Stories from a Tower of Faces: The Youth Group
The young people posed for the photo about 80 years ago, wearing smiles or looks of grim determination. At home, Soviet-annexed Lithuania, they faced antisemitism and prohibitions on their religious and cultural activities. So they looked abroad in hopes of a better future.
Most did not make it.
Of these 28 members of a Zionist youth group in Eisiskes, now part of Lithuania, we know of four who were able to escape to Palestine, which was at that time administered by Britain with immigration restrictions.
Most of the others were killed during the Holocaust, which began when Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Regular army units were followed by killing squads, which worked with local collaborators to round up Jews in an area and shoot them. As many as two million Jews were killed in these operations.
The slaughter came to Eisiskes in September. On the 21st, the eve of the Jewish New Year, German and Lithuanian forces rounded up the town’s residents. They were forced into three synagogue buildings and held there for three days. On September 24, victims were taken from the synagogue to a nearby horse market. On September 25, the men were led in groups of approximately 250 into an old Jewish cemetery where they were murdered at the edge of an open pit by Lithuanian guards. On the 26th, women and children were shot in a nearby Christian cemetery.
In just a week, more than 250 years of Jewish life and culture came to an end. Today, no Jews live in Eisiskes.
The photograph of the youth group is one of 1,000 displayed in a three-story tower at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. By humanizing the victims of Eisiskes with photographs from their lives before destruction, it memorializes all the nameless and faceless victims of the “Holocaust by bullets.”
The granddaughter of survivor Bavale Polaczek (bottom row, second from right) recently contacted the Museum after spotting her grandmother in the photo on the Museum’s website. “I showed it to my parents, they were completely shocked since we have just a few photos of her life before the war. My mother even recognized her neighbor … a moving moment.” She shared additional photographs from Eisiskes, helping to ensure that the story of one town destroyed during the Holocaust can be fully told.
More stories from the “Tower of Faces”:
Jewish Victims and Survivors from One Small Town
The Soccer Players
The Rabbi
The Sisters
The Toddler
The Guardian of Memory
Editor’s note: This story was updated with additional information in August 2021.
