Turgeliai Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Historical overview
Turgeliai (Turgele in Yiddish) is a small town, 20 miles south-east of Vilnius. Jews first settled in Turgeliai in the 19th century. In 1880 a synagogue was built in the town.
Jews of Turgeliai together with other Jews from the Salcininkai district were murdered on September 22nd 1941, in a forest near Velicionis village. In total 1159 people were killed. There is a memorial plaque with an inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian at the site of the massacre.
The Jewish cemetery of Turgeliai was established in the 19th century in the nearby village of Labiskes. There are around 100 granite and concrete gravestones in a poor condition, as well as some fragments, remaining in the cemetery today.. The cemetery was in use until the destruction of the Jewish community during the Holocaust. Nothing was built on the grounds of the cemetery during the Soviet time. In 2015 the cemetery was registered into the Cultural Property Register of the Republic of Lithuania.
There is a memorial monument with an inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian: “The old Jewish cemetery. May their memory be eternal”.
