Plateliai ( sgs, Platelē; pl, Płótele) is a town in

Samogitia Samogitia or Žemaitija ( Samogitian: ''Žemaitėjė''; see below for alternative and historical names) is one of the five cultural regions of Lithuania and formerly one of the two core administrative divisions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ...

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. It is situated on the west bank of

Lake Plateliai Lake Plateliai (Samogitian dialect: ''Plateliu ežers'') is the biggest lake in Samogitia and 9th biggest in Lithuania. It is the central attraction in the Žemaitija National Park. It covers about and reaches up to in depth. It has seven island ...

, the largest lake in Samogitia. The town with the population of about 1,100 people is the center of an

elderate A ''seniūnija'' (in English: eldership, elderate, ward, parish, or subdistrict) is the smallest administrative division of Lithuania. An eldership may comprise a very small region consisting of few villages, one single town, or a part of ...

Plungė district municipality Plungė District Municipality ( lt, Plungės rajono savivaldybė, Samogitian: ''Plongės rajuona savivaldībė'') is one of 60 municipalities in Lithuania. Tourism and pilgrimage Major tourist attraction is Lake Plateliai and nearby town Platel ...

. It is the administrative center of the

Žemaitija National Park Samogitia National Park or Žemaitija National Park is a national park in Lithuania. It is situated on the Samogitian Highlands, 45 km from the Baltic Sea. Lakes cover more than 7% of its territory. Lake Plateliai (12.05 km2, 47 m depth ...

. The town is popular resort in Samogitia and attracts many tourists.

History

The wooden St. Peter and Paul church of Plateliai was built in 1744 by Jan Wojtkiewicz. The Choiseul de Gouffier palace was destroyed at the end of

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 opposin ...

but the 40

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

park remained.

Jewish community

Having settled in Plateliai at the end of the 18th century, the Jews were employed in small commerce, craftsmanship and fishing in the lake bordering the town. There was a synagogue in the town, but no Jewish school or any other Jewish public institutions. From the end of the 19th century, the Jews of Plateliai started gradually emigrating to America and South Africa, and the flow continued into the interwar period, propelled by a huge fire that devastated half of the town in 1923. The disaster worsened the economic situation of the Jews. Families usually maintained vegetable gardens beside their houses, which helped them survive. Of 150 Jews that lived in Plateliai in 1923, only about a hundred remained in 1940. Three dozen Jewish men from Plateliai were arrested about a week after the German invasion, on the second day of the war. While they were confined in the synagogue and forced to do hard physical labor, Jewish women and children were forced to work for the farmers around the town as auxiliary labor force. The first shooting took place in the Laumalenka forest, 4 km south of the town, in the beginning of July 1941, when up to ten Jewish men were shot. The rest of the Jewish men were executed in mid-July at the foot of Mount Bokštikalnis, 0,5 km west of the town. After the execution of men, 70 women, children and the elderly were placed in the synagogue and kept there until the end of August. They were shot and buried in a trench dug by residents of the town in the Laumalenka forest. In the same manner as the men before them, the women had to undress before being lined up at the edge of the pit and shot.

References

External links

Settlements in Žemaitija National Park
Towns in Lithuania Towns in Telšiai County Plungė District Municipality Duchy of Samogitia Telshevsky Uyezd Holocaust locations in Lithuania {{TelšiaiCounty-geo-stub