Nemakščiai (Nemoksht in Yiddish) is situated in central Lithuania, on the main Kovno-Memel (Klaipeda) road, about 24 km. to the northwest of Rasein (Raseiniai), the district administrative center. The town was first mentioned in 1386 in documents of the Prussian Crusader order. By 1590 markets were already established there. From 1785 weekly markets and tri-annual fairs were held in Nemoksht.

Until 1795 Nemoksht was included in the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom. According to the third division of Poland in that same year by the three superpowers of those times, Russia, Prussia and Austria, Lithuania was divided between Russia and Prussia. As most of the other towns of Lithuania, Nemoksht became part of the Russian Empire, first in the Vilna province (Gubernia) and from 1843 within the Kovno Gubernia. In the years from 1915 to 1918 during World War I, Nemoksht was occupied by the German army. During the period of Independent Lithuania (1918-1940) Nemoksht was a county administrative center in the Raseiniai district.

Jews first settled in Nemoksht in the seventeenth century. In 1662 twelve Jews (seven men and five women, plus children who were not counted) were known to be living in the town. After King August III granted Nemokshst some privileges in 1742, its Jewish population increased. In 1847, there were 255 Jews. According to the all-Russian census of 1897, 1,180 people lived in Nemoksht, 954 being Jewish (81%). They made their living in trade, small trade and in agriculture.

The religious and social life of the Jews was centered around the Beth Midrash. On February 2, 1887 the Hebrew newspaper HaMelitz printed a complaint by Yekhezkel Furmansky against his co-residents who did not want to enlarge the Beth Midrash, stating that on Shabatot and holidays there was insufficient space for all the worshipers.

The welfare societies included Gemiluth Hesed, Hevrah Kadisha and Linath HaTsedek. Mutual aid was customary among the Jews, in particular the custom of sending food to the poor.

Zionism arrived at the end of the nineteenth century. In the years from 1895 to 1900 HaMelitz listed 96 Nemoksht donors for the settlement of Eretz-Yisrael (see Appendix 1). The fundraisers were: Yosef-Yits'hak Katz, Aba-Eliyahu Abelson and Eliezer-Yits'hak Zaksh.

During World War I the Russian army was not successful in exiling the town's Jews to Russia (as they had done in a great part of Lithuania) because the Germans preceded them and occupied the town. In 1917 a great fire burned down many houses.

In 1918 the Lithuanian state was established. Following the passage of the Law of Autonomies for Minorities by the new Lithuanian government, the Minister for Jewish Affairs, Dr. Menachem (Max) Soloveitshik, ordered elections to community committees (Va'adei Kehilah) to be held in the summer of 1919. In Nemoksht a Va'ad (community committee) with eleven members was elected. This committee was active in all fields of Jewish life until the end of 1925.

The first government census in 1923 counted 1,018 residents in Nemoksht, 704 them being Jewish (69%). In this period the number of the Jews in the town decreased as a result of emigration abroad and to Eretz-Yisrael.

Nemoksht Jews participated in the elections for the first Seimas (Parliament) that took place in October 1922. The Jewish votes were divided as follows: 240 for the Zionist list, 73 for the Akhduth (Agudath Yisrael) list and 6 for the Demokrats.

During this time the Jews made their living in small trade, cattle trade and crafts; there were also three farm owners. Most of the families maintained garden plots beside the houses and some others rented fruit gardens. However the opportunities for export decreased and this affected their living standards.

According to the government survey of 1931 there were fifteen businesses in Nemoksht, fourteen of them in Jewish hands (93%): one flax and grain shop, eight cattle trade businesses, two food shops, three textile shops. According to the same survey Nemoksht Jews owned a sawmill and two flourmills.

In 1937 sixty-four Jewish artisans were employed in the town: thirteen tailors, seven butchers, seven bakers, five shoemakers, two hatters, two glaziers, two barbers, two tinsmiths, one blacksmith, one knitter and four others.

The Jewish Popular Bank (Folksbank) played an important role in the economic life in town. In 1927 it had 159 members; by 1929 their number had decreased to 118. In 1939 there were twenty-five telephone subscribers, nine of whom were Jewish.

The Jewish children received their elementary education at the Hebrew Tarbuth school. The town had a library with Hebrew and Yiddish books.

The old Beth Midrash continued to serve as the main prayer place and the center of social and religious life. A new cultural center was erected with a donation from one of the Hering brothers, a Nemoksht-born philanthropist who had emigrated to America and supported the Folksbank. This was probably the only brick building in Nemoksht. It hummed with activity 24 hours a day. In it resided the bank, the Tarbuth school, the library, rooms for social and youth activities and a hall for sports and shows.

The rabbis who officiated during the years in Nemoksht were:

Uri-David Afrion (nineteenth century) was conversant in the Torah and many rabbis consulted with him.
Mosheh HaLevi Zaksh
Hayim-Tsevi Broide
Yehudah Ben Zion HaLevi Zaksh, 1905-1932, member of the Yavneh center and of the Mizrahi party center in Lithuania
Yisrael Krenitz, the last rabbi of Nemoksht, was murdered together with his community in summer of 1941.

Rabbi Uri-David Afrion

Congress No.	Year	Total Shkalim	Total Votes	Labor Party Z”S Z”Z		Revisionists	General Zionists A B		Grosmanists	Mizrakhi
14	1925	45	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
15	1927	20	15	—	6	—	1	—	—	8
16	1929	40	18	8	4	—	—	—	—	6
17	1931	—	25	8	2	7	4	—	—	4
18	1933	—	52	33		—	8	—	—	11
19	1935	—	295	137		—	44	7	3	104
21	1939	—	71	38		—	1	—	30	2

Hebrew Tarbuth school, 1929

Among the personages born in Nemoksht were:

Mosheh Markovitz (1855-1936), shoemaker and historian, published two volumes of the book Shem Hagedolim HaShelishi (Vilna 1810) about the rabbis of Lithuania, their lives and works and three books on the history of the Jewish communities in Rasein, Keidan and Novogrudek (published Warsaw 1813).

David-Matithyahu Lipman (1888-1941), pharmacist and historian of Lithuanian Jewry, initiator of the Historical-Ethnographic Society in Lithuania, published books and articles on this subject, murdered in 1941 in Tsaikishok (Cekiske).

William Siegal (Velvel Yits'hak Herzog) (1893-1966), a Yiddish actor and dramatist, lived in America from 1906.

Mosheh Markovitz

In summer 1940 Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union and became a Soviet Republic. Under the new regulations, factories owned by Jews were nationalized, as were some Jewish shops. All Zionist parties and youth organizations were disbanded and the Hebrew school was closed. Supply of goods decreased and as a result prices soared. The middle class, mostly Jewish, bore the brunt of this situation and their standard of living dropped gradually. At that time about 70 Jewish families lived in Nemoksht.

With the declaration of war between Germany and the USSR on June 22, 1941, Nemoksht was bombed and almost all of its homes were destroyed. The next day the Germans occupied the town. A month later all Jewish men aged fifteen years and older were taken for forced labor to the nearby town of Vidokle where they were imprisoned in the home of Ya'akov Fridman together with the local Jews. The Lithuanian guards entertained themselves by abusing and mistreating the Jews. They also forced them to do hard and menial labor and beat and humiliated them. Another torture they imposed was by forcing them to do 'gymnastics.' At the night they would break into the building, wake the Jews and shoot over their heads, to shock and terrify them.

On July 24, 1941 (29^th of Tamuz, 5701) all men were taken out to bathe in the nearby lake. When they emerged naked from the lake, they were not permitted to dress, but were led in groups of ten to nearby pits and where they were shot and buried.

It is not exactly known where and when the women and children were murdered. Most likely they were murdered between August 18^th and August 22^nd. During this period, according to a German source, 1,926 Jews from the Rasein district were murdered.

The mass grave near Nemoksht

According to Soviet sources there is a mass grave 1.5 km from Nemoksht in which 543 bodies were found. At the beginning of the 1990s a stone monument was erected with the inscription in Yiddish: “Here the blood of Jews, men, women and children was spilled by the Germans and their helpers.”

At the site of the Jewish cemetery a plaque was affixed with the inscription in Yiddish: “Here was the Jewish cemetery.”

Vashem archives, Jerusalem, M-1/E-1655/1539; M-33/971;
Koniukhovsky collection 0-71, files 42, 52, 53; Testimony of Hanah Levy (nee Leizerovitz), 0-57, file 50
YIVO, New York, Collection of Lithuanian Jewish Communities, file 1667
Gotlib, Ohalei Shem, page 129
Derori (Leizerovitz) Dov, Know from where you came; (Hebrew) manuscript, Library of Yad Vashem
HaMelitz, St.Petersburg, 15.7.1879; 2.2.1887
Di Yiddishe Shtime, Kovno, 1.10.1920; 25.4.1938; 31.10.1938; 28.12.1938; 26.6.1939; 16.6.1940
Folksblat, Kovno, 2.1.1938; 21.8.1940
Der Yiddisher Kooperator, Kovno, 1927, #2
Dos Vort, Kovno, 17.12.1934

Surname	Given Name	Comments	Source	Year
ALT	Dovid		#121	1900
ALT	Shmuel Shlomo		#121	1900
BEKER	Shmuel		#170	1897
BEKER	Shmuel		#132	1898
BERLOWITZ	Aharon		#121	1900
BERMAN	Leib		#121	1900
BLOCH	Dov Ber		#121	1900
BLUM	Michel		#121	1900
BLUM	Yisroel		#121	1900
BORUCH	Shlomo		#121	1900
BROIER	Shmuel		#170	1897
BROIER	Shmuel		#132	1898
BROIER	Shmuel		#121	1900
COHEN	Yitzchok		#121	1900
FIN	Ben Tzion		#121	1900
FRIEDMAN	Avraham Eli		#170	1897
FRIEDMAN	Avraham Eli		#121	1900
GEDREITZKI	Chaim Dovid		#121	1900
GEDREITZKI	Nochum		#121	1900
GEIZEROWITZ	Dov Yakov		#170	1897
GROSMAN	Eli		#121	1900
GROSMAN	Rochel Etil wife of Eliahu Bentzion Fin from Trishik	wed	#50	1899
GROSMANN	Eliahu		#132	1898
GROSSMAN	Eli		#170	1897
HALEVI	Eliezer Yitzchok		#132	1898
KATZ	Moshe		#170	1897
KLEIN	Zevulun		#121	1900
LEIBOWITZ	Dov Yakov		#170	1897
LEIBOWITZ	Shlomo		#121	1900
LEIBOWITZ	Tzvi		#121	1900
LEWITAN	Yakov		#170	1897
LEWITAN	Yakov		#132	1898
LIPMAN	Aizik		#170	1897
LIPMAN	Aizik son of the Gaon ABD Plungian		#132	1898
LIPMAN	Yitzchok Aizik		#121	1900
MAGELEWITZ	brothers		#121	1900
MANDEL	Leib Zundil		#121	1900
MEGELEWITZ	brothers		#132	1898
MEHL	Menachem Mendil		#132	1898
MEHL	Zev		#121	1900
MEHL	Zev Wolf		#132	1898
MEIROWITZ	Eli		#170	1897
MEIROWITZ	Eli		#121	1900
MEIROWITZ	Eliahu		#132	1898
MEIROWITZ	Moshe Leib		#170	1897
MEIROWITZ	Moshe Leib		#132	1898
MEIROWITZ	Yosef Eli		#170	1897
MEIROWITZ	Yosef Eli		#121	1900
MEL	Zev		#170	1897
MIGELWITZ	Alechsander		#170	1897
MIGELWITZ	Pesach		#170	1897
NATKIN	Leib		#170	1897
NAWIAZSHKI	Moshe		#132	1898
OLSHWANGER	Roche daughter of Y R	born 1898	#132	1898
OLSHWANGER	Y R s-i-l of Rabbi Moshe Halevi Zachs		#132	1898
OLSHWANGER	Yakov Dovid		#170	1897
RATNOIUSKI	Moshe		#170	1897
REICHIL	Zev		#170	1897
ROTNOWSKI	Moshe		#121	1900
SHAPIRO	Chaim Tzvi ben haGaon from Kurshan		#170	1897
SHAPIRO	Chaim Tzvi son of the Gaon Shmuel Moshe from Kurshan		#132	1898
SHAPIRO	Chaim Tzvi son of the rabbi		#121	1900
SHMUELOWITZ	Avraham		#121	1900
SHMUELOWITZ	Leib Yakov		#121	1900
SHMUELOWITZ	Mordechai		#121	1900
SHMUELOWITZ	Moshe		#121	1900
SHTER	Leib		#121	1900
TETZ	Yitzchok		#121	1900
WEINSHTEIN	Sh Sh		#121	1900
WOLF	Yehuda		#121	1900
YAKOBSOHN	Eliezer		#132	1898
YAKOBSON	Eliezer		#121	1900
YUDELOWITZ	Yechezkel		#121	1900
ZACHS	Bas Sheva bas Moshe wife of Yakov Dovid Olshwang of Taurage	wed	#201	1895
ZACHS	Eliezer Yitzchok son of the Gaon ABD Nemaksciai		#132	898
ZACHS	Eliezer Yitzchok son of the rabbi ABD		#121	1900
ZACHS	Moshe Halevi f-i-l of Y R Olshwanger	Rabbi Gaon ABD Av Beth Din	#132	1898
ZACHS	Moshe Halevi father of Bas Sheva	rabbi gaon ABD	#201	1895
ZACHS	Moshe Halevi father of Eliezer	Rabbi Gaon ABD	#170	1897
ZALTZBERG	Avraham Ben Tzion		#121	1900
ZALTZBERG	Avraham Bentzion		#121	1900
ZALTZBERG	Bentzion		#170	1897
ZALTZBERG	Henich		#121	1900
ZALTZBERG	Kadish		#121	1900
ZALTZBERG	Yosef		# 132	1898
ZALTZBERG	Yosef Yitzchok		#170	1897
ZALTZBERG	Yosef Yitzchok		#121	1900
ZIW	Leib		#170	1897
ZIW	Leib		#121	1900
ZIW	Shlomo		#170	1897
ZIW	Shlomo		#132	1898
ZIW	Shlomo		#121	1900
ZIW	Yona		#170	1897
	Shlomo ben Shmuel		#132	1898

The above article is an excerpt from “Protecting Our Litvak Heritage” by Josef Rosin. The book contains this article along with many others, plus an extensive description of the Litvak Jewish community in Lithuania that provides an excellent context to understand the above article. Click here to see where to obtain the book.

http://yurburgfriends.com/Rosin/Heritage.html

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