VIRBALIS [Virbaln, Wirballen, Wierzbolowo, Wierzbolow, Berzhbelow, Berbal, Verzhbelova, Virbalin, Virbolin]Last Updated Tuesday, 20 January 2015 20:18

Alternate names: Virbalis [Lith], Virbaln [Yid], Wirballen [Ger], Wierzbołowo [Pol], Wierzbolow,Verzhbelov, Verbal, Verzhbelova, Virbalin, Virbolin. 54°38' N, 22°49' E , 9 miles W ofVilkaviškis, near the modern border with Russian Kaliningrad oblast. it had the first station forstagecoaches and later railway station in the Russian Empire leaving Germany. The Germanstation of the Prussian Eastern Railway on the other side of the frontier was Eydtkuhnen, today Chernyshevskoye. 1900 Jewish population: 1,219. Lite (vol. 1) (New York, 1951). ShtetLink.

In the inter-war period Virbalis grew larger than Kybartai. In 1939, 150 Jewish families livedVirbalis (about 600 people). The local Jewish bank had 342 members. The Jewish communityof Virbalis was quite well educated and active. The ideas of Zionism and the Hebrew languagesoon became very popular. The local Jews had houses of prayer, various schools, divisions ofpolitical parties, a library, different charity organizations, a drama club. ONLINE VIDEO: Virbalis(231KB) -The town had a very pro-Zionist community before WWII. The cemetery, Holocaustmemorial and old buildings still remain. [March 2009]

CEMETERY: Near Virbalis, 1.7 km N of town; 185; pic. # 338 US Commission for thePreservation of America's Heritage Abroad[October 2000] Also see Kybartai.This town on the border of Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, (formerly East Prussia) has a fenced offJewish cemetery west and south of the center of town in a residential/farming neighborhood.About 150 gravestones exist of which about half are in good condition. Source: Yosef Sa'ar

1 / 3

VIRBALIS [Virbaln, Wirballen, Wierzbolowo, Wierzbolow, Berzhbelow, Berbal, Verzhbelova, Virbalin, Virbolin]Last Updated Tuesday, 20 January 2015 20:18

Old cemetery: The old cemetery entrance arch says " Nishmat kol Hay." It was being bulldozedwhile I was there...It contained numerous family mausoleums, which I am sure had beenrobbed. Yosef Sa'ar

New Cemetery: The "new" one started at the turn of the 20th century. My family owned a farmabutting these cemeteries. The owner of the adjacent farm was my mother's uncle. In the newcemetery, I found just one stone intact. Whether it was due to the fact that the entire inscriptionwas in Hebrew and therefore "uninteresting" to the grave robbers or other reasons, I cannottell. The vast majority of the graves and stones were desecrated and/or robbed. I had leftVirbalis in 1937 and saw some graves of people I had known and who had died between 1937 and 1939. Yosef Sa'ar

MASS GRAVES: The Germans occupied Kybartai and Virbalis on the first day of the war(June 22, 1941). Soon after, municipal institutions of the inter-war Lithuania (districtmunicipality and the police) were reestablished. Local police was profoundly influenced byGestapo officials, who came from Eitkūnai.On the first days of the occupation in Virbalis an auxiliary police squad was founded. On June29, Kybartai police had an order from the Gestapo to arrest all the Jewish men of the town andto lock them in Jurgis Giedraitis barn, situated approximately 2 km from Kybartai, not far from asand pit. Approximately 106 - 116 men were closed in that barn with a few communists. Earlyin the morning of Monday, June 30, six or seven German soldiers and a Nazi officer said in badLithuanian that the arrested were to be shot. The Germans were accompanied by the head of Kybartai police and a few other policemen. The arrested were taken in groups of ten to thesand pit and gunned down by the Germans and a few Lithuanian policemen. After the shooting,the corpses of the victims were buried by the policemen.During the first days of the occupationin Virbaliai, an auxiliary police squad was formed, dressed in military uniforms, and called aself-defense unit. Initially, the soldiers of this unit were to guard the railway and the bridges,but, soon were used for Nazi repressive policies and genocide. The Jews and the communists, arrested at the beginning of the occupation, were locked in the former manor house ofRaudondvaris. About July 10, a squad of German officers and soldiers arrived in Virbaliai bybus to massacre the people imprisoned in Raudondvaris in the vast fields about 400 m from themanor called Vigainisby locals. A long anti- tank ditch dug before war was used. 300 Jewish men and 20 Lithuanianskept in the manor were herded to the ditch in two groups - the Lithuanians and the Jews separately. Corpses of the victims were buried by the 12-15 member Virbalis "self-defense"squad, who guarded the arrested in the manor before the shooting began. About July 29, thesecond massacre action was carried out, shooting Jewish men and Lithuanian communists andone woman. The second aktion also was organized by the Germans by five of who came toVirbalis. They gave orders to the auxiliary local police (white-bands) who mobilized. The newgroup was herded to the same Raudondvaris facilities from which they were taken to theanti-tank ditch. The Germans said that at that time the Lithuanian policemen had to shoot

2 / 3

VIRBALIS [Virbaln, Wirballen, Wierzbolowo, Wierzbolow, Berzhbelow, Berbal, Verzhbelova, Virbalin, Virbolin]Last Updated Tuesday, 20 January 2015 20:18

since the German soldiers were unavailable. The people were brought, undressed, and madeto lay down by the ditch on the ground. Later, they were taken to the ditch in small groups andshot at from the side. 100 people were murdered by 15 auxiliary policemen. The corpses wereburied by the shooters. Witnesses to the massacre maintained that 28 people were killed.Others say forty to fifty and others about 100. Possibly, Virbaliai had more than two shootingsof different size groups. During one shooting, two Lithuanians were granted their life. After thatmassacre, the German made an "educational" speech and threatened to shoot them in thefuture if they worked for the communists. After the Jewish men of Virbalis were shot, the Jewishwomen with children were driven to the Ghetto in Vištyčio and Maironio Streets and kept untilthe shooting. After the Jewish men were shot, Jewish women, children and the elderly men ofKybartai were herded into the ghetto and in the customs office. In autumn 1941, the policemen herded all the Jews to a few houses of Kybartai. Next day, the head of the district police withsome policemen arrived in Kybartai from Vilkaviškis. Some of the older and ailing Jewish women were taken by bus and the remaining herded onfoot toward Virbalis. They were locked in the barn of Puniška in Raudondvariswith the Jewish women of Virbalis. The white-bands of Vilkaviškis and Virbalis arrived. In total,205 women and children were brought over from Kybartai. The shooting took place in thesame anti-tank ditch. Before the shooting, the women were undressed near the ditch. Mostshooters were from the white bands of Vilkaviškis assisted by a few white bands from Virbalis.Determining the exact number of the Jews of Kybartai and Virbalis killed is confusing. Soviet calculations say over 4,000 Jews, about 40 Communists, and a large number of Sovietprisoners of war were killed in that ditch. Reality may be half that number since before WWII,no more than 2,000 Jews lived in Kybartai and Virbalis. [March 2009]

Mass Grave: A mass grave in a country lane is not easily accessible by car. While theRussians had apparently built a surreal memorial without a legend, it was a small slat of woodthat carried the message in Yiddish: "Here are buried 10,000 (ten thousand) men, women and children and some soldiers-all Jews- who were murdered between July 10,1941 and August8,1941." Since the Nazi invasion occurred on June 22,1941, clearly, the Germans could nothave located and concentrated all the Jews in such a short time from Virbalis and all the little shtetls around without the enthusiastic support of the locals. Source: 11/97; C. Issac Camber

3 / 3