Plunge, Lithuania
Yaakov Bunka’s Memoir
A new English edition with updated illustrations and more information, will be available in a few weeks time.
This is being funded by Allen and Caryn Zimbler of London.
Here are the first few pages of the previous edition:
PLUNGYAN
A Memoir
By
Jacob Josef Bunka
Translated from the Yiddish
by
Stephen Geller Katz
Edited
by
Benyamin Herson
Forward
In November of 1994 my brother Morris and I returned to the land of our birth — Lithuania. There on a visit to Plunge (Plungyan in Yiddish) we met Jacob Joseph Bunka, a renowned folk master in the art of wood sculpture and the last living Jew of that city. He gave us a copy of his manuscript, in Yiddish, on the Jews of Plungyan, their way of life and their demise as a community, destroyed by Nazi cruelty and abetted by the Fascists of Lithuania. We sensed the historic significance of Bunka’s chronicle as a testament to the tragic fate of his people, that it contained a record of a new paradigm of evil — a mass grave in every forest of the land by each village or town or city that for centuries, since the fourteenth, were inhabited by Jews. This devastation is captured in simple language in the life and memory of one outstanding personality, Jacob Joseph Bunka.
We took pains to have this unique manuscript translated into English and due to the faithfulness of my brother, the task was finally accomplished by Stephen Geller Katz, refined by Professor Joan Peskin - of Plungyan origins - and completed by the brother of Morris, of Telz background.
We hope this work will add another dimension to what is now termed The Holocaust and its literature.
We are grateful to the authorship of Joseph Bunka, as an heroic witness, to Mrs. Bunka for her steadfast loyalty to her Jewish husband, to their son, Eugene, for his editorial help and to all those who have helped us in bringing this work to light.
May the courage of this testament point to a better world and its pain redeemed by a gracious providence.
Rabbi Benyamin Herson
June 18, 1999 — Rosh Chodesh Tammuz 5759
Table of Contents
Chapter I: Historical Beginnings of Jewish Settlement in Plungyan (Plungé)4
Chapter II: Jewish Life in Plungyan Prior to World War II6
Chapter III: The War and the Destruction of the Jewish Community of Plungyan17
Chapter IV: The Destruction of Kratinga, Salant, Meisda and Riteve Communities31
Chapter V: Evacuation to Soviet Russia, Life on the Front, Episodes of Plungyan Jews In Combat35
Chapter VI: The Return of Jews to Plungyan After the War44
Chapter VII: A People of Memory: The Koshan Memorial and Restoration of Jewish Cemeteries55
Addenda59
1. Translation of brochure on Jacob Joseph Bunka59
2. Lithuanian Collaborators63
3. Righteous Gentiles65
4. Jews who Fell in Battle66
5. Jews Exiled to Siberia67
6. Gravestones68
Chapter I: Historical Beginnings of Jewish Settlement in Plungyan (Plungé)
Plungyan’s early population included 111 Jews who founded one of the first Jewish settlements in Lithuania. In the old cemetery stood gravestones, dating from 500 years ago. Jewish immigrants began to arrive in Lithuania in the year 1348 when Jews were being driven out of Serbia, Moravia, Hungary, and Podolia after the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal had begun. Having been driven out of these kingdoms, Jews picked up and traveled to Lithuania.
Jews were always a significant presence in Plungyan, accounting for a large percentage of the village population. In the year 1847, the Jewish community of Plungyan consisted of 2197 Jews; in 1897 there were 2502 (55% of the total population of the community); in 1921 there were 2200; in the year 1928, 1815 (44% of the total) and in 1939, 2500 Jews (43%).
Most Jews worked in the area of trade, but little by little they were pushed out. In the years 1931‑1935 the number of Jews who had been involved in the area of trade decreased to 50%. The percentage of Jews who traded in tobacco decreased from 50% to 25%. Approximately 200 Jewish families engaged in various occupations. The Jews in Plungyan had six locations in which to pray. The bes medresh [study/prayer house] was built in the year 1864 by Yankl Geler. The great Shul [Synagogue] was built in the year 1814. There were four kloyzn [houses of worship]: Gmiles Chesed, Shamosim, chaye adam, Di Gele (tailors).
In Plungyan in 1908 there was a yeshiva with 50 students. A teacher named Gutl founded a school where all disciplines were taught in Hebrew. At the beginning of1919 the Progressive Jewish Youth founded a Jewish folkschule [elementary school] where all disciplines were taught in Yiddish. The school had five teachers, three of whom were in the service of the government. The young people, themselves, supported two of the teachers. Later, another school was founded in Hebrew, but in the year 1927, according to the order of the Ministry of Education, both schools became unified into one school.
In Plungyan there was also a Jewish gimnazye [high school]. There all disciplines were taught in Hebrew. It was located in the present day "Salameio-Neris" Number 4. The wall stands in this street to this day. This was a gift for Plungyan Jews from Mr. Oginskas, especially for the Jewish gimnazye. In a school that was called Tarbut, 130 students studied. In an anfang shul [beginners' school], which was founded by the gimnazye, 100 students studied in the Yiddish language. There was also a library called the Peretz Library named for the author, Peretz.
Not far from the gimnazye on Maluno Street (today called “Darius,”) stood a cheder, a religious school called Talmud Torah. (The building is no longer there.) For the most part, the poorest children studied in the Talmud Torah. The wooden building was purchased by a wealthy Jew. He hired the best teachers. One of them was a teacher named Levinson, thanks to whom the authority of the cheder greatly increased. But none of the wealthier Jews would allow their children to study there. Talmud and Hebrew were studied at this school. Children who finished this school were accepted to the yeshiva. Plungyan’s own administration (self government) offered little material support to the Jewish schools. Their support was sufficient to sustain only one school.
In Plungyan there were several sport organizations including Maccabi, and Ha‑poel. They had soccer teams and other sports clubs. Organizations included Shomer Ha‑tsair, Chaluts Ha‑tsair, as well as Betar. There was an organization, Berut Hachayal, whose goal was to go to Palestine and, with weapons in hand, create a Jewish state. On Paprujai street was a primary school where 30 young boys and girls lived. They learned different trades, worked in agriculture, without shunning heavy, dirty work, and after working a certain amount of time they would travel to Palestine. It turned out that I studied in this primary school and had contact with them.
As in all shtetls in Lithuania, Plungyan had cultural autonomy: institutions, press, and other things which were necessary for the Jew to exist with a Jewish spirit. Newspapers were delivered daily: Der Vort, Folksblat, Yidishe Shtime, Der Emes, Der Moment; and the weekly: Dem Yidishn Lebn and Hayntike Nayes. There was also the Jewish folksbank [people’s bank] that operated on Vituto Street. At the beginning of its founding it had 321 members. Later there were 220, of whom 15% were Lithuanians. The bank's management consisted of ‑ important Jewish community leaders, the intelligentsia: Chotse Gamzu, Avrom, Gulvitsh, Avrom Pozin, Shoyel Shuch [Shur], Shloyme‑Yank Mets, Yente Garb, Odes [Ades], Michl Amolski, Tevye Kesl and Emdin.
In1927 the management of the department of Plungyan’s Aze (Jewish Health Union) were: Avrom, Dembo, Michl Amolski, Itsik Pozin, the doctor’s wife Mrs. Leybovish, Lipman, Chaim Zaks, Genese Levinson, Chaim Chest, Leibe Garb and Motl Pozin
In Plungyan lived a well-known writer, Mordechai Plungianski and a well- known sculptor named Rosenthal. The rabbis at different times in Plungyan were: Chaim Bloch, Avrom Vesler, Yehuda Ziv, Z. Barit, Shmuel Pavenzon, (1929); Yitschok Olshvanger, Yoysef Gutman, Meyer Mets, Yoysef Muravitsh, Bere Dov (1716).
During the period of 1918‑1931 there was in Plungyan a Jewish mayor, Boruch‑Dovid Goldvasser. In the year 1928 in honor of the tenth anniversary of independent Lithuania, this mayor received an award in the form of a “Freedom medal” and an honorary citation from Smetona, the president at that time. His daughter from America, Annette Goldvasser, brought copies for the founding of the Jewish Museum in Plungyan. In 1937 the whole family emigrated to South Africa, where the father died in 1956. In the Plungyan self‑government there were 11 Jews, [but] in 1936 there were only two, and the representative of the mayor was Hirshe Mets (according to historical sources).