Ramygala (Remigole in Yiddish) lies on the Ponevezh–Keidan (Panvezys–Kedainiai) road 25 km. south of the district administrative center Ponevezh. Remigole is mentioned in historical documents as early as the thirteenth century. In 1525 Remigole County was mentioned for the first time. In 1580 the town was granted the right to conduct three fairs per year as well as its large markets.

Until 1795 Remigole was included in the Polish–Lithuanian Kingdom. According to the third division of Poland in the same year by the three superpowers of those times, Russia, Prussia and Austria, Lithuania was divided between Russia and Prussia. As most of Lithuania, Remigole became a part of the Russian Empire, first in the Vilna province (Gubernia) and then from 1843 in the Kovno Gubernia. During the period of independent Lithuania (1918–1940) Remigole was a county administrative center in Ponevezh district.

Jews probably began to settle in Remigole at the end of the sixteenth century, according to gravestones at the old Jewish cemetery. In 1766, 225 Jewish taxpayers were living there. Their number increased by the second half of the nineteenth century. According to the all–Russian census of 1897 the population was 1,329 residents, 650 being Jewish (49%). It is known that in 1859 a synagogue already existed in the town.

In 1883 fire destroyed 35 Jewish homes. Sixty families became homeless and destitute and appealed for help from the Jewish communities in Lithuania.

In lists of donors for the settlement of Eretz–Yisrael published in the Hebrew newspaper HaMelitz during the years 1899 and 1900 the names of 91 Remigole Jews appear (see Appendix 1).

In Remigole the bibliographer Yits'hak ben Ya'akov (1801–1863) was born, whose main work was the book Otsar HaSefarim (Treasure of the Books). This was a detailed bibliography of 17,000 Hebrew books and manuscripts published up to 1863.

In May 1915, during World War I, the Russian military exiled Remigole Jews to the central regions of Russia. After the war only two–thirds of those exiled returned home.

In 1918 Lithuania became an independent state and following the Law of Autonomies for Minorities issued 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 Remigole a community committee of seven members was elected. This committee was active in all aspects of the Jewish life in the town from 1920 until the end of 1925 when the autonomy was annulled by the Lithuanian government.

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A street in Remigole Photograph courtesy of Joe Woolf, Ilania, Israel (1992)

According to the government survey of 1931 four textile shops belonged to Jews; two flour mills in the area also belonged to Jews.

In 1937 eleven Jewish artisans worked in Remigole: three shoemakers, three butchers, two bakers, two blacksmiths and one tailor.

In summer of 1929 a fire destroyed 62 Jewish buildings. These included 27 dwellings, barns, stables and so on, as well as the Linath HaTsedek building, the library and the reading room, the Beth Midrash and the Talmud Torah. Only eleven houses were insured. All others victims of the fire required aid. This came in from the “Joint” organization and its subsidiary company “Foundation,” local donations and government assistance with low–cost timber, which made it possible for uninsured house owners to rebuild their homes.

In the mid–1930s the Jewish population fell. The economic crisis in Lithuania and open propaganda of the Lithuanian merchants Association (Verslas) urging people not to buy in Jewish shops caused many to move elsewhere.

In 1939 there were ten telephone subscribers, of whom only one was Jewish.

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At the beginning of the 1920s a Yiddish school was established in Remigole, but it was closed after a short time. Later the Jewish children studied at the Hebrew Tarbuth school. To replace the 600–book library that burned down in 1929, a new library was established in town; after a long dispute this was taken over in 1931 by the Yiddishist Folkspartei.

In January 1933 the community inaugurated the new Beth Midrash that was built where the original one had been burnt down. Now the town had two Batei Midrash and both held classes in Talmud and Mishnah every day, in the mornings and in the evenings. Remigole had quite a number of learned and intellectual men who also spoke Hebrew.

The tablet on the wall of the Beth Midrash with the inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian: “Here stood the Beth Midrash. Now a community center.” Photograph courtesy of Joe Woolf, Ilania, Israel (1992)

Shemuel–Mosheh Shapira (1843–1908), in Remigole from 1869
Joel Haitovsky, from 1892
Zisl Shteinfeld, the last rabbi, murdered together with his community in the Holocaust.

Many of the Remigole Jews were Zionists and supporters of most of the Zionist parties. The youth belonged to the Tseirei Zion organization. In the table below are given the results of the elections for three Zionist congresses:

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In summer of 1940 Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union and became a Soviet Republic. Under the new regulations, the Jewish flour mills and some of the shops were nationalized. 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 the standard of living dropped gradually. At that time about 350 Jews lived in Remigole. The Soviet rule lasted for one year until June 22, 1941 when the German army invaded Lithuania.

Even before German soldiers were seen in Remigole, Lithuanian nationalists organized themselves and began to abuse the Jews. One Jews was immediately shot and another who resisted was buried alive with his feet protruding from the ground. Rabbi Zisl Shteinfeld was tied to a cart harnessed to a horse and was dragged through the streets until he died. When the Germans entered the town the Lithuanians began to snatch Jewish girls. The Germans and the Lithuanians abused the girls, cutting their bodies with knives, while the Jews were forced to attend and watch the horror. After two months of this torture the Jews were ordered to assemble in the Beth Midrash in order to be transferred to Ponevezh where they were told they would live and work. The old and ill were left in the Beth Midrash which was set on fire and burnt down with the people inside it.

On August 24 and 25, 1941 (1^st and 2^nd of Elul 5701) the remaining Jews were led by foot in the direction to Ponevezh and were murdered in the Pajuoste Forest, about 8 km. east of Ponevezh. The names of the Lithuanian murderers are recorded in the archives of Yad Vashem.

The monument in the Pajuoste forest with the inscription in Lithuanian: “In this place the Hitlerists and their helpers in August 1941 murdered about 8000 Jewish children, women and men.”

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In 1992 a monument was erected with an inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian in the place where the Jewish cemetery once was.

One of the few intact tombstones at the cemetery: “Our dear mother, the modest and great Rabanith Shasha daughter of Pinhas who died on the 5th of Iyar 5685 (1925)”

Sources:

Yad Vashem archives, Jerusalem, M–9/15(6)
YIVO, New York, Collection of Lithuanian Jewish Communities, Files 1130–1148, 1349, 1546
Gotlib, Ohalei Shem, page 378
Di Yiddishe Shtime, Kovno, 19.4.1922; 23.7.1929; 29.7.1929; 31.7.1929; 14.1.1931; 8.5.1931; 1.7.1931; 9.1.1933
Der Yiddishe Kooperator, Kovno, #10, 12, 1929
HaMelitz, St. Petersburg, 9.11.1883; 25.3.1889
Folksblat, Kovno, 2.10.1935

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