• Memorial Stone at the Site of Mass Shootings on the Jewish Cemetery of Yurburg
In the mid-1990s, a memorial for the town's Jews murdered in the Holocaust was set up on the Jewish cemetery of Yurburg (Lithuanian: Jurbarkas). In 1941, the SS and Lithuanian collaborators shot almost the entire Jewish population of Yurburg.
Image: Yurburg, beginning of the 20th century, View of »Rossyenni Street«, Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas
Yurburg, beginning of the 20th century, View of »Rossyenni Street«, Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas

Image: Yurburg, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Yurburg at the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Yurburg at the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg is situated at the shore of the Neman River; in 1940, the town was located on what was then the border to the German Reich. Around 1,900 Jews were members of the local Jewish community at that time. They accounted for about forty percent of the town's population. That same year, the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania. The new authorities began supressing Jewish cultural life and appropriating Jewish property - also in Yurburg.
On June 22, 1941, the German Wehrmacht occupied the town. Already a few days later, Dr. Walther Stahlecker, commander of SS-Einsatzgruppe A (SS mobile killing squad), gave the order to conduct mass shootings of Jews in the former German-Lithuanian border zone. Following this order, members of the SS and their Lithuanian helpers shot 322 Jewish men on Yurburg's Jewish cemetery. Within a short period of time, the SS conducted further mass shootings, which small groups of Jews from Yurburg and surrounding areas fell victim to.
The remaining Jewish residents had to perform forced labour. Their main task was the digging of mass graves.
At the beginning of September, the SS and their Lithuanian helpers murdered about 520 Jewish women and children in a nearby forest. Prior to this, Lithuanian helpers had locked them in the former Jewish school for three days. The victims were family members of the 322 men that had been murdered in July 1941.
Image: Yurburg, beginning of the 20th century, View of »Rossyenni Street«, Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas
Yurburg, beginning of the 20th century, View of »Rossyenni Street«, Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas

Image: Yurburg, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Yurburg at the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2009, Memorial to the murdered Jews of Yurburg at the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
According to their own accounts, the SS had ordered the murder of all of Yurburg's Jewish residents by September 6, 1941. Other sources confirm that a few Jews managed to escape before the mass shootings of 1941.
Image: Yurburg, around 1941, Jews from Yurburg marching wearing the yellow star, Vilniaus gaono žydų muziejus
Yurburg, around 1941, Jews from Yurburg marching wearing the yellow star, Vilniaus gaono žydų muziejus

Image: Yurburg, 2009, Memorial plaque of the »Friends of Yurburg Cemetery, Inc« on the newly constructed fence of the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2009, Memorial plaque of the »Friends of Yurburg Cemetery, Inc« on the newly constructed fence of the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
The memorial marks the contours of the mass graves of 1941. The inscription on the memorial plaque is written in Hebrew and Lithuanian.
On initiative of »Friends of the Yurburg Cemetery, Inc.«, a group of Jewish survivors from Yurburg, the Jewish cemetery has undergone large conservation efforts in the last few years. Amongst this is a faithful reproduction of the former entrance gate to the cemetery. A further memorial stone nearby commemorates the »Lithuanian partisans who fought against the communist occupiers and their helpers between 1944 and 1953«.
Image: Yurburg, 2003, The memorial plaques, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2003, The memorial plaques, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Yurburg, 2009, The memorial and the reconstructed entrance gate at the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2009, The memorial and the reconstructed entrance gate at the Jewish cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Yurburg, 2011, Memorial at the mass grave, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2011, Memorial at the mass grave, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2011, Impressions of the cemetery, Stiftung Denkmal
Image: Yurburg, 2011, Memorial for Lithuanian partisans, Stiftung Denkmal
Yurburg, 2011, Memorial for Lithuanian partisans, Stiftung Denkmal
Name
Žydų žudynių vieta ir kapai Jurbarke
Open
The memorial site is accessible at all times.