The massacre at Anyksciai The torture, abuse and genocide of Lithuanian Jewry took a very similar form in almost every town and city throughout the country, once the Nazi invasion had swept through Lithuania, heading east. But each settlement and its resident Jewish community has its own tragic story. In some places there were no Jews left at all that could bear witness to the brutal massacre by local Lithuanians of Jewish men, women and children. The Lithuanians made very sure that no witnesses were left that might later testify to their heinous behavior. They knew only too well that any such evidence might lead to prosecution if their German sponsors ultimately lost the war. There were some Lithuanians who were present at the atrocities and testified to what they saw at their own trials following the reintroduction of Soviet Rule. Some of them had, in fact, done a lot more than just watch the Jews being slaughtered in their hundreds.

They themselves also murdered Jews and were naturally keen to hide that fact as much as they could once the war was over.

Anyksciai was one provincial town, where, miraculously, nine Jews survived the carnage. One of them was a young man named Motel Kuritzki. Born in Anyksciai, he had been through the ultimate hell that was the fate of Jews both in his community and those elsewhere and survived against all odds. As soon as the liberation of Lithuania from Nazi rule by the Soviet Union was complete, Motel began speaking to whoever he could about the massacre of Anyksciai Jewry by Lithuanians, most of who were former neighbors and “friends” of the Jews and had lived side by side with them ever since the town was built. We have reprinted Motel’s own words here but before that here is some brief background information about the town.

Anyksciai, a regional settlement in the Utena district, is a typical Lithuanian town situated on the banks of the Sventjoi River in North Eastern Lithuania. Surrounded by a luscious greenbelt of valleys and pine tree forests, the view from the city is breathtaking. For many generations Jews formed a large part of the population – 70% back in 1887 (2,754 people), dropping to around 50% by 1923 (1,748 people). The number of Jews later rose again, reaching a total of around 2,000 people by the time the Soviets invaded Lithuania in June 1940. As in other towns throughout Lithuania, Jewish communal life in Anyksciai was vibrant. Most of the town’s Jews were Zionists who actively participated in Zionist activities and attended Zionist congresses whenever these were held. The local Jewish community operated the same types of mutual assistance and relief bodies as their counterparts elsewhere. There were also a number of elementary schools where both Hebrew and Yiddish were used as the language of tuition. Religious activities were coordinated under the auspices of the local “Shulhoyf” center which comprised four synagogues – which also included two torah study centers and two small prayer rooms (Kluyzim), one of which was made available to the community’s cobblers who set up their workshops there.

With the annexation of Lithuania to the Soviet Union in June 1940, many Jewish owned shops and businesses were nationalized by the Soviet regime. The local Jewish population, and in particular, the middle class, was hard hit by the new regulations and regime with standards of living falling rapidly. Local political groups, Zionist youth movements and Jewish educational institutions were all closed. Ten Jewish families, among them people who volunteered in the Lithuanian war of independence were deported to Siberia.

Lithuanian militias went on the rampage immediately following the launch of the German invasion and Anyksciai’s Jews were doomed to suffer the same fate as their countrymen elsewhere in the country. The Germans overran Anyskciai within the first few days of the invasion but did not stay in the town and instead handed over control to local Lithuanian partisans organized under the umbrella of two main far right political groupings, the L.A.F and L.N.F (for more details about these, see our periodical “Lithuania, Crime & Punishment”). Joining local Anysksciai Jews were Jewish refugees from Kovna, Jonava and other locations who tried to escape to the Soviet Union but were overtaken by German troops and had to turn back. They were all imprisoned in the Shulhoyf center and subjected to horrendous torture and abuse by local Lithuanians.

Over the years, researchers have recorded and documented numerous eyewitness accounts of the torture inflicted on Anyskciai’s Jews before their deaths. Some of these came from survivors who managed to escape and others were from murderers who took part in the atrocities and were subsequently caught and then prosecuted by Soviet courts. And in 1995, fifty four years later, a Lithuanian author, Rimantas Vanagas, even published a book about the horrific demise of Anyksciai Jewry. But perhaps the most revealing and traumatic account of all is that of Motel Kuritzki, for whom the events at Anyksciai were just the start of three long years of persecution and suffering so harsh it was a miracle he survived to tell the tale. We do not have space here to recall the entire three-year period of Motel’s suffering- this will almost certainly be published individually at a future date. We have focused instead, on Motel’s experiences when the Lithuanians imprisoned him together with the rest of the local Jewish community and refugees in the cobblers’ synagogue (in the Shulhoyf center). This is what he said in his testimony after the war:

“The cobblers’ prayer house was as crowded as a jail. They brought in many local Jews and also refugees from Jonova, Kovna and Ukmerge and other cities. Everyone had been severely beaten and all were hungry, thirsty and emaciated. At 12:00 that day, June 29, 1941, a group of local armed Lithuanian partisans stormed into the room and asked if there was someone there by the name of Kuritzki. My father, Yerachmiel Kuritzki, stepped forward. He looked as white as a corpse as the Partisans grabbed hold of him and shoved out into the yard where they were going to shoot him. One of the older partisans suggested that they kill him later and so my father was brought back into the room. As he sat down again next to me, dazed and disoriented with his head bowed in total submission, I could barely fathom out how a strong assertive individual like my father had, within a short space of time, become a shadow of the man he once was. After he sat down he said to me: “my child, I have been through two wars and I will not survive this one. Do whatever you have to do to save your own life.” This sounded to me like his parting words before death. And sure enough, a moment later the partisans came back and took my father away. I never saw him again.

“The partisans soon returned and as they entered the room once more, they noticed the local Jewish artist Jose Karabelnik hiding beneath the podium in the center of the prayer room. They jeered at him and beat him and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t beg for his life. After they amused themselves sufficiently they murdered him. Later that day, as evening approached, the Lithuanian animals choose seven elderly Jews with long white beards and ordered them to step on to the podium and recite prayers out loud. As the terrified old men stood there, the partisans stepped up behind them and checked that each one was praying as loud as he possibly could. With their prayer shawls on, their eyes filled with tears, the elderly Jews stood the facing the ark and prayed as hard as they could to the all merciful God, asking him to spare them and all their families, while the Lithuanian thugs stood nearby doubled up with laughter. Those who didn’t raise their voices loud enough were beaten bloody with shovels and then shot in the back of the head. Those who remained frantically yelled and shouted out their prayers in the hope of avoiding a similar fate while the other prisoners huddled together in the corners of the room and plugged their ears, hoping the partisans would be too absorbed in the abuse of the elderly Jews on the podium and would forget them.

“When the partisans finally had enough, they promptly murdered all the remaining elderly Jews and threw their corpses on to a wagon outside. They ordered several Jews to escort the wagon to the “Rabbit Mountain” and bury the bodies there. The next person to die was a Jewish man named Moshke Lafer. While one group of murderers were focusing their attentions on the elderly Jews on the podium, another group of thugs were torturing and harassing the rest of the Jews in the room. They beat everyone with iron bars and army shovels. After the corpses of the elderly Jews had been hauled away, the horrible sound of wailing and crying could be heard in every corner of the room. The wounded screamed in agony begging for someone to help them but no one could do anything…..

“As the day wore on, the prayer room looked more and more like an abattoir, a slaughterhouse where innocent Jews were being murdered in cold blood. A large puddle of blood formed on the floor as more and more people were murdered. The prisoners, who were still alive, backed further and further into the corners of the prayer room. Terrified and wild-eyed with fear, they desperately sought to hide wherever possible in the hope they might go unnoticed. But the carnage went on. Later that day at five in the afternoon, the partisans came back again and ordered a number of men to step outside. Several minutes later the sound of gunshots rang through the air. One local boy, Michke Karabelnik was brazen enough to step up to the window and see what was happening outside. He saw the partisans line the men up next to the pit and then shoot them. As soon as he told the others, uproar broke out. Everyone lay on the floor face down but it made no difference. The partisans, who by this time had come back into the room, ordered everyone on their feet. Spotting me standing nearby, they ordered me outside. I was seventh in line.

“Outside the main door, the murderers had formed two lines and we each had to walk along the narrow path between them. As I walked through, Lithuanian thugs on both sides of me beat me with sticks, cattle prods and shovels. As I staggered down the pathway battered from both sides, I noticed Viktorius Bakzevicius, a local council official with whom I played together in the town orchestra. “Help me, save me, they’re going to kill me,” I shouted to him. “You’re a Jew, and there’s nothing I can do for you,” was his response. As I approached the pit at the end of the two lines, I saw three Jews shoveling earth into the pit to cover the bodies of the Jews that had already been murdered. Seeing a spare shovel by the edge of the pit I immediately grabbed and joined in. Just as I started shoveling earth, the partisans brought out a nineteen year old youth, Abke Birger, a boot maker. He stood by the pit and the Lithuanians shot him. But they managed only to wound him and he immediately turned and ran. As he approached my house, weak and bleeding, he collapsed in the street. The partisans came up and shot him in the head and then slung his corpse in the pit along with the others. The four Jews with shovels – me included – immediately shoveled sand into the pit to cover him. In all the commotion surrounding poor Abke’s attempted flight, the murderers forgot about me.

“Next to be led out into the street was my uncle, Hirsh Romang. As he came to the end of the torture lines, he suddenly turned and ran, but the murderers opened fire and wounded him in the stomach. He fell in the middle of the street and they formed a circle round him. He desperately tried to plead for his life. “Please spare me, I have three children, their mother died at birth and they’ll be orphans if you kill me,” he begged them. They forced him to pray and this amused them so much they broke out in loud guffaws which went on until they finally shot him dead and threw him in the pit too. I had to shovel earth over my own uncle.

“Another person to attempt to escape was Nechemke Tunkel (his father was a chimney sweep). He managed to reach the front door of his house and his wife, who had watched everything from the window in the front room, rushed to the door and opened it as he approached. But just as he reached the door a bullet hit him in the back and he fell dead.

“The killing finally ended at around 19:00 or 19:30 that evening. Apparently, orders had been given to cover up all traces of the atrocities that took place that day. There was a minor commotion in the yard as the murderers forced the four Jewish undertakers to quickly fill in the pit and place a large boulder on top of it. On that day, June 29, 1941, Lithuanian thugs murdered more than thirty Jewish men at the cobblers’ prayer house alone. Similar atrocities took place at other synagogues and study halls where more local Jews and refugees had also been imprisoned.

“Later that evening, the partisans brought in a group of around twenty five to thirty Jewish girls from Anyksciai and neighboring towns. Among those they brought in were my sister Rachel-Leah, my cousin Pesha Romang and my sister’s friend Chaja Sarke-Beder. They sat down next to me and told me that while one group of thugs were busy murdering the men at the prayer house, another roamed the streets of the town searching for Jewish girls to abuse. They went from house to house, dragging girls out into the streets and yards where they savagely raped them in broad daylight. Some girls managed to hide temporarily but the murdering sadists eventually found them and threw them in the local jail. Later on, they moved them all to the cobblers’ prayer house together with us.

“At around midnight, a group of partisans burst through the door, torches in hand. They were looking for the girls they brought in earlier and they strode through the room training their flashlights on the groups of terrified Jews huddling in every corner. I grabbed my sister and laying her prostate on the floor, I sprawled on top of her, hiding her as much as I could. She was lucky. The rest of the girls weren’t so fortunate. The murdering sadists grabbed hold of them and dragged them all out into the yard where they raped them one by one. We could hear the terrible screaming and wailing from outside. One girl, Dobke Dubinovski, was brought back into the room by the Lithuanian monsters after they raped her. When she had recovered sufficiently, she told us what went on outside. Several Lithuanians pinned each girl in turn to the ground by the arms and legs while the others raped her in turn. They violated every girl without exception. Those who tried to resist were dragged across the street into the yard outside the Talmud Torah hall and raped there. After they had relieved themselves, the Lithuanians murdered nearly all the girls and left their corpses on the street. A select few were brought back into the prayer room, bleeding disheveled and traumatized after their horrendous ordeal.

“The next day, on June 30, 1941, the murderers slung the corpses of the girls and of the men who had been stabbed to death during the night on to a number of wagons that had arrived to take them away. They ordered several Jewish men to accompany them to the “Rabbit Mountain” where they tossed the corpses into the pit and then ordered the Jewish gravediggers to fill it in. When they had almost finished, the Lithuanians murdered them as well and buried them on top of the others.

“That evening, while the unfortunate girls were being savaged by Lithuanian thugs, I seized the opportunity and made my escape through the window of the prayer house. I crawled along the dirt path to the house of Yossel, the ritual slaughterer. From there it was a short distance to the small veranda at the front entrance to my parents’ small house, which lay adjacent to a stream, just two buildings down from the prayer house. I desperately wanted my mother to see I was still alive. It was pitch black outside and the town was enveloped in a thick haze of smoke from the guns of the murderers who had made this place a living hell for its Jewish inhabitants. As I crawled up to my parents’ front door, a beam of light suddenly swung in my direction. A partisan murderer was approaching our house. My heart began to thump so hard, I thought my chest was about to rupture. I lay prostrate on the ground and didn’t move an inch. Luckily for me, the partisan didn’t notice and carried on down the street.

“I knocked on the front door and after my mother opened it and on seeing me, she slumped to the floor almost passed out from the shock. My younger brothers and sisters came forward and hugging me close, we all wept bitterly. When my mother came round, she told me she saw everything from her window and tore her hair out in anguish. She was certain that I was no longer alive. As I stood there and listened to my mother, I thought how pale and emaciated she looked. She was so gaunt and haggard I hardly recognized when she first opened the door. Her dress hung on her like a skeleton. My younger brothers and sisters looked petrified and despondent. They looked to me for help but at that point there was nothing I could do. I told them I had come to the house to make sure mother knew I was alive but I had to escape to the forest and move on from there if I wanted to have any chance of surviving….

“The Jewish tragedy provided the partisans with the ideal opportunity to get rich quick. In return for very generous payment, they allowed wealthy Jews to leave the prayer rooms and synagogues and return home, even though they knew they would be rounding them up and taking them away again the very next day. On the morning of Shabbat, July 7, 1941, the first stage in the systematic and gruesome destruction of the Anyksciai Jewish community began. From my parents’ house I watched as large gangs of partisans marched into the synagogues and prayer rooms where the Jews were being held. In addition to guns, they also carried army shovels, iron bars, clubs and cattle prods. It was quite obvious that something terrible was about to happen. I started to rack my brains as to where I could hide as most of the places I originally thought of were unsafe and there was a good chance of me being caught if I used any one of them. Finally I climbed into the attic and opening the trap door I pulled myself up onto the roof and crawled into the nearby pigeon coop. From there I could see into the adjacent yard in the street below. The events I witnessed that day will remain for all time a black mark on both the Lithuanian nation who committed one of the most horrific and gruesome acts of mass murder in history, and the community of civilized nations whose apathy created the climate that made such a crime possible.

“The partisans ordered all the Jewish men to strip. Shirts, trousers, shoes and other items of clothing were thrown out of the windows of the buildings and soon began to pile up outside. When all the men were naked, the beatings started. Wielding their clubs, army shovels, iron bars and cattle prods, the partisans savagely attacked their prisoners. Many fell dead straight away. The wailing and screaming hysterical weeping that came from every room was beyond description. Jewish men with shattered skulls, broken hands, legs and ribs cried out for help and begged for their lives. But the murdering partisan thugs paid no attention. It was as if the cries of help from the victims – who were being murdered for no other reason than that they were Jews – were being directed at the outside world and specifically, their Lithuanian neighbors with whom they had lived together for centuries. The hapless victims appeared to be convinced that someone from outside would step in and halt the carnage. But in fact, no one had any intention of saving the Jews.

“From the pigeon coop I could see the Christian residents of Anysksciai standing in the street with their women and children. They clearly seemed to be enjoying the spectacle and spent their time eagerly helping themselves to the clothes of the victims that were now piled up in the street. The cries of the victims mingled with the deathly atmosphere; no one heard their agonizing screams for help and no one came to their assistance. Nobody even knew what was happening and probably no one wanted to know either. Even the skies above seemed indifferent to the tragedy that took place on the earth below that day. I tried to block my ears but the sounds of horrible wailing in agony and the screams of the victims penetrated my brain. I was shaking from head to toe and my heart pounded as I felt myself breaking out into cold sweat as the carnage went on and on. I felt myself losing control and the words just came out even though there was no one there to hear them. “God in heaven, what is happening here? Can these murderers be the same people we have lived side by side with all these years?.” The pigeons around fluttered back and forth, impervious to the violence and killing that destroyed the Jewish community that day in the streets of the town. So I poured out my heart to them instead. “How lucky you are, dear pigeons,” I told them, “you have no idea what kind of brutal, licentious and debased world you’re living in. A world of martyrs and innocent victims, a world where vile criminals butcher innocent people