Eržvilkas ( Samogitian: ''Eržvėlks'') is a town in Taurage County, Lithuania. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 429 people.

History

Jewish history

Before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, the village had an important Jewish community. In 1923, they were 46% of the total population. Among others, Hermann Schapira (1840-1898), a mathematician and important forerunner of the

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

movement, was born in the village. At the beginning of the Second World War there were 180 Jews living in the village. In 1941 these Jews were exploited as forced labour. In September 1941, they were murdered in mass executions perpetrated by an Einsatzgruppen of Lithuanian policemen at the Gryblaukis forest.

References

Towns in Lithuania Towns in Tauragė County Rossiyensky Uyezd Holocaust locations in Lithuania {{TauragėCounty-geo-stub