Other's Histories
Compiled by Barry Posner
Tsar Alexander II of Russia began his reign in 1861 with a great fanfare of liberalism. He freed the serfs who were compelled to labour and were tied for life to landowners, which meant the liberation of the great bulk of the Russian people. The Jews of Russia rejoiced in the good fortune of their fellow humans and had great hopes for the future.
But this era of hope was quickly followed by the rise of Russian nationalism, which had dire consequences for the Jews. The philosophy of this new movement was 'One Russia, One Creed, One Tsar', strikingly reflected seventy years later by the German Nazi party with their parroted slogan 'Ein Reich, Ein Volk Ein Fuhrer', 'one country, one people one leader'. Naturally in this programme the Jews had to be made as 'one' with the rest of the Russians. This could be done, the authorities decided only by wholesale conversion.
Some Jews in fact, lured by the promise of careers now opening up to them hitherto forbidden, joined the Russian Orthodox Church, but the vast majority who did not, suffered oppression and all the dangers and penalties of being unwanted, under-privileged aliens in a hostile community.
When the peasants suffered drought, famine, disease and even higher taxes the government sought to divert their discontent and anger from itself to the Jews who consequently took the blame for everything.
The first pogrom government approved took place in Odessa in 1871, encouraged by the nobility who recognized the diversionary value of the mob being able to vent it's fury on the Jews, unrestrained by the law. Shortly after this Tsar Alexander was assassinated and was succeeded by Alexander III, who frightened by the fate his father had suffered embarked upon a calculated reign of terror.
Especially marked for Imperial retribution were the Jews who reaped a bitter harvest of violence and bloodshed in the following years. Indeed the formula worked out for the 'liquidation' of the Jews was arithmetically neat; one third by conversion, one third by emigration and one third by starvation. However reluctantly the Imperial government had opened the gates for emigration, and so the mass exodus began.
As a little footnote to our family history and our forebeares who had the good sense to head westwards in those years before the 1914 War I researched the fate that would have befallen them had they remained in Lithuania and attach a potted history of that area in those years.
The Baltic states in the 19th century were part of the Russian Empire and were under Russian jurisdiction until 1915. When the 1914 war broke out German forces advanced slowly but steadily through 1914 from East Prussia and inflicted several costly defeats on the badly equipped Russian armies. As the Germans advanced into the (Russian) Baltic and Polish provinces the local population turned savagely against the Jews who had lived in their midst for centuries. Homes , synagogues and shops were looted. . In the zones of the Russian armies Jews were being hanged every day, accused of being secretly sympathetic to the Germans and wanting them to succeed. The fact that a quarter of a million Jews were serving in the Russian armies did nothing to combat prejudice .
In 1915 as the Germans advanced through the province of Lithuania towards Russia proper , Cossacks the traditional enemy of the Jews forced them out of their homes and drove them eastwards. Hundreds of thousands took to the road carrying what possessions they could put in their carts or into bundles and moved eastwards ahead of the fighting , their livelihood and their security destroyed.
Žagarė was on this desperate trail to the east . The advance continued rapidly and between August 15 and September 10 1915 Žagarė would have been in the firing line. I do not think it was 'destroyed' as suggested because when I visited there in 1997 there were certainly quite a few pre-1914 houses still standing, and no big battles occured in that area anyway.
When the armistice was signed between Germany and Russia in 1917, Žagarė was well within the occupied German territory and the remaining or returning families would have enjoyed some measure of security until 1918 when the Versailles treaties freed the Baltic states and gave Jews full and guaranteed citizenship rights thoughout the liberated territories. Unfortunately no physical means were provided to enforce these rights, and there was twenty years of growing instability, dominated by hatred , discontent and intermittent violence towards Jews in the area. The biggest factor in this hostility was the Jewish identification with Bolshevism.
Žagarė was therefore under Russian control up to 1915, then German occupation till 1918-9, In 1939 the Russians re-occupied as the Germans invaded Poland. In 1941 the Germans arrived again, resulting in the deportation of Jews to the Riga district and the mass murder of others in the wooded area near Žagarė which is signposted (see photograph). The Russians were back in 1944-45 and it was part of the Soviet Union till Glasnost etc.,in the early 90s when Lithuania became finally independent.
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
Former Jewish Buildings Today
Family Histories
General
 |
 |
Copyright © 2009 Cliff Marks |