CEMETERY FOCUS: Kaunas Jewish Cemetery III (Panemune)

Alternative/Former City Names: Kauen | Kovne | Kovno | Kowno

Jewish Community Established: 1410

Cemetery Established: 1710 

Present Usage of Cemetery: Protected Jewish cemetery

Location & Demarcation: The old Jewish cemetery in Panemune is located between Vaidotas Street and the Nemunas River. An entrance sign in Lithuanian at the site bears the following inscription: “SENOSIOS ŽYDU KAPIN0S TEBUNIE ŠVENTAS MIRUSIUJU ATMINIMAS” and a Star of David.

Gravestones, Memorial Markers & Structures: The gravestones are so deep into the ground that the inscriptions cannot be read. Only 3 gravestones can be seen. The cemetery is owned by the local municipality.

History of the Jewish Community: The first known presence of Jews in Kaunas was in 1410 when they were brought forcibly as prisoners of war by the Grand Duke Vytautas. Many of those Jews were later active as traders between Kaunas and Danzig (today’s Gdansk, Poland). The Jewish population increased as the town expanded. This was due to the influx of Jews from the countryside who were driven away by the local Christian population. From the second half of the 19th century, Kovno became a center of Jewish cultural activity in Lithuania. There were 25,044 Jews living in Kaunas according to the census of 1923 (over 25% of the total population) and 38,000 in 1933 (30%). Jewish institutions included a central Jewish cooperative bank, part of the share capital being held by the Jewish people’s banks, which numbered 81 in 1930, and were directed from Kaunas. During the period at the beginning of the 1920’s when Jewish national cultural autonomy was authorized in Lithuania, Kaunas was the seat of the Ministry for Jewish Affairs, the Jewish National Council, and other central Lithuanian Jewish institutions and organizations. At the beginning of the 1930’s, five Jewish daily newspapers were published in Kaunas. The network of Hebrew schools included kindergartens, elementary and high schools, and teachers’ seminaries.The Kaunas pogrom was a massacre of Jewish people living in Kaunas, Lithuania that took place from June 25 to June 29, 1941 – in the first days of Operation Barbarossa and of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania. The most infamous incident occurred in the Lietukis garage, where several Jews were publicly tortured and executed on June 26. After June, systematic executions took place at various forts of the Kaunas Fortress, especially the Seventh and Ninth Forts. During World War II, after the outbreak of the German-Soviet war and even before the Germans occupied the city (June 24, 1941), Jews were killed in Kaunas by Lithuanian fascists. Immediately after the German occupation, large-scale anti-Jewish pogroms took place affecting some 35,000 Jews. At the instigation of Einsatzgruppe A, Lithuanian “partisans” carried out a pogrom in Slobodka (Vilijampole), in which more than 1,000 Jews were killed. Approximately 10,000 Jews were arrested in various parts of the city and taken to the Seventh Fort, a part of the old fortress, where between 6,000 and 7,000 of them were murdered in the beginning of July.

Source: Jewish Community of Lithuania as part of a Lo Tishkach youth project. Images © Lo Tishkach Foundation