Pumpėnai is a small town in
Panevėžys County
Panevėžys County () is one of ten counties of Lithuania, counties in Lithuania. It is in the north-east of the country, and its Capital (political), capital is Panevėžys. On 1 July 2010, the county administration was abolished, and since tha ...
, in northeastern
Lithuania
Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, 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, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 855 people.
History
The first church in Pumpėnai was built around 1638. The town established itself due to the settlement of monks from the
Order of Carmelites
The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a Mendicant orders, mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men ...
in 17th century. The monastery was built by Povilas and Jurgis Zavadskis and Juozapas Šyšla in 1655. The monastery was built from wood and burned down in 1770 and then was rebuilt. In 1792 Pumpėnai got
Magdeburg rights
Magdeburg rights (, , ; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages gr ...
.
On 15 July 1941, Jews of the town were kept imprisoned in a
ghetto
A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...
. On August 26, 1941, an execution squad murdered the Jews in a mass execution.
in 1946–1953
deported
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its Sovereignty, sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or ...
about 500 people from the Pumpėnai area. After the
Soviet occupation
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into three differe ...
in the surroundings of Pumpėnai
Lithuanian partisans
Lithuanian partisans () were partisans who waged guerrilla warfare in Lithuania against the Soviet Union in 1944–1953. Similar anti-Soviet resistance groups, also known as Forest Brothers and cursed soldiers, fought against Soviet rule in E ...
of
Algimantas military district
Algimantas military district (also Algimantas partisan military district) is a military district of Lithuanian partisans which operated in 1947-1950 in the counties of Panevėžys and Rokiškis. The military district consisted of the territorial un ...
were active, namely the ''Žaliosios'' brigade.
Notable people
*
Felicijonas Lelis (1870–1949), a priest
*
Benjamin J. Bialostotzky (1893–1962), Yiddish poet
*
Aleksandras Balčiauskas (1907–1952), a Protestant priest
*
Česlovas Kavaliauskas (1923–1997), a priest, theologician, poet, translator of the Bible
*
Petras Abukevičius (1928–1997), film director, operator
References
Towns in Lithuania
Towns in Panevėžys County
Holocaust locations in Lithuania
Ponevezhsky Uyezd
Pasvalys District Municipality
{{PanevėžysCounty-geo-stub