3-day excursion on Jewish history in East Prussia’s border regions with Lithuania. Part 2

Part 2 July 29, 2025 Žemaitija National Park – Memorial to the Land of Litvaks- Plateliai – Around Plateliai Lake – Museum of the Cold War – Plunge

The destination of this excursion was a vacation region in the hilly, remote landscape of Zemaitija (northwestern Lithuania). We encountered a wide variety of attractions. This part of Lithuania was also home to many Jewish shtetls, some of which are very well known, while others are less familiar. We met Eugenius Bunka, the son of the last Jew of Plunge, Jakovas Bunka, in a landscape park with sculptures north of Plateliai. An open-air museum is being created there to commemorate the many shtetls of Lithuania that were destroyed. The park is an expression, an attempt to use art to visualize the sudden loss in 1941 of an entire population group, a culture that had existed for centuries and was deeply rooted in the land. Funds are being raised to erect a wrought-iron apple tree for each shtetl and to hang apples on them in memory of the people who lived there. Large information boards provide visitors with facts and background knowledge about Judaism in the land of the so-called Litvaks.

The Jakovas Bunka Charity and Sponsorship Fund is a foundation that supports initiatives and memorial sites throughout the country. For example, it erects memorial stones at synagogue sites. Jakovas Bunka decided after the war not to leave Lithuania as the sole survivor of his community. He became a well-known folk woodcarver in the post-war period and made it his life’s work to commemorate the lost Jewish communities through his actions and the foundation. At the site of the mass shooting and mass grave in Plateliai, we were able to see one of his large wood carvings, which Jakovas created for this purpose. Following this visit, the association “Jews in East Prussia” is considering raising funds for a tree to mark the location of the community of Vistytis/Wystiten on the East Prussian border.

Many holiday resorts with boat landing stages and restaurants can be found around the large Plateliai Lake. A visit to the Cold War Museum is something special – because here, on the hill in the Soviet Union area, was one of the launch sites for nuclear missiles that were aimed directly at West German cities and were in constant readiness for deployment. The museum brings back memories of this period in a very impressive way with a permanent exhibition, films, audio guides, and original equipment (depending on the age of the visitors, of course).

Plunge: In 1941, half of the town’s population, the Jews, were murdered. In the 1980s, Jakov Bunka began to build the memorial in the village of Kausenai. A monument with lists of names was erected over several mass graves, built from 1,800 bricks from the demolished synagogue of Plunge for the 1,800 people who were shot and buried here.

In the town of Plunge, Eugenius showed us sculptures and inscriptions commemorating all pre-war residents and explained the difficult approval processes involved.

After this excursion, there were many disturbing impressions to process—the memories of a single survivor, the gruesome stories of the shootings, the real fear of the nuclear threat in the post-war period—moving and also very relevant questions.

We would like to express our gratitude for this insight into the beautiful region and hope that the projects have a future. We are happy to provide further information about the projects and locations on request.

Travelers: Ralph Salinger, from Israel, runs the Jewish Vilkaviskis portal and has been coordinating the commemoration of the large Jewish community for decades. The town of Vilkaviskis is located in the middle of the Suduva region, between the border with Poland and the Memel River, on the road leading to nearby East Prussia (today the smallest Russian Federation, Kaliningrad Oblast). Irma Mauriene, from Vilkaviskis, is a cultural activist and specialist in the history of the local Jewish community. Michael Leiserowitz, who lives in Berlin, Warsaw, and Klaipeda, is involved in the association “Jews in East Prussia” to preserve the memory of their history.

There are three border regions in Lithuania to East Prussia

1) The area that begins just before the border with Poland and extends to the Memel River – known as Suduva or Suvalkija

2) The former border region that extends from the Memel River to almost Latvia – the western part of the Zemaitija or Samogitia region.

Regions 1) and 2) had towns with a very large Jewish population close to the border with East Prussia (Schtetl).

3) The Memel region or Little Lithuania – the part of East Prussia north of the Memel River, which came under Lithuanian administration after World War I and had bilingual status until 1938. The center is the port city of Klaipeda (in German: Memel), which had a diverse Jewish community. As everywhere in East Prussia, individual Jewish shops and inns were scattered throughout the villages.