A Lasting Imprint: Photos Document a Vibrant Town Destroyed

This photo, part of a 54-foot tower in the Museum featuring images from one town, shows a boy named Yankele (right) with his two cousins, Shifrale (center) and her brother Motele, in March 1938. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of the Shtetl Foundation

Snowy days, birthdays, and every important milestone. More than 1,000 photos capture the simple pleasures of residents of Eisiskes. They abruptly ended after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and soldiers came to their town, in what is now Lithuania. The murder of six million Jews began in places like Eisiskes. Over two days in September 1941, the Germans and their collaborators murdered the Jewish townspeople, at the distance of the barrel of a rifle. In this digital program on World Photography Day, experts discussed some of the personal stories behind these photos, which survive as proof of a once-vibrant Jewish community.