Pušalotas () 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 692 people.

History

Pušalotas first mentioned in 1643. In 1639 the church was built. In 17th – 18th centuries Pušalotas was a center ruled by a

vogt An , sometimes simply advocate, (German, ), or (French, ), was a type of medieval office holder, particularly important in the Holy Roman Empire, who was delegated some of the powers and functions of a major feudal lord, or for an institutio ...

. In 1644 Pušalotas got a licence to organize markets. In 1738 Pušalotas had 12 and in 1789 – 26 houses. In the middle of 19th century parish school was operating. In the 19th century, pastor J. Jaskevičius supported carriers of banned Lithuanian press (''knygnešiai''), established secret schools in Lithuanian language, since education in Lithuanian was banned after the

1863 Uprising The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last in ...

. Ten Jewish men and women as well as Soviet activists were murdered in July 1941, in the Jewish cemetery of the city. In the same month local white armbanders shot 18 more Jews in the forest of Šadeikoniai. Another execution of the town's Jews might have taken place in August or September 1941 with 248 killed; the exact date and circumstances of the massacre are not known. After the Soviet occupation,

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 ...

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 ''Žalioji'' (The Green) detachment. Soviet occupants in 1940–41 and in 1944–53 deported 35 people to remote areas of Siberia.

Famous natives

Katherine Rosman's great-great-grandfather, Morris Stein, was born in Pušalotas in 1852. The Jewish family had been in the town since at least 1801. Rosman's great-grandmother, Rose Stein Wyman, was born in the neighboring

Pumpėnai Pumpėnai is a small town in Panevėžys County, in northeastern Lithuania. 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 ...

.Katherine Rosman's son, Ariel Ehrlich, is involved in the research of the family's genealogy and has reported the aforementioned findings in conjunction wit
Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage Services

References

Towns in Panevėžys County Ponevezhsky Uyezd Holocaust locations in Lithuania Pasvalys District Municipality {{PanevėžysCounty-geo-stub