V3

A Walk through Jewish Rozalimas

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 names

Chapter 3

Stefa grew up in a village very near Rozalimas, Klovainiai.(see also: Stefa's story ) She married a young man from Rozalimas and they settled there. Esterke was very often accompanied by Stefa. Esterke was a pretty, energetic and friendly girl. In 1941 she was shot in the woods near Panevezys. (+ 40 km south-east of Rozalimas)

housenr.12

This picture represents the house of the Jewish family Klovanskis (housenr. 12 on the map). The citizens from Rozalimas called them the Itshkelis (= children of the father whose name was Itshik. It was their pet name) . The Klovanskis traded in animals, meat, old clothes and skins.

the local firebrigade exercise

This picture shows the local firebrigade exercise on the property of Klovanskis in 1932. One of Klovanskis' daughters Malke was a very dear friend to Stefa. We can see her in the picture, taken in the garden of the school. Malke was a member of the Komsomol in Rozalimas.(the communist youth organisation of the Soviets). In 1941, when the German-Nazi army entered Rozalimas, Malke's mother warned her daughter for the Nazis. She said something very, very terrible would happen , something so terrible the Jews couldn't imagine at all. Malke took some things of her own and fled from Rozalimas on a horse. She never returned to Rozalimas. The other familymembers were shot in 1941. According to Alma Bukauskiene, the young Jewish woman Malke survived the war. Alma saw Malke and had spoken with her in Panevezys, where Malke worked as a secretary. Alma was shown the office where Malke used to work. All this happened either in 1950 or in 1951.Alma doesn't remember how Malke escaped, but that she survived after the war was for certain. Later on Malke went abroad.(she emigrated?).

housenr.68

In this house lived the family Lapidot. Rivel Lapidot, nee Grevler, returned from Russia as a widow to Rozalimas with her son Levi Abrashka . Her mother Gita Basha advised her to seek contact with Yakov Lapidot, a widower with four children.
(Lea Lapidot Pur was the youngest child of Yakov Lapidot and his first wife Merah. Lea gave the information that her mother Merah died in a cart and horse accident when they were in Russia during WW1). Rivel and Yakov married. Together they had three children.

Photo taken in front of the housenr.68.From left to the right: Levi Abrashka, Hyaintke, Moshele ( Moshe, named after Yakov’s father Moshe), Gitle ( Gita, named after Gita Basha her grandmother).

Yakov Lapidot was the “unofficial” legal advisor of the municipality of Rozalimas. Before the war he died of cancer.Rivel decided to send her son Levi Abrashka to Russia to family of her first husband. Times became more and more dangerous for the Jews and in this way she hoped to save him. Levi Abrashka who already had his Bar Mitzvah travelled to the border with a group. There things went bad for them and Levi Abrashka tried to escape by running away. Doing this he was shot by the Russians. The other members of the group didn’t survive either. This must have been around 1940, 1941. Once he had hoped to join his elder step sister Lea ( Lapidot Pur) in Israel….

The names of the step brothers and step sisters were:

Sjorah,(pictures of her passport) Nison, Masje, Basje and Leah. They were much older in age.(see: genealogy ) They had left their father's home, already.

The last what was seen of Rivel and Hyaintke, Moshele and Gitle, was in the summer of 1941. They walked to the synagogue with some personal belongings and from there they were taken to the Kaizerlingas forests near Panevezys, to be shot by the Germans and their collaborators.

to chapter 4