners and their
local helpers massacred about 3000 Jewish men, women and
children from Siauliai County”. The Association of Lithuanian
Jews in Israel (www.lithuanianjews.org.il) has published
a list of Lithuanians involved in the slaughter, some of whom
were members of the Fourteenth Lithuanian Police Battaliion.
SS-Standartenführer Karl Jäger compiled a list of executions
carried out by his unit of Einsatzkommandos in Lithuania (the
“Jäger Report”).17 The entry for 2.10.41 records
under the heading Zagare “633 Jews, 1,107 Jewesses, 496 Jewish
children (as these Jews were being led away a mutiny arose
which, which was however immediately put down; 150 Jews were
shot immediately; 7 partisans wounded)”
In her book “Last Walk in Naryshkin Park”18 Rose Zwi investigates the experiences of her family from Zagare and the massacre that occurred there.
Yad Vashem
The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names at www.yadvashem.org can be searched by location. There are 731 entries under Zagare
Personal Journey
In October 2005 my family and I visited Zagare on a day trip from Riga in a private minibus with a guide organised by our Latvian hotel. We saw the eerie mass grave and monument in Naryshkin Park and the two neglected cemeteries, one of which also contains a mass grave. There is nothing else to show that there was once a large Jewish community. The only surviving synagogue building is used as a sports facility with no outward sign of its original purpose. I later learned that there is a museum in Zagare and wonder if it contains Jewish artefacts. Looking at the older citizens of Zagare going about their business, I wondered what they thought about the extermination of their neighbours in 1941. For several weeks disturbing thoughts about the Naryshkin Park massacre disturbed my sleep but I’ve no regrets about visiting the Shtetl my grandfather left in 1910.
REFERENCES
1. Conway, D. “Benjamin Cohen – a tailor from Lithuania” Shemot. Vol 15,4,2007
2. Schoenburg, N. and Schoenburg, S. Lithuanian Jewish Communities, Aronson, New Jersey/London, 1996, ISBN 1568 219938.
3. Fedler, S. Shalecheth. S. Fedler and Co., Johannesburg 1969
4. Oshry, E. The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. The Judaica Press, Brooklynn, 1995, ISBN 188058218X
5. The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU, Tel 020 8876 3444, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
6. Greenbaum, M. The Jews of Lithuania, Gefen, Jerusalem/New York, 1995. ISBN 9652291323.
7. Levin, D. The Litvaks. Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2000. ISBN 9653080849
8. Kasnett, Y. The World That Was Lithuania. The Living Memorial, Cleveland, 1997. ISBN 0963512080
9. Sachs, A.S. Worlds that Passsed. The Jewish Publication Society of America. Philadelphia, 1928
10. Dawidowicz, L.S. The Golden Tradition. Syracuse University Press, 1996. ISBN 0815604238
11. Glenn, M.G. Rabbi Israel Salanter. Yashar Brooks, Inc., Brooklyn, 2005 (first published in 1953) ISBN 1933143029
12. Ruddick, H. Linking The Threads. White River Books, 2005. ISBN 141960998X
13. Aaron, S. A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in Lithuania. Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain, London, 2005. ISBN 0953766985
14. Diamond, J. Researching Lithuanian records. Shemot, Vol 13, 1, 2005
15.Shoshly@kfar-hanassi.org.il
16. Lithuanian State Historical Archives, Gerosios Vilties g. 10, 03134 Vilnius, Lithuania, tel. (370 5) 213 74 82.
17. Klee, E., Dressen, W. and Riess, V. The Good Old Days. The Holocaust as Seen by its Perpetrators and Bystanders. Konecky and Konecky,, Old Saybrook, 1988. ISBN 1568521332
18. Zwi, R. Last Walk in Naryshkin Park. Spinifex, Australia, 1997. ISBN 1875559728
Introduction
History
- History by compiler
- Others' Histories
- - Samuel Lurie
- - Barry Posner
- - Levin/Rosin
- - David Conway
- Rose Zwi's story
- Historic photographs
Notable personalities
Memorial Plaque Dedication - July 2012
Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony
- March 2013
Žagarė Cemeteries
- Gravestone pictures and slideshow
- Synagogues
- Mikveh
- Jewish Schools
- Former Jewish Homes
Former Jewish Buildings Today
Family Histories
General
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Copyright © 2009 Cliff Marks |