Walking in Their Footsteps - Part 2

I have an old photo, from 1925 (+/- a year) of 2 of my grandfather's sisters at the grave of their father, Yitzchak ben Shaul HaLevi. The grave is in the old Jewish cemetery in Rokiskis. I know that around 10 years ago, my grandfather returned to Rokiskis but was unsuccessful in finding the particular grave of his father. I had the same quest, but figured it would be nice to find the grave of any one in the Ruch or Bacher family. Apart from the problem I'll mention in a second, I knew this would be hard because firstly the headstones would be engraved in either Yiddish, Russian or Lithuanian. And secondly, many inscriptions would not have family names, but just their Hebrew names (X son of Y). The real problem was the state of the cemetery. I had been warned about it, and a good article I was led to an article turned out to be a very accurate description of the place. Some more information can be found at here and at Shtetlinks (though the photos in those linked sites show the cemetery in a slightly better condition than I found it).

Firstly, finding the cemetery wasn't easy. Initially I had thought it was on the main leg of Darzu Gatve leading South-West out of town. I tried to confirm this with the only person I had come across in town that spoke some semblance of English - the woman running the hotel (Hotel Pagunda is definitely a place I can recommend!) After showing her the map I had and asking if she knew where the old Jewish cemetery was, she conferred a bit in Lithuanian with some guests at the hotel, and then informed me that I will find the deceased next to the church. Obviously I wasn't getting very far. (I subsequently asked her if she could point me to the municipal buildings, but she thought I wanted the museum and information centres - more places where English wasn't spoken...).

Anyway, I drove to Darzu Gatve, but after driving up and down the area where I thought the cemetery should be, and knowing that it wouldn't necessarily be easy to spot due to the lack of upkeep, I finally turned down a side road where I saw some builders at work. Magically, with their 7 words of English, and my little map which obviously had something scrawled in Lithuanian which I'm guessing was the word 'cemetery', they were able to point it out to me (only after telling me that my map is "bad"). It was just down the road. About 200m down the Southern 'offshoot' of Darzu Gatve, near where it meets Nemunelio Gatve. There I found an area of overgrown weeds, waist high, with a ramshackle collection of gravestones amongst them. The layout was unmistakeable a cemetery, and although many of the gravestones were relatively in tact, many weren't. A lot had been toppled over, many had been broken, it looked as it some had just been taken away, and all had been weathered from years and years of neglect.

On the back of many of the headstones was unmistakable Hebrew and Yiddish. On some graves, one could clearly make out who the deceased was. But on many, the best one could do was make out a few characters. There was no chance I would find my great-grandfather's grave - nothing in the cemetary looked remotely like the one in the 85 year old photo. But, it still felt special to be there, amongst, most likely, many of my ancestors.

My grandfather's parents married in a small town called Salakas - around 60km to the South-East of Rokiskis. This is where my grandfather's two older brothers were born before the family settled in Rokiskis. On my way back to Vilnius I thought I would stop by for a visit. I had no other information about the place and didn't really expect to find much, I just thought that since I was almost there, I may as well make the stop.

Downtown Salakas

If Rokiskis is a one horse town, then Salakas is where the single ant would hang out. Apart from having the locals look at me as if I'm a crazy while taking photos of the place, there really isn't anything of note there. Again though, it did at least feel like I was taking some steps through history.

View from my lunch table

Latkes & sour cream

Blintzes & sour cream

About 10km out of Salakas on my return to Vilnius, I found a beautiful wood cabin restaurant on the shores of a lake. Perfect place for lunch. Again though, it was as if I was the only person around. I feasted on traditional Lithuanian food, which, funnily enough, is EXACTLY the same as the Jewish food I grew up with. First course was "grated potato pancakes with sour cream" (latkes) and second course was cheese blintzes (again, more sour cream). I am guessing that the genetically related heart disease problems in Jews of Lithuanian descent is somehow related to this deep fried food with lots of cream! Whether it was the Jewish influence on Lithuania, or the other way around, I'm not sure...

Mausoleum containing the graves of the Gaon and his family

On my return to Vilnius I had enough time to pay a visit to, who I am told, is a member of my family on my maternal grandmother's side - the Gaon of Vilna. His grave is located in the Jewish cemetery on the north side of the city. What I don't understand, is how there are so many gravestones with dates on them from shortly after the war - this is something I still need to investigate. However, the Gaon's grave, in fact, mausoleum, is clearly a place of pilgrimage. It was also a clear sign that people still have faith.

For any other Rokiskis visitors out there, the map below (enlarged version here) may provide at least a little bit of help: