Ariogala (Eyrogola), Lithuania: Cemetery Headstones, Sonia and David Hoffman In the Summer of 1999, David and Sonia Hoffman visited Ariogala, Lithuania, David's Friedland Family ancestral shtetl. Ariogala is one of the oldest towns in Lithuania, and our research has established that the Friedlands lived there for at least 250 years. There are about 20 members of the Ariogala shtetl research group. At the time that most of our ancestors left Ariogala, at the end of the 19th century, Jews made up a substantial part of the population of the town.
With the assistance of Vitalija Gircyte, Chief Archivist of the Kaunas Regional Archives, Regina Kopelevitch of Vilnius and her driver/assistant who provided a lot of the physical labor, we made our way across the decrepit wooden plank bridge suspended across a small tributary to the Dubysa River. In the month of June the grass and weeds were already at shoulder height and it took us awhile to find the old cemetery. Holocaust Sites in and near Ariogala
This site is in the process of development; numerous photos of headstones will be added soon.
Photo # Surname Given Name Father Hebrew Date Year 1 Simcha Moshe 1907 2 AMULSKY Rivka Vechna Abraham 25 Adar 1903 3 RITOVSKY Josef Abraham/Abba 1903 4 Sarcophagus for #3 5 SISITSKY Shlomo Eli Melech 20 Elul 1928 6 Leah Elka Abraham Aron 1 Pesach 1931 7 ZIV Yaacov Chaim 27 Shvat 1922 8 MARKOVICH Nechami Abraham/Abba 9 Adar 1935 9 Batya Moshe David 14 Tevet 1919 10 ZIV Itsak Dov Israel Mordecai 16 Adar 1915 11 STERN Pesach Abraham 11 Elul 1914 12 WEINTRAUB Yakov Dov 2 Kislev 1882 13 WEINTRAUB Dov Itsik Yakov 4 Shvat 1926 14 CHUDOVICH Zelik Moshe 1930 15 Gitel Itsak 1884 16 Cesna Moshe 1883 17 David 18 Gitel Shmuel 1887 19 “saint-martyr” Moshe Yakov Israel Itsik 1888 20 Zelda Mera Moshe 1910 21 fragment 22 RUMBERG/KRONBERG? Rachel Leah Itsak Shmuel 17 Av 1907 23 Yakov Avigdor 6 Sivan 1909 24 Sara Rivka Chaim 25 __ 1872 25 Miriam Chaim 1870 26 BEKER Rivka Leah Itsak Menachem 10 Adar 1925 27 ZELDIS-PEBOVSKY(From Virbalis, Suwalki) Bluma Shlomo Pesach 1938 28 SHIKOVICH Simcha Yehuda Leib 20 Adar 1930 29 “a woman” 16 Tevet 1937 30 Miriam & Arieh Yehoshua 27 Elul 1866 31 Yakov Meier 1870 32 Pesa Eli Shvat 1905 32 Eli Melech Menachem Tevet 1868 33 Yehoshua Zeyev/Wulf Shvat 1877 34 Zayev/Wulf Yosef Shvat 1878 35 David Mordecai Sivan 1876 36 Dyna Nochem Tishrei 1840 37 Yosef Aron Nisan 1879 38 Chaya Kalman 1872 39 Yechial Mikel Abraham 8 Cheshvan 1903 40 GOTZNER Misha Slomo Slomo 1884 41 Yakov Erachmial Itsak 1889 42 Menachem Mendel Abraham 1887 43 Vichna Sholem 3 Adar 1880? 44 Zvi Eleazer 45 Naftali Itsak 1892 46 Chana Rachel Chaim 1892 47 Leah Malka Nison Adar 1894 48 Miriam Chaim David Kislev 1882? 49 David Eliachun/Wulf 1896 50 Yehuda Leib Menachem 1832 1931 Lithuanian Telephone Directory This is the section of the 1931 telephone book for Ariogala, in Lithuanian (the Jewish names would have Lithuanian suffexes but are still recognizable.) Note that this was in the Keidaniai telephone area code, and that these other towns were included too (but are not listed here.) For those of you whose families are listed, the addresses are valuable. If the same houses do not exist today, it would have been because they were bombed during the war, but were most likely rebuilt on the same site since the same families owned the same land. Our thanks to Linda Cantor, of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Long Island, who donated the 1930 Lithuanian Telephone Book. Re: 1930 Ariogala telephone numbers: If your ancestors came from Ariogala, you are invited to join our active Ariogala Shtetl Research Group. Please contact David Hoffman for more information. You may also be interested in reading about using various Ariogala documents to follow David Hoffman's Friedland Family of Ariogala, Lithuania back to the 18th century records of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
