Skip to main content

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Site
    • English home page
    • المصادر بالعربية
    • Πηγές στα Ελληνικά
    • Recursos en español
    • منابع موجود به زبان فارسی
    • Ressources en français
    • Gyűjtemény és tudástár magyar nyelven
    • Sumber Bahasa Indonesia
    • Materiali e risorse in italiano
    • 日本語のリソース
    • 한국어 자료
    • Recursos em Português (do Brasil)
    • Материалы на русском языке
    • Türkçe Kaynaklar
    • اُردو ری سورسز
    • 中文参考资料
  • Events
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Support the Museum
  • Connect
  • Donate
  • Learn About The Holocaust
  • Remember Survivors and Victims
  • Confront Genocide and Antisemitism

  • Recursos en español
Enciclopedia del Holocausto

  • Enciclopedia del Holocausto
  • El Holocausto: Un sitio de aprendizaje para estudiantes
Esta página también está disponible en:
  • EnglishEnglish
  • FrançaisFrench

Lithuania

  • Otros artículos
  • Comentarios
Lithuanian militiamen in Kovno round up Jews during an early pogrom. Kovno, Lithuania, June 25-July 8, 1941.

Lithuanian militiamen in Kovno round up Jews during an early pogrom. Kovno, Lithuania, June 25-July 8, 1941.

— Ernst Klee

  • Fotografía

    Fotografía
  • Historia personal

    Historia personal
  • Mapas

    Mapas
  • Película histórica

    Película histórica

Lithuania is the southernmost of the Baltic states.

The Jews of Lithuania had their own distinct and highly developed Jewish culture, including a special dialect of the Yiddish language. Lithuanian Jewry played a profound role in many Jewish ideologies, including the Jewish workers' movement, Zionism, and rational religious thought. Before World War II, the Lithuanian Jewish population was some 160,000, about 7 percent of the total population.

Lithuania was an independent country from the end of World War I until 1940. On January 16, 1939, Lithuania and Germany signed a nonaggression pact. Nevertheless, in March of that year Germany annexed the Lithuanian territory of Memel-Klaipeda, a region with an ethnic German majority. The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in June 1940 and annexed the country in August 1940. By 1941, the Jewish population of Lithuania swelled by an influx of refugees from German-occupied Poland to reach about 250,000, or 10 percent of the population.

In June and July 1941, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans occupied Lithuania. During the German occupation, Lithuania was incorporated into the Reich Commissariat Ostland (Reichskommissariat Ostland), a German civilian administration covering the Baltic states and western Belorussia.

The Lithuanians carried out violent riots against the Jews both shortly before and immediately after the arrival of German forces. In June and July 1941, detachments of German Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units), together with Lithuanian auxiliaries, began murdering the Jews of Lithuania. By the end of August 1941, most Jews in rural Lithuania had been shot. By November 1941, the Germans also massacred most of the Jews who had been concentrated in ghettos in the larger cities. The surviving 40,000 Jews were concentrated in the Vilna, Kovno, Siauliai, and Svencionys ghettos, and in various labor camps in Lithuania. Living conditions were miserable, with severe food shortages, outbreaks of disease, and overcrowding

In 1943, the Germans destroyed the Vilna and Svencionys ghettos, and converted the Kovno and Siauliai ghettos into concentration camps. Some 15,000 Lithuanian Jews were deported to labor camps in Latvia and Estonia. About 5,000 Jews were deported to killing centers in German-occupied Poland, where they were murdered. Shortly before withdrawing from Lithuania in the fall of 1944, the Germans deported about 10,000 Jews from Kovno and Siauliai to concentration camps in Germany.

Soviet troops reoccupied Lithuania in the summer of 1944. In the previous three years, the Germans had murdered about 90 percent of Lithuanian Jews, one of the highest victim rates in Europe.

Otros artículos

  • Estonia
  • Latvia
  • Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units)

Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

Esta página también está disponible en:

  • EnglishEnglish
  • FrançaisFrench

Museum Information

  • Today at the Museum
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Exhibitions and Collections
  • Traveling Exhibitions

Resources for Academics and Research

  • Ask a Research Question
  • Research in Collections
  • Research about Survivors and Victims
  • Academic Programs

Resources for Educators

  • Teaching about the Holocaust
  • Programs for Teachers
  • Teaching Materials
  • Holocaust Encyclopedia

Resources for Professionals and Student Leaders

  • Law Enforcement
  • Military
  • Judiciary
  • Faith and Interfaith Communities
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Main telephone: 202.488.0400
TTY: 202.488.0406

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Plus
  • Youtube
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • About the Museum
  • Contact the Museum
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility
  • Legal
×

#USHMM #AskWhy

FirstPerson

Conversations with Survivors
of the Holocaust

Watch Now

Join us right now to watch a live interview with a survivor, followed by a question-and-answer session.