The State Historical Archives
in Vilnius
There was one All Russian
Census that included Lithuania. This was the census of 1895-97. Portions of
this census have survived, and are kept in the State Historical Archive
in Vilnius. One of the surviving portions contains details of
101 families living in Ritavas, but unfortunately it does not cover
the wholeJewish community; other sources indicate that there were over
200 Jewish families in the shtetl at the time.
The State Historical Archives have various
other records (revision lists, and marriage, birth and death records)
for a large number of Jewish shtetlach, but unfortunately
in the case of Rietavas, only as part of the census list for the Rasseiniai
district for 1816. Many of the records for Ritavas itself are
thought to have been destroyed either in fires or during the war.
The Kaunas Archives
The Kaunas archives have
a variety of other documents, such as box lists, elector's lists,
and property owners' lists, which can often also provide much useful
information. In the case of Ritavas, they have the following:
Full catalogue and
description of documents
Other contemporary records
Other contemporary records
are 3 lists of donors who made charitable offerings in the shul
in 1888, 1889 and 1900, which were published in the Hamelitz weekly
newspaper.
The Poor Jews Temporary Shelter
Many, though not all,
of these emigrants were accommodated for a few nights while en
route at the Poor Jews Temporary Shelter in London, their stay being
subsidized by the shipping line that would take them on to South
Africa. The Shelter was opened in 1895, and was originally
at 19 Church Lane, Whitechapel, in the London East End. It maintained
registers of all who passed through it. Thirteen main Registers
and five Supplementary Registers covering the period from 29 May 1896
to1 August 1914 have survived (save for that covering the period from
June 1905 to November 1907), and the names that appear therein can be
searched on a data base
prepared under the supervision of Prof. Aubrey Newman of the University
of Leicester, who has written many articles on the subject.
New York Burials
A list of a different
kind is that of headstones in allotments reserved in New York cemeteries by the
Ritavas Chevra (Benevolent Society), where ex-residents of Ritavas
who emigrated to New York, and their descendants, were buried.
These lists give details of other family members.
Holocaust
The Yizkor book for
Ritavas, edited by Alter Levite, contains a list of residents
of Ritavas who perished in
the Holocaust.
(The first edition, published in Israel in 1977,
was largely in Hebrew and Yiddish. A revised
edition, edited by Dr Dina Porat and Ronib Stauber, translated
into English and supplemented by additional articles, was
published by The Kaplan-Kushlick Foundation in 2000).
|
Contemporary
Records