Erzvilkas Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Historical overview
The exact period of the cemetery’s establishment could not be determined. It is unknown when the cemetery was demolished. Today, there are a few stones on the site which may be fragments of matzevot, and its boundaries are marked by a recently erected monument.
Jews began to settle in Eržvilkas (Pl. Erzwiłki, Yid. ערזוויליק) in the early 19th century. In 1897, the Jewish population was 144, or 20% of the total. The community maintained a beit-midrash and a school. Zionists were active as early as in the Hovevei Zion period. Eržvilkas is the birthplace of translator and historian R. Shimon Glazer (1877–1939) and Prof. Hermann Schapira (1840–98), who was the first to suggest the establishment of the Jewish National Fund and the Hebrew University. In the interwar period, it’s population slowly fell, and there only lived 40–45 Jewish families living in Eržvilkas prior to WWII. Most of them were killed after the German invasion in 1941. There were 22 survivors who were helped by Lithuanian farmers.
