Evacuation, Exile, Return

Introduction

This dataset is organized around the theme of wartime displacements and subsequent return. At present, the dataset includes three unrelated component parts, each of which is described separately below.

The Obeliai Questionnaires

Because Jews, as a group, were suspected of disloyalty to the Russian Empire, they were hastily thrown out of western Kovno gubernia in May of 1915 as the Germans attacked from East Prussia, bringing WWI to Lithuania. Most were sent to interior Russia. After the war, thousands of the surviving displaced Lithuanian Jews tried to return to Lithuania, almost all of them passing through the frontier quarantine station in the tiny town of Obeliai. This was, for all practical purposes, the only route back from Russia. In Obeliai, each returnee or family head filled out a questionnaire indicating where they intended to go if readmitted to Lithuania and including significant personal details about each family member such as the date and place of birth, maiden name, father’s name, etc. Almost all the questionnaires date from late 1920 or 1921. Each person mentioned in a questionnaire has their own entry, thus a single questionnaire can be associated with multiple entries. To date, this dataset has 14,383 entries. When concluded, the dataset will have more than 20,000 entries.

An awareness of administrative divisions is helpful in understanding these records. As this was the period of Lithuanian indepence, the Russian Empire uyezds no longer existed. Lithuania was organized into 23 counties. For the convenience of researchers who are more familiar with the uyezds, and to facilitate search, we have inserted the Russian Empire uyezds where the name differed from the Lithuanian county. For example, the county for Moletai is shown as "Utena / [Vilnius]", meaning Moletai was in Utena county and formerly in Vilnius uyezd.

Note that Lithuania during this period did not include Vilnius city and other areas of today's eastern Lithuania and western Belarus. These areas were controlled by Poland and were cut off from independent Lithuania. Returnees entering through Obeliai were not able to go to Polish-controlled areas.

The Obeliai questionnaires are conserved at the Lithuania Central State Archives (LCVA) and were translated by LitvakSIG.

WWII Evacuees to interior Russia

As the Germans were about to invade Lithuania in the early summer of 1941, many “Soviet Citizens” were evacuated to the East. This is a list of Jews who were evacuated to various parts of the Soviet Union extracted from records in the Lithuanian State Central Archives (LCVA). Typical entries include the person's name (and maiden name), father's name, year of birth, occupation, town from which evacuated, and evacuation place in the Soviet Union.

This list is not only important from a genealogical research viewpoint but is equally  important in tracing family during the Holocaust. Some researchers have found no record of their relatives or even information that they survived. For some, this list will provide new clues.

The list of evacuees was translated by LitvakSIG.

Jews Repressed During the First Soviet Occupation of Lithuania, June 1940 - June 1941

During the Soviet occupation, Lithuanians were subjected to repressive measures targeted at supposed "anti-Soviet elements". Repression included arrests and deportations, including an intense deportation action from June 14-18, 1941, during which some 17,000 individuals were deported to Siberia. Commonly, when men were sent to a prison camp, their families were sent into Siberian exile at a separate location. Jews were caught up in the repression in numbers approximately proportional to their population.

In 1999, the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania (LGGRC by its Lithuania acronym) published the names and other information about 30,461 repressed individuals gleaned from a variety of sources (Lietuvos Gyventoju Genocidas, 1939-1941, Vol. 1, B. Burauskaite, ed.). This list is reported to include the names of 2,613 Jews. Subsequently, Galina Zhirikova of the Lithuanian Holocaust Museum took the Jewish names and information from the LGGRC list and made them into a separate list. This list is available in Lithuanian at http://media.search.lt/getfile.php?OID=265380&FID=774974

LitvakSIG received permission to translate and database this list, which we are pleased to make available. It contains 2606 lines, but a slightly smaller number of individuals because of a handful of duplicate listings under different variations of a person's name. Apparently, it includes nearly all the Jews in the LGGRC list. Typical entries include the name, sometimes the maiden name, name of the father, age, relationship to the head of family, where the person had been living, and their fate.

Each entry is annotated with one or more codes giving the source of the information. These codes are interpreted below (as provided in Lietuvos Gyventoju Genocidas).

• ANK - questionnaires and letter of victims collected from 1988 to 1990, by the Sajudis Committee for the Investigation of Stalinist Crimes, and questionnaires and letters from 1991 to 1997 collected by the Research Centre of Repression in Lithuania. The material is held by the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania (LGGRTC).
• ANK(1) - data about persons imprisoned or deported at a concurrent span of time. The data is compiled from questionnaires and letters of respondents. Held by LGGRTC.
• BBK - an index of criminal files compiled on the basis of the cards of arrested persons filld in after arrest. Held by the Special Archive of Lithuania (LYA).
• KER - A Register of Deported Lithuanians compiled by Leonardas Kerulis, Chicago, 1981, p. 246.
• KGB - criminal cases of the NKVD-NKGB-MGB-KGB. Held by LYA.
• KGB(1) - an archive guide
• KGB(2) - an archive guide
• KIT - a Register of the Data of the Soviet Terror Victims. The data based on periodicals, books, and unpublished manuscripts. Held by LGGRTC.
• KIT(1) - an update of the first volume of the Register collected between 1993 and 1998 by the Research Centre of Repression in Lithuania. Held by LGGRTC.
• MA - a list of prisoners deported to Kotlas in March-June 1941. Held by the Library of the Academy of Sciences of Lithuania.
• POLR - a compilation of local police reports on Soviet Atrocities committed during the first week of the German-Soviet War. Copies held by LGGRTC.
• SAR - lists of deportees compiled by individual persons. Held by LGGRTC.
• SAR(1) - a list of people arrested in 1940 and 1941; wanted as escapees from 1944-1945. Held by LGGRTC.
• SAR(2) - material collected by public supporters. Held by different schools of Lithuania.
• SAR(3) - a list of the Lithuanian Army officers compiled by Colonel Stasys Knezys. The property of Knezys' personal archive.
• SPS - a list of deportees and prisoners compiled in 1942 by the Lithuanian Bureau of Reciprocal Exchange of Information which operated buring the Nazi occupation. Copies held by LGGRTC.
• SER - documentary material collected by Algirdas Šerėnas in komi prison archive. Copies held by LGGRTC.
• TBK - an index of deportation files. Held by LYA.
• TBK(1) - deportation files comprising only the decision about deportation and no information about the place of deportation. Held by LYA.

Written by Russ Maurer

Spring, 2022