Teneniai | Tauragė

/ Salomėja V., born in 1931: "I remember once, when a priest was visiting families before Christmas, he asked a child, "What is the one thing you can’t live without?" expecting to hear an answer, "Without baptism." The child replied, "Without a Jew."    ©YI Salomėja V., born in 1931, went with the Yahad investigation team to the execution site where she and her mother later had seen the blood of the victims.    ©Omar Gonzalez/Yahad – In Unum Field located 1 km (0.6 miles) north of Teneniai. Before the war, a barn stood at this location. In the summer of 1941, two men from a nearby village were locked inside and then executed by a grenade thrown inside by a Lithuanian policeman. ©YIU

Execution of Jews in Teneniai

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Barn in a field
Memorials:
No
Period of occupation:
1941 - 1944

Witness interview

Salomėja V., born in 1931: "When the Jews of Teneniai were taken to an unknown place, two Jewish men from another village were locked in a house on the territory of the Pilsudskis manor. They were killed by a grenade thrown into the house. People said that G. was the one who threw the grenade. My aunt and I went to Kvėdarna and stopped to see the execution site. We could see blood on the ground."(Witness n°378LT, interviewed in Teneniai on October 1st, 2018)

Historical note

Teneniai is a village located 56 km (34 miles) southeast of Klaipėda, in western Lithuania. In the early 20th century, there was a small local Jewish community. After World War I, in 1923, 191 people resided in Teneniai, including three Jewish families. These families owned shops in the center of the village. In the summer of 1940, under the terms of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, the region was annexed by the USSR. 

Holocaust by bullets in figures

On June 22, 1941, the German armies and their allies began their invasion of the USSR, marking the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. Teneniai was captured in the first days of the attack. As soon as the occupation began, the German authorities established a Lithuanian auxiliary police force to assist the Nazi security forces. At the same time, local Jews were subjected to forced labor, such as road maintenance. One day in the summer of 1941, the Jews of the village were deported to an unknown location. At the same time, two Jewish men from another village, probably Pajūris or Šilalė, were locked in a barn located 1 km (0.6 miles) north of Teneniai. They were killed by a Lithuanian policeman who threw a grenade inside the building. After this execution, there were no Jews left in Teneniai. 

Nearby villages

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