Dimitravas | Klaipėda

Execution of Jews in Dimitravas

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:

Hill in the forest

Memorials:

Yes

Period of occupation:

1941-1944

Number of victims:

510

Witness interview

Antanas P., born in 1935: “About 600 women and children were brought to the camp from Skuodas. They had to walk 60 kilometers to reach the camp. Anyone who couldn’t continue walking was killed on the way.” (Witness N°87, interviewed in Tarvydai, on October 13, 2014)

Historical note

The village formerly known as Tarvydai has existed since the 16^th century. In the 19^th century, a manor was built in the village and named Dimitravas after its owner, Dmitrij Zubov. There is no information that Jews had ever lived there. In 1937-1940, at the time of Lithuania’s independence, a forced labor camp was built in Dimitravas. Political prisoners, mainly communists, were sent there along with criminal offenders. Their work was collecting and breaking up the stones that were later transported by railway to different Lithuanian towns and were used for paving roads and streets. The camp had an administration building, three barracks and a number of workshops. It was surrounded by a barbed wire fence with watchtowers. When the Soviets occupied Lithuania in 1940, they released most of the prisoners and closed the camp, but its operation was resumed by the Germans when the war started in June 1941.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

Soviet officials and activists became the first inmates of the Dimitravas Camp under the German occupation. Later, at the end of July 1941, about 500 Jewish women and children were brought there from Skuodas, located 40 km away. The inmates arrived, exhausted after traveling this distance on foot in two days. They were placed in two barracks and stayed there for a couple of weeks. By mid-August, several pits were dug in the nearby forest of Joskaudai, on the Alka Hill. The mass execution of Jews started on August 15 and lasted until the next morning. Victims were brought to the pits in groups, undressed, pushed inside the pits and shot. About 40 young Jewish women were left in the camp to do farm work, but they were also shot a month later near Darbėnai, alongside the local Jews. In late 1944, the Soviet government inspected the execution place at Alka Hill and found four pits containing the bodies of 385 women, 94 adolescents and 31 children (510 victims in total). The children’s bodies had no bullet wounds.

Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania

Other links

• Read Yahad-In Unum’s report of the research trip in this area
• Go to the LitvakSIG website, whose mission is to preserve Litvak heritage by discovering, collecting, documenting and disseminating information about the once vibrant Jewish community of Lithuania.

Nearby villages

• Darbėnai
• Palanga

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