• Monuments to the Murdered Jews of Gargždai
In June 1941, the first mass shootings of Jews following the German invasion of the Soviet Union took place in the Lithuanian town of Gargždai (German: Garsden). Several memorial stones commemorate the victims.
Image: Road to Gargždai, 1939, Jews from Klaipėda fleeing from the National Socialists to Gargždai, Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum Lüneburg
Road to Gargždai, 1939, Jews from Klaipėda fleeing from the National Socialists to Gargždai, Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum Lüneburg

Image: Gargždai, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of June 24, 1941, Stiftung Denkmal
Gargždai, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of June 24, 1941, Stiftung Denkmal
Gargždai is a small town on the former border between East Prussia and Lithuania, 17 kilometres east of the port town of Klaipėda. On March 23, 1939, the Klaipėda Region (German: Memelland), which Lithuania occupied in 1923, became part of the province of East Prussia once again following a German ultimatum. Many Jews hoped to escape the National Socialists by fleeing from Klaipėda to nearby Gargždai.
In 1940, Lithuania - including Gargždai - became part of the Soviet Union, in accordance with a secret German-Soviet pact. After the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, SS-Einsatzgruppe A (mobile killing unit) systematically murdered Jews in the former border region between the German Reich and Soviet Lithuania. The first mass shooting of Jews after the invasion of the Soviet Union was committed in Gargždai. It took place on June 24, 1941, two days after the fighting had begun. However, this massacre was not carried out by SS-Einsatzgruppe A, but by the »Einsatzkommando Tilsit«, made up of members of the Gestapo and policemen. They shot 200 able-bodied men and one woman; there were many Jews from Klaipėda among the victims. The unexpectedly strong resistance of NKVD border units in Gargždai on the first day of the invasion was the pretence for the killing. Some members of the NKVD, surprised by the attack, fought in civilian clothing; much of the fighting took place on the western outskirts of the town, an area with many Jewish residents. The Wehrmacht was therefore under the impression that Jewish civilians had actively taken part in the resistance.
It is highly probable that the murder operation was conducted on request of the Wehrmacht. The leader of the unit, chief of the Tilsit Gestapo Hans-Joachim Böhme, consulted with the Reich Main Security Office prior to carrying out the shootings. Mid-September 1941, Germans brought the remaining women and children of Gargždai to a forest near Vėžaičiai where they were murdered by Lithuanian nationalists.
Image: Road to Gargždai, 1939, Jews from Klaipėda fleeing from the National Socialists to Gargždai, Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum Lüneburg
Road to Gargždai, 1939, Jews from Klaipėda fleeing from the National Socialists to Gargždai, Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum Lüneburg

Image: Gargždai, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of June 24, 1941, Stiftung Denkmal
Gargždai, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of June 24, 1941, Stiftung Denkmal
In all, 500 Jews from Gargždai were murdered by the »Einsatzkommandos Tilsit« and by Lithuanian nationalists during various mass murder operations in June and September 1941.
Image: Gargždai, 1940, Jews on the town square before the German invasion, George Birman
Gargždai, 1940, Jews on the town square before the German invasion, George Birman

Image: Gargždai, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of June 24, 1941, Stiftung Denkmal
Gargždai, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of June 24, 1941, Stiftung Denkmal
In the decades after World War II, numerous monuments stood at the site of the June 24, 1941 mass shootings. Since 1989, a granite monument has marked the site on which 201 Jews were murdered. The commemorative plaque wrongly gives July 1941 as the date of the massacre. The inscription at the foot of the monument reads in Lithuanian: »Here is an unhealed wound on Lithuanian ground«.
Several monuments have been erected in the area of Vėžaičiai, near the mass graves, in memory of the 300 Jewish women and children who were murdered in the forests surrounding the village.
Image: Vėžaičiai, 2004, Monument in the forest near Vėžaičiai, Stiftung Denkmal
Vėžaičiai, 2004, Monument in the forest near Vėžaičiai, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Vėžaičiai, 2004, Close-up of the monument in the forest near Vėžaičiai, Stiftung Denkmal
Vėžaičiai, 2004, Close-up of the monument in the forest near Vėžaičiai, Stiftung Denkmal
Name
Gargždų ir Vėžaičių žydų žudynių vietos ir kapai
Phone
+370 (8)46 471566
E-Mail
sonatasmat@centras.lt
Open
The monuments are accessible at all times.
Possibilities
Commemorative ceremonies are held on occasion.