Students from Akmene gymnasium organized an expedition to clean and document the local Jewish cemetery. When working in the cemetery, local residents alerted authorities, showing vigilance in protecting the gravesites. The students photographed gravestones, many of which were overgrown. According to Jewish tradition, the dead must be buried quickly and gravesites left undisturbed. The expedition helped preserve the memory of Akmene's Jewish community, who were largely murdered by Nazis and local collaborators during the Holocaust. Students are now seeking help to translate inscriptions on gravestones.

3. <...> our work doesn‘t
stay unnoticed:
watchful inhabitants
phoned to Jonas
Katauskis( local
prefect) immediately
with a question: „ why
those kids are there, in
Jews cemetery?“.

4. Such alertness
shows a positive
attitude to the
graveyards that
something wrong
won’t happen, that
monuments stay
undamaged at rest

7. Most of monuments
were taken during the
first days of expedition
because we had been
working after lessons.
Even the afternoon
sun helped for our
photographer Aureja
Novogreckyte – the
sun lighted up the
monuments which
were turned to the
west side.

8. The other 13
gravestones Aureja
photographed in
the morning

9. According to the
Jews traditions a
reburial is forbidden.
A relocation the
remains is called like
disturbing his rest in
peace, it also shows
our lack of respect to
that person

10. Jews don’t cut
the grass in
cemetries, but the
cemeteries don't
look untidy, the
trees and grass give
a look of wildness
and peaceful
mood...

11. <...> you won’t
find any flower
there, also Jews
don't plant it in
cemeteries unless
they put stone –
the symbol of
timeless, emphasis

13. In the west side
the mouds are very
clear. In the east
part the land is
more plain, the
tombstones are set
thinly

14. In accordance with Jewish religious tradition,
the deceased person had to be buried on the
day of death, before dusk. In Akmene
synagogue there was a black wooden coffin
with handles on the sides. When someone
died, the Jewish undertaker, with horse
carriage, brought the coffin to the dead
man’s house, put the body inside, closed it
and carried it to the three bridges, without
any flowers or wreaths. Next to the three
bridges (there were three bridges over the

15. Near the gates of the cemetery there was
a wooden shelter, where the ceremony was
being performed. A very shallow pit would
have been dug there. The body was taken
from the coffin, placed into the pit and
covered with stones. The empty coffin was
returned to the synagogue. After some time,
that place turned into the knoll of grass and
young trees. The richer Jews used to put a
stone slab with an inscription and build a
small stone obelisk.”
(from the memories of the witness Augustina
Rusinaite, written in 2001, Akmene)

16. Now students
will search who
could read those
inscriptions of
tombstones

18. In 1941, at the end of July or at the beginning of August
all Jews were carried to Mazeikiai. They were devided in
two groups. The police guard was the chief
assistant. Healthy jews were taken on
foot, sick, elderly and children transported by carts. They
were locked into the barn and were shoot the next
day. Executioners took the part of clothing from the
victims,then went back to Akmene. Some valuable items
( watches, shoes, etc.) were taken away from the Jews at
the beginning in the camp before transportation to
Mazeikiai.

19. From the „work done’’each executorer earned
300 roubles (says Pranas Maigys, who participated
in this execution) - (3, 8-9) „Also we were given
meals and drinks in Mazeikiai town. Then the next
day, early in the morning, all the rebels from the
Akmene were driven home. For shooting in
Akmene I got a fur coat, a suit. "- from
S. Cichanavicius testimony of August 28,
1958 (3.30).

20. How to live further , what to
do with the bloody earning, how to sit with a
stranger by the table or to wear this fur
coat?

22. … our generation is watching films,
reading,writing and organizing Memory
Menorah on 23rd of September from the
autumn leaves on our high school hill..

24. ,,<...>stones leave alone
no one share them–
like some heavy furniture,
someone is sleeping in the same beds as they
did before the death
They are waiting for kids -now in cemetery...“
Vytautas P. Bloze

25. Some students of Akmene gymnasium arranged an
expedition to the Jewish cemetery in spring of 2011( May-
June months) .They cleaned the gravestones, which were
covered with moss and lichens. They also made some
pictures of them. Now the students are looking for
somebody who could read and even decipher the
inscriptions on the gravestones. The slides are made
according to the material of written memories, which were
found in the written facts about the Holocaust of Akmene
Jews. The research work is sacred to the memory of Ona
Simaite as the Righteous of the World.

26. Literature
1. Akmene Jews. Akmene gymnasium museum material 2001-2011
2. Akmene Jews Holocaust . Milda Jakulyte –Vasil produced
material in the Inernet according to J. Levinson,,The book of
the pain“, Vilnius, 1997
3. Brandisauskas Valentinas. Mazeikiai region Jews destiny in the
Word War years.,,Genocide and rezistence, 2006, 2 (20)
4. . Death, recitative and blue butterfly. Lithuanian poets about the
Holocaust. Antology. Compose Sigitas Geda, ,,Vaga“, 1999
5. www.issigelbejesvaikas.lt

27. Slides of the expedition material and
Aureja Novogreckyte photos, Jurate
Stoniene photos, created by Rita Ringiene
and translated by Dalia Kaziuniene
Akmene, 2011