Obj. ID: 48770
Funerary Art New Jewish cemetery in Tirkšliai, Lithuania
According to ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, the Jewish cemetery was established as a burial place for the Jews of Tirksliai, a little town 4 miles from Mazeikiai. Later, after the Jewish community of Mazeikiai had formed, the local Jews were buried in the same cemetery. During the Soviet years, the old Jewish cemetery was destroyed, and most of the tombstones were taken away. In 1994, the cemetery was registered into the Cultural Property Register of the Republic of Lithuania. At the entrance, there is a memorial stone with an inscription in Lithuanian: “The old Jewish cemetery. May their memory be eternal”. On that same spot around 4000 Jews from Mazeikiai and the surrounding area were shot dead in August 1941. The site is surrounded by a metal-mesh fence with masonry pillars, it is 1-1.5m in height. There is a mass grave on this site, but it is not marked. The history of the cemetery is shown on pictures of the information stand. There are 9 gravestones.
The cemetery location: Just north of the bridge over the river Venta on Sedos street there is a right hand turn onto a small wooded area, with a sign about the Holocaust and WWII. The cemetery is located just before the bend in the road at the end of the straight.
