Pinkas Hakehillot Lita: Barstyciai

“Barstyciai” - Encyclopedia of Jewish
Communities in Lithuania
(Barstyčiai, Lithuania)
56° 10' / 21° 52'

Translation of the “Barstyciai” chapter from
Pinkas Hakehillot Lita

Written by Dov Levin

Published in Jerusalem, 1996

Acknowledgments
Project Coordinator
Barry Mann

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for permission to put this material on the JewishGen web site.

This is a translation from: Pinkas Hakehillot Lita: Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities, Lithuania,
Editor: Prof. Dov Levin, Assistant Editor: Josef Rosin, published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

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(Page 182)

Barstyciai

In Yiddish, Barshtitz
Written by Dov Levin
Translated by Shaul Yannai

A very small town in northern Lithuania in the Seda subdistrict of the Mazeikai district, not far from Skuodas. Barstyciai was established after a church was built there in 1788. In 1864 it had about 100 inhabitants. In 1923, with the establishment of Independent Lithuania, the town had 87 Jews. Most of them worked in agriculture. From April 1921 until June 1926 the town had an elected committee headed by Nahum Kahanovitz. In spite of the difficult economic situation of most of the Jews in the town, it was through this committee that the Jews of the town donated in 1922 a relatively notable sum (4,005 marks) for the Jewish refugees in Russia.

Subsequently, the economic situation of the Jews in the town deteriorated even more and most of them left. Quite a few of them emigrated to Eretz-Yisrael. In 1939 there were 3 telephones in the town, 2 of them belonged to Jews.

On August 9, 1941 (16 Av, 5702), 2 months after the German military invaded the Soviet Union, the local Jews were transferred to Mazeikai and were murdered there together with the other Jews in the area. According to a Soviet source, in 1941 “Hitlerites” and “the local bourgeois nationalists” murdered the 13 families that lived in Barstyciai. There is no doubt that the source is referring to the local Jews.

Bibliography:

YIVO - Lithuanian Communities' Collection: files 111-112, pages 6559-6577

Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page

Yizkor Book Director, Lance Ackerfeld
Emerita Yizkor Book Project Manager, Joyce Field z”l
This web page created by Lance Ackerfeld

Barstyciai

In Yiddish, Barshtitz Written by Dov Levin Translated by Shaul Yannai

Bibliography:

In Yiddish, Barshtitz
Written by Dov Levin
Translated by Shaul Yannai