Graves of Holocaust victims in Šateikiai
Memorial site
306
The site and grave of the massacre of women and children of the Salantai Jewish community is a historical cemetery of Holocaust victims in the northwestern part of the territory of the Plungė district municipality, in Šateikiai Rūdaičiai (Plateliai eldership), 0.5 km northeast of the Skuodas-Klaipėda road, on the northwestern edge of the Šateikiai forest.
The gravesite is rectangular in plan, 10 x 10 m in size, surrounded by a wire mesh fence. In its northwestern part, there are metal, openwork, single-leaf gates, the upper part of which depicts the Star of David. The Star of David and a memorial inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian are carved on the monumental granite slab. In 1980, a wooden sculpture depicting a standing Jew with his hands tied was erected (author - folk artist Jakovas Bunka). The area of the territory is 0.01 ha.
In this place, in July–August 1941, auxiliary policemen from Salantai and Šateikiai killed women and children of the Salantai Jewish community. The execution took place in three stages. The first massacre took place around July 20, 1941. On the orders of the police, carters with carts arrived from the villages at dawn near the Salantai synagogue, where Jewish women and children were being held, and, accompanied by auxiliary policemen, took about 60–70 women to Šateikiai Forest. During the second massacre, at the end of July, the last remaining women and children in the ghetto were killed, more than 50 of them. At the end of August, auxiliary policemen escorted about 100 Jewish women from Salantai to Šateikiai Forest for execution. Since July, they had been working as auxiliary agricultural workers at the Šalynas Manor and with farmers in the Salantai Rural Municipality.
According to the Holocaust Atlas in Lithuania, 95 victims are buried here. The memorial plaque at the gravesite and the document collection "Mass Massacres in Lithuania" indicate that 100 Jewish men, women and children were killed here. Paulius Vaniuchinas, a researcher of the history of Salantai, determined that 210–220 women and children were killed at this site.
The site of the massacre and burial was declared a historical monument of local importance in 1970 and registered in the register of cultural heritage in 1993.
Used sources and references:
Related timeline
Related stories
Massacre of Jewish women from Salantai in the Šateikiai Forest
In the summer of 1941, a massacre of Jewish women and children was carried out in the Šateikiai Forest, organized by the local police and white-robed militia. The victims were transported to the site of the massacre from Salantai, and before being shot, they were ordered to undress and jump into a dug pit. According to different sources, from 95 to 230 people were killed during these executions, mostly women and girls.
The tragedy of the Jews of Plateliai
In July 1941, 30 local Jews were murdered on Jazminų Hill in the town of Plateliai, and the place later became memorable for the tragic events that occurred there.
The fate of the Jews of Plungė
In the summer of 1941, almost the entire local Jewish community of more than 1,800 people was brutally destroyed in Plungė. People were imprisoned in terrible conditions, starved to death, and finally shot in the Kaušėnai forest. The mass murders were carried out by local collaborators.