Travelogues
Barry Posner
Manchester, England
I visited Žagarė in 1997 and going there was just turning the clock back a century. Lithuania was still hampered by the previous seventy years of Russian and during the Nazi war, German occupation. There were few commercial outlets or shops evident, and one run-down cafe. There were as many horse drawn vehicles as cars. The Jewish population at the turn of the century would have been several hundred. On this trip to Lithuania I was met by a Jewish oral surgeon who we here had helped to bring to England for further study. So he was anxious to entertain us (my wife Nora and I). Very kindly he drove us up to Žagarė and of course it was great help to have him there.
Apparently only one Jew remained living in the village (Isaac Mendelson), and he was away, but his wife, who was not Jewish, took us to the cemetery. The cemetery was totally neglected with most of the stones lying on the ground. The inscriptions were in Yiddish with Hebrew lettering and were virtually indecipherable. About ten miles away on the edge of a forest, a sign translated for us said that several thousands of Jews had been murdered there by the Nazi occupation forces. When the Russians reoccupied Lithuania in 1945 they would have effectively dispersed any survivors to political prison camps Other than these scant sources of information we could discover no trace of any of our family.
Anyhow it was interesting, but fairly depressing. I took the photos, we had a meal in the cafe, pictured, which didn't have sign of any kind suggesting it sold food, and there was one unlabelled house which was the village store.
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Cliff Marks
Vashon Island, Washington State
In reading Daniel Mendelsohn's book The Lost I was moved by his experience in sitting in a house in the Ukraine during his search for his family's history. When speaking with the present Ukrainians, realizing he was in the same location where his grandfather's brother lived, he just stared to cry. It reminded me of my visit to Žagarė in 2003. I had gone there on my own in 1999 but just drove through, not having any contacts. In 2003 I went with my friends and colleagues from the British Charity LithuaniaLink and we were there on the day of a big town festival. Lots of Latvians had come from across the border to join in the celebration. We were in a private party in the old palace before the main festivities started. There was lots of food and lots of vodka; I think I had drunk quite a few toasts. Eventually, the band started playing outside and all the town's people showed up at the palace. My young British friend said, "Do you want to meet Isaakas" (Lithuanian name of the last Jew in town). I said, "Certainly". So we met and they told him that my Grandfather's family name was Gordon. Isaac said that there was a store owned by some Gordons, right on the main square. I knew that this was not any close relative, since my family had all come to the US around 1900. But just this fact, and the vodka, had a great effect on me. I just had to turn and walk away with tears running down my cheeks. It was the only very emotional experience I have had in several visits to Žagarė. By way of interest, in The Lost the author talks about meeting the one remaining Jew in a small town "outside of Riga" who was also named Mendelsohn. I wonder if this was "our" Isaac?
Mark Gordon
New Jersey
I visited Žagarė in 2005 and was thrilled to walk around the historic town square as my ancestors did many years ago. Here are some photos from that visit.
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Basil Ostilly
Durban, South Africa
I, along with my wife (Meryl) and our two sons (Farren and Ryan) visited Zagare in September 2000. We came armed with dozens of photographs my father had brought with him to South Africa in1927 and I found my father's ancestral home within 10 minutes of arriving at the square in Zagare. The property still stands and I have photographs of it taken in circa 1920 with my dad and his family, and again with me and my family in 2000. Today the property is housed by a florist. My grandfather was a jeweler and in the 1920s there was a clock on the building with the family name OSTILIUS clearly shown thereon. My father played soccer for MAKABI ZAGARE in his youth and they toured all around the area. I have the photos of the team and I showed these photos to Mr. Mendelsohn whom I was privileged to have met. He recognized some of the people in the photos. I studied Rose Zwi’s book before I traveled to Lithuania and also had the pleasure of talking to her. She knew my father. Rose still resided in Johannesburg at that time. The following photos:
1. Basil, Meryl, Ryan and Farren arrive on the outskirts of Zagare.
2. A photo taken in about 1920. It shows the property with our name on the clock, and my father with his father, siblings and friends milling around the entrance.
3. Ryan, Meryl and Basil outside the entrance to the very same building in September, 2000.
4. Basil standing in front of the building which in 2000 housed a florist. 5. Farren, Basil, Ryan and Meryl close–up, outside the entrance of the building. 6. Another shot of Basil outside the building.
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Aron Segal
Australia
| My sister (Carmella Prideaux) and
her husband (Geoff) and two friends made a trip to
Zagare in 2009. Through their guide, they met with the
mayor of Zagare. They also visited the site of where
my father once lived and also where his old school
stood. Here is an article (in Lithuanian) by a
local paper that covered the visit. |
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Dani Haski
Sydney, Australia
My great grandmother was born in Zagare. I visited there in
2010 and here is a link to my blog from that trip:
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/slice_n_dice/1/1283205665/tpod.html
Michel Kazatchkine
France
I along with my cousin Alain Moeller and Alain's wife Francoise visited Zagare in August 2014.Our grandfather Leopold Moeller left Zagare in 1898 via Estonia, Saint Petersburg, and Riga, eventually settling in France. (Leopold's sister was the grandmother of Joy Hall and Sara Manobla)
Here is an account of that visit:We drive for about one and a half hour South from Riga in a beautiful landscape, where birch and pine forests alternate with green meadows and ponds and small lakes. Houses are wooden, hiding behind trees, flowers everywhere. The green colors of grass and trees very similar to those I saw in Russia and so exactly translated in Chichkine's painting s of Russian nature.We stop to watch storks, looking for food and then elegantly flying away (remember "Kogda letiat jouravly").
Valdas Balciunas meets us by the Zagare signpost at the entrance of the town, with a bright smile. He will have kept a day for us and kindly take us to every place in Zagare that can be of significance to us. He will have been a wonderful, knowledgeable and generous guide and already, by now, a friend.
We start with Naryshkin's palace. Nothing of what Sara, you described from two years ago. It is now a beautiful elegant carefully renovated palace in pink and beige colors. The palace was originally given by Catherine the second to one of her favorites, Prince Platon Zubov. It then went to the Naryshkin's family who designed the estate, a beautiful park, and made of it the largest horse stables in Europe (or so we were told by Valdas). Note that the current leader of the Russian Douma is Serguei Naryshkin.
On the way to the center of Zagare, we realize better how this little town has evolved from a prosperous trade center in the end of the nineteenth century to a town that lost large numbers of people to emigration, and finally lost all of its Jewish community after the mass killing of 1941. In the beginning of the XXth century, the Jewish represented sixty percent of its inhabitants. More recently, talented young people such as Valdas and Alex, move from Zagare to Vilnius where the jobs are. From 15000 people in 1900, Zagare now counts a population of 2000 or less. Zagare celebrated its eight hundredth anniversary in 1998, Joy was a speaker and Ursula attended the event.
We were struck by the large number of elderly people we saw throughout the day, until we realized that there are youth and young families in Zagare as well, but that they were all by the lake on that Sunday to swim and enjoy the sun!
The main square is being rebuilt and we could not approach the commemorative plaque inaugurated in July 2012 when the Israeli Ambassador, Joy and Ursula were speakers. The only place in Lithuania where a plaque set in the very heart of the city reminds of the extermination of Jews (here 3000) by the nazis and their Lithuanians collaborators. Very moving. Joy's Ursula's and Valdas' vision had been realized. We could not think with Alain of any such plaque in France that would mention the nazis and their French collaborators.
Around the square are brick and wooden buildings, the old pharmacy, the old bank, reminders of the wealthy times of trading flax, corn, metal, and wine and where over ten thousand people could gather on market day. All of the town's prosperity has been built by the Jewish communities, one of the oldest in Lithuania, with a continuous presence since the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries to 1941.
Massive emigration of the Jewish community took place in Russia and Russian controlled territories in the Russian Empire in last years of the nineteenth century to England, Ireland, South Africa, as a consequence of the pogroms ordered by Alexander III. Our grandfather's sister, Batya Moeller, grandmother to Joy, Sara (Ursula), Elizabeth and many other cousins in the UK, left Zagare in 1890 for Wales.
Our grandfather left Zagare around 1897 to Tartu and Tartu University. After thinking about the reasons of that move to the East after the emigration to the West of his sister Batya and his brother Hermann, we believe that it was primarily motivated by the natural attraction of Russian speaking Universities to study in those days. Valdas told us about several Zagareans who made remarkable careers after having left Zagare to study in Moscow or Saint Petersburg.
We spent a large part of the afternoon visiting Zagare and imagining (thanks also to a book of photographs that Valdas brought with him) how everyday life was unfolding in this small and busy town a hundred and twenty years ago. We saw the rows where small shops were standing on the main square, the buildings that once were synagogues (one heated for the winter, the other for the summer, now the fire station), the old and new Jewish cemetery, the Jewish primary school - now a school or home for orphans, the old mill, and the river where children go swimming today very much as they were probably doing in the 1900s.
No archive is available in Zagare. According to Valdas, if any archives still exist, they would be in Saint Petersburg or rather even in Moscow.
We saw the ghetto, the space where Jews have been confined for two months behind barbed wire before being brought to the mass killing site in the neighboring forest. We spent some time on that site. We were told that school children come here to hear about what happened in their home town. Until the recent independence, the plaque on the memorial would say that this was the place where 3000 soviet citizens had been murdered by the nazis.
We passed the house of the Levinskas who have been hiding a mother and her daughter who escaped from the ghetto. We heard that since Mrs Levinskas was from German background, German soldiers would sometimes come to their homes to listen to the radio and share a conversation, a few meters from where the Levinskas were hiding the two women in the same house. We saw the house next to that of the Levinskas where one of the Lithuanian who participated in the killings went mad and was being helped by the same Leonas Levinskas, now acknowledged as a righteous among Nations, to seek help from his doctor in neighboring Latvia.
And one more unexpected episode, a happy one - occurred in that day: Joy, with whom I have not spoken for many years, called Valdas on his mobile phone and Valdas handled the phone to me. Many memories are coming back from happy times of my childhood and adolescence in Rothbury, Newcastle, London with Joy and her parents and the many other cousins, aunts and uncles in England.
A late meal with Valdas and we were off, back to Riga through the old Zagare to Riga road.
Here is a picture of Alain, Valdas, and me:
Introduction
History
Notable personalities
Memorial Plaque Dedication - July 2012Righteous Among the Nations Award Ceremony
- March 2013
Žagarė Cemeteries
Former Jewish Buildings Today
Family Histories
General
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Copyright © 2009 Cliff Marks |