General history 1
| Pakruojis was built on the two banks of the river Kruoja. This
small city can be found in the north of Lithuania and it has 6500
inhabitants.. We read for the first time about Pakruojis in 1531. From 1585 the
name Pakruojis appears in the official papers. From mid 18th century on Jewish families settled in Pakruojis. The majority of the Jews were traders. In 1790 one could find 37 families in Pakruojis to be divided in 11 Christian and 26 Jewish families.Two big fires destroyed a lot of the city. For example, the fire of 1787 ( 21 April) destroyed 37 houses in the main street. Only five were saved. All these houses belonged to Jewish families, a total of 420 people. I don't know why there was a fire, was it lit, was it because of the weather and how many survived? In 1801 the synagogue was built. In 1895 the interior of the synagogue was embellished by local Jewish artisans. In the paper "Gimtasis Krasjtas"( number 3, 1938), we can read the numbers of Jews that lived in Pakruojis:In 1765 420. In the same paper we read, that in 1833 the number of inhabitants was 664, but the number of Jews was not mentioned. What mentioned was the number of houses (15 wooden) , the number of shops (12), and the number of pubs (4). In 1847 750. In 1897 1,093. The latter is according to the Census of 1,897. Pakruojis counted at hat time 1545 inhabitants. So: In 1897 1093 Jews on a total of 1545. Before World War I there were appr. 300 Jewish families to be found in Pakruojis and surroundings, close to 1400 people . During the first World War and in the following years (till 1923) there were a lot of Pakruojis Jews who emigrated to e.g. South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay and Palestine. The majority were young people. In 1923 454 Jews on a total
of 1176. The number of Jews is even more
specified:
210 men and 244 women. |
Copyright © 2005 Dora Boom