Rokiskis

The Rokiskis SIG (Special Interest Group), a group of Rokiskis descendants, has joined together to share our common interest in our ancestors' lives, stories, and our collective history. We are pooling our resources in order to collect as many documents and vital records as we can and we now own the 1897 All-Russian Census for Rokiskis, a number of candle tax records and box tax records, the 1891-1915 Postal Bank Records, the wonderful 1908 Family List, as well as an index to vital records (birth, death, and marriage)  from the Kaunas Archives. If you are interested in joining us, please contact the SIG chair, Linda Cantor

A building on the grounds of the Tyzenhaus estate which formerly housed the local museum's administrative offices

(photo courtesy of Philip Shapiro)

(photo courtesy of  Yehudi Gaffen)

(photo courtesy of Howard Cuckle)

Rokiskis References and Research Sources

• View location via MapQuest  (Then click your browser's "Back" button to return here.)

• The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry by Rabbi Ephraim Oshry

• Business Owners List, 1939  

• Chamber of the Holocaust - Mt Zion  

• Encyclopedia Judaica

• Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust    

• Folks Blatt articles

• History of Rokiskis - Rokiskis Sanos Melleraites ir Matildos Olkinaites Akimis    

• The Holocaust in Rokiskis    

• Immigrants from Rokiskis
  

  • Boston HIAS Records

  • Ellis Island Records  

• The Jewish Colonial Trust - Jüdische Colonialbank   

• Links to on-line sites about modern Rokiskis   

• Lite - Description of Rokiskis from Lite by Dr. Mendel Sudarsky, Uriah Katzenelenbogen, J. Kissin, and Berl Kagan

• Lithuanian Jewish Communities by Nancy Schoenburg and Stuart Schoenburg (Aronson Press)

•  A Native of Rokiskis - a selection from Road to Victory: Jewish Soldiers in the 16th Lithuanian Division, edited by Dorothy Leivers, published by Avotaynu, 2009   

• Photos of Modern Rokiskis   

• 1930 Telephone Directory

• Rakishker Society - Johannesburg    

• Rokiskis Documents at YIVO - These documents have been translated for us by Mathilda Ginsburg Mendelow and Steven Weiss.

• Rokiskis Industrial Heritage - Read about Jewish industrial activity in Rokiskis 

• Rokiskis in the records of the Joint, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee  

• Rokiskis Property Owners and Renters, 1921 - This is a list of property owners and renters listed on a 1921 street map.  

• Rakishok, the Biggest Shtetl - Read a first person account of life in Rokiskis, first printed in the South African journal, Jewish Affairs 

• Rokiskis Cemetery - See photos of the Rokiskis Cemetery   

• South African Jewish Yearbook - 1945

• There Once Was a Home - Rakishok from  the Der Yiddisher

• Where Once We Walked by Gary Mokotoff and Sallyann Sack

• Vital and Census Records from Latvia      

• Yisker-bukh fun Rakishok un Umgegn      

• Yizkor Book Extras - supplemental material to the Yisker-bukh fun Rakishok un Umgegu

People of Rokiskis

• Amateur Theatrics in Rokiskis   

• Bunim-Idel Kril - Yiddish writer, poet and political activist  

• Famous Sons of Rokiskis   

• Memoirs of Reuben Ruch  

• Pandelys in the Holocaust - Read an interesting first-person description of events in Pandelys from In Sacred Memory: Recollections of the Holocaust by Survivors Living in Cape Town, edited by Gwynne Schrire, Cape Town Holocaust Memorial Council, 1995 . 

• Photograph Album - visit with our Rokiskis families     

•  Story of Simcha Segal       

• Trip to Ponedel - an account of a trip to Ponedel (and nearby towns including Rokiskis) by Hirsh Laib Sussman in 1935   

"Relatively Rokiskis"   

We would like to know more about life in Rokiskis. Please share your family's stories and anecdotes with us. 
Send them to Rhonda Grosman.  

          Please click on the links below.

Success Stories   
 

• Cohen Family by Neville Cohen

• Finding Sorre Gitel by Jules Feldman   

• Frozen in Time by Arlene Weiss

• Mayer Visit to Rokiskis by Kevin Mayer 

• Rokishok and the Hollyhock by Rebecca Chodos (nee Cohen)

• Shapiro Visit to Rokiskis 

• The Kohnowitz Family of Rokiskis by Harvey Cohen

• The Story of Tevya Ruven Kress by Rhonda Kress Grosman

• Tracing my roots in Rakishok, Lithuania by Sorrel Kerbel   

Reuben Ruch, a Rokiskis native, describes the businesses that he remembers along Republic Street:

1st house: Leiba Vinokuras   - Photographer

1st house back side: Z  Klumelis  - Attorney; Haimas Reznikovicius  - Government Insurance Broker

2nd house: Tzadokas Boodnevas  -  Furniture and Leather Trade Store

3th house:  K Frenkelis -  Leather Store

4th house:  Zalman Gafanavicius - Radio, Bicycles, Electrical Supply Shop

5th house:  (white front): - Jewish National Bank

6th house:  Yankel Givovskis  - Iron Items Shop

7th house:  Yankelis Krokas  - Leather Trade Shop

8th house:  Yankel Kur - Taxi  Service, Workshop

9th house:  Yankel Jacobson -  Kosher Meat Shop.

                 second floor  - Jewish Youth Club

(Photo courtesy of Amanda Jermyn)

Photos of Rokiskis

     Rokiskis Town Hall, c. 1940

(These photos are courtesy of the Rokiskis Land Museum. They were selected, scanned and sent to us by Chris Cummings, an American Peace Corps volunteer who worked in Rokiskis. Thanks also to Nijole Sniokiene, the director of the museum, for supplying and identifying the photos.)

Revised June 20 2023