| Eyewitness report
The slaughter ot the Jews in the small town of Lygumai (by courtesy of Barry Mann) Lygumai is situated not far from Rozalimas, very near to Pakruojis even. Therefore, I would like to add the following detailed eye-witness testimony to this site. By courtesy of Barry Mann ( see also http://www.mannbarry.net/Lithuania.html number 3) ( Dora Boom). Leyb Koniuchowsky - Lygumai THE SLAUGHTER OF THE JEWS IN THE SMALL TOWN OF LYGUMAI Eyewitness testimony of Nisn Goldes, born in Lygumai on January 3, 1906. The report was recorded by Engineer L. Koniuchowsky September 30, 1947 His father's name was Leybe, and his mother was Rokhl. He graduated elementary school. He was a merchant by trade. Nisn lived in Lygumai until the year 1932, and then in Taurage until the war broke out on June 22, 1941. The town of Lygumai is in Shiauliai County, 24 kilometers from Shiauliai, 12 kilometers from the small town of Pakruojis, and 23 kilometers from the town of Radvilishkis. Near the town flows the river Kruoju. Seven kilometers from Lygumai on the narrow-gauge railroad line is the Statsiunai station. Before the war about sixty Jewish families lived in Lygumai. When the war broke out there were over fifty Jewish families there. A large number of the Jews of Lygumai were occupied in agriculture, and a smaller number in retail trade, village peddling and artisanry. Every Jewish family had a garden for growing their own potatoes, and also owned cows. The town had a small number of enterprises such as a wool spinning and dying factory owned by the Jewish businessman Yosl Perkus. The economic life of the Jews in town was not good. Most of the Jews received support from relatives overseas. A small number of young Jews from wealthier families studied at the Hebrew gymnasium in Shiauliai or at the trade school. Lygumai only had a cheder and a small study house. The small number of Jewish youth belonged to Zionist organizations, along with a very few who were in the illegal Communist party (under Smetonas). A few years before the arrival of the Red Army in Lithiauan(in the summer of 1940), there began a bitter campaign of anti-Semitic agitation, along with intense competition against the Jewish merchants and artisans, led by the Lithuanian Verslas organization. In general, however, the attitude of the Lithuanians in town and in the countryside toward the Jews of Lygumai was quite loyal. Masses of Jews from Shiauliai Come to Lygumai. To Wait for News About the Situation at the Front After the Red Army arrived in Lithuania in the summer of 1940 the friendly attitudes of the Lithuanians grew much worse. As soon as the war broke out, Nisn and his wife Shifre (born Kirshner), along with their two children Sheyne and Rokhl (aged 10) came to his home town of Lygumai on Sunday, June 22, 1941. Because of the German aerial bombing of the airfield at Shiauliai, Jews from Shiauliai had already escaped to Lygumai to wait until the strategic situation became clarified. There was no particular news in town until Thursday, June 26. On Thursday people in town noticed that the Red Army and the Soviet authorities were rapidly evacuating. The Jews who had come from Shiauliai and a large number of the Jews of Lygumai quickly began fleeing the town, some on foot, most in their own wagons. The roads were full of terrified Jewish refugees who had only one goal: to escape from the approaching danger and evacuate to the Soviet Union through Dvinsk. On the evening of Friday, June 27, the Jewish refugees arrived at the small Lithuanian town of Vashkai. Only a few Jews remained in the town. All the Jews had already left. In Vashkai Nisn and other Jews from Lygumai stayed for the night. On Saturday, June 28 the Jews arrived at the border between Lithuania and Latvia. There was no Russian military presence left at all. The border was open. Some of the Jews continued toward Boisk. Most of them however returned, because they learned that the Germans were already in Latvia. Along with his family and other Jews, Nisn was detained by Lithuanian partisans on the way back near the town of Vashkai and taken to a partisan headquarters. Jews who been captured along other roads had already been brought there. In another courtyard in the distance they could see through the window young Jewish men and women who begged to be rescued. Some of them begged for bread. But it was impossible to go to them, because partisans were guarding the yard where they were kept. A half hour later partisans took two girls out of the other yard to wash floors. They shouted at the Jews who had been rounded up: "We're going to be shot tomorrow!" Each one of the Jews who had been rounded up was interrogated separately at the partisans' headquarters, and then released on condition that everyone who was let go would immediately abandon Vashkai and go straight to Linkuva. The partisans knew that the. Jews would never leave Linkuva alive. In Linkuva the local partisans did everything they could to arrest Jews and slaughter them. The Jews who left Vashkai did not obey the partisans, and instead went to Lygumai, avoiding Pakruojis and Linkuva. On the way the Jews found all the roads full of German military units. When he returned to his home town of Lygumai during the of the war, Nisn found it occupied by the Germans. The Civil Administration; Shootings' of Suspected Communists; Many Jews Taken Away to Shiauliai and Shot. The virshaitis (mayor) in town, who was also the head of the partisans, was the Lithuanian Petraitis, from the Lygumai compound. On the pretext of searching the Jews in town for weapons, the partisans robbed the better and more valuable items from the Jewish houses. There was an order for all the refugees to leave Lygumai and return to their home towns. The Jews in town remained in their homes. The town had not been damaged in the war. During the second week of the war the partisans arrested all the Jews, as well as Lithuanians who had been involved in the Communist Party or Communist Youth, or who had occupied positions under the Soviets. Everyone who was arrested was shot at the Benaraitsiu forest. Among those shot were Nisn's brother Shmerl Goldes and Shmerl's brotherin-law Meir Klivansky. These two Jews had never been Communists. They had held positions during the year of Soviet rule. In addition to the Jews, three Lithuanian Communists were shot that day as well. Every peasant or Lithuanian in town who had any kind of complaint against a Jew could denounce the Jew as a Communist. They didn't have to furnish any proof. There were no investigations of these cases in town. In this manner Lithuanians betrayed a number of Jews who were arrested and taken to prison in Shiauliai. From there the Jews were taken away and shot. In this manner the following Jews were arrested and shot: Meir Levinton, a flax merchant; Yakov Kremer, a butcher; Yitzkhok Brauer, a storekeeper; Hirshl Abramson, a merchant; and so on. After they were taken to prison in Shiauliai no further information about them was available. Jews Exhume Corpses of Lithuanians Shot By the Red Army Immediately after the Germans arrived in town, partisans took Jewish men to exhume the bodies of executed Lithuanians who had been imprisoned by the Soviets and shot by the Red Army soldiers before the latter evacuated the town. The corpses were brought to another spot and buried with great ceremony. The work lasted for several days. While the work went on a German stood guard. After work the Jews were allowed home. During the third week of the war the partisans once again began searching for Jews who had not left Lygumai. They strictly ordered all the Jews from other towns to leave Lygumai. They threatened anyone who disobeyed their order with immediate shooting. The two brothers Nisn and Yankl Goldes, along with their families, tried to stay with their parents until the order was issued. After the order the two families left their home town and went to Shiauliai. A few days after leaving the town Nisn's father came to Shiauliai. He reported that the partisans had come to check whether Nisn and his brother had left town. He also said that everything was quiet in town. There was no particular news. Before he left Shiaualiai he said he would come again that Friday. The Slaughter of All the Jews in Lygumai. Nisn's father actually did come back to Shiauliai on Friday, and he brought food for his sons and their families. He did not convey any special new about Lygumai this time either. After Nisn's father left that Friday, a peasant from the village of Shereikiai came the next Tuesday with tragic news. He reported that on the morning of that Friday when Nisn's father had gone from Lygumai to Shiauliai, groups of partisans had gone to all the Jewish houses and driven out the women, children, men, the elderly and the sick. All the Jews were herded into the square near the police station in town. All the Jews were lined up in rows by the police station and taken to a barn belonging to the Jewish farmer Fayve Rod. Not far from the barn is the estate of Juchnatsiai, belonging to the German Baron von Rop. Not far from the barn where the Jews were locked up, in a birch forest, a pit had been dug earlier. The Jews were taken from the barn group by group and shot at the pit. While returning from Shiauliai, Nisn's father was taken from his wagon before he got back into town and taken away to be shot. The same peasant also reported that a taxi with a German inside was present not far from the pit while the shooting was going on. A girl named Khaye Kremer begged the German to let her live. She promised to give him all the gold she had hidden. He left her next to the car. After all the Jews had been shot he took the girl to her house in town. Peasants, neighbors of the girl, later said that Khaye dug up some gold and gave it to the German, who then took her back to the pit in the forest, where she was shot as well. Not a single Jew of Lygumai managed to escape the slaughter. Later Nisn found out from Lygumai peasants that the Jews had been forced to strip naked before they were shot. Their clothes were then sold at auction to Lithuanians in town and to peasants from the country. Nisn knows that among the Lithuanian murderers who robbed, tortured and eventually took active part in the shooting of the Jews of Lygumai were the following: 1. Antanas and Jonas Cuberkas, two brothers, both farmers. 2. Povilas Milvidas, who lived in Pakruojis road, half a kilometer from Lygumai. 3. Jurgis Jerashunas, a farmer from the village Veberiu. 4. Petraitis, the leader of the partisans in Lygumai. 5. Kazhys Siders, a farmer. The Tragic Reckoning Partisans from town, along with several others who came from Pakruojis, were involved in the shooting. Nisn Goldes does not remember their names. Nisn lost both of his children Sheyne and Rokhele during the "children's action" in the Shiauliai ghetto. His brother Yankl lost his three-year-old daughter Tisha during the children's action. Nisn and his wife were evacuated to Stutthof together with the rest of the Jews of Shiauliai. They were separated there. Nisn was in camp No. I near Landsberg. He was liberated there. His wife died at the Khinhof camp. Yankl Goldes and his wife had escaped from the Shiauliai ghetto to a village and both of them survived. A few Jews from Lygumai who had been in the Shiauliai ghetto survived. Nisn's father, mother, two brothers Shmerl and Yitzkhok, two unmarried sisters Leye and Gute, along with a third sister, her husband Hirshl Abramzon and their daughter Rokhele, aged two and a half, all died in Lygumai. After the war Nisn was in Lygumai, where he spoke to peasant acquaintances and to Lithuanians who lived in town. They corroborated all the tragic information Nisn had obtained earlier about the slaughter of the Jews in his home town of Lygumai. THE END I attest with my signature on each and every page to everything reported by me about the slaughter of the Jews in the town of Lygumai and recorded by L. Koniuchowsky on exactly five pages. Eyewitness: (Signature) Nisn Goldes The report was recorded by Engineer L. Koniuchowsky September 30, 1947 Feldafing, Bavaria The signature of the Feldafing resident. Nisen Golden, is attested to by the chairman of the camp. E. Reif. Feldafing, November 30, 1947 Translated from Yiddish by Dr. Jonathan Boyarin
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