Holszany — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Holszany In Jewish sources Olshan

A small town in the district of Vilna, Lithuania.

Olshan is documented as a small town since the 15th century. At that time the land belonged to Lithuanian princes. After the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, the region was under the rule of Czarist Russia. In the second half of the 19th century, Jews from Olshan are listed as rent payers to Prince Jagmin. In the first World War, Olshan was near the German front and between the two World Wars the region belonged to Poland.

Jews arrived in Olshan at the beginning of the 18th century. In the middle of the century they numbered about 350 and in the middle of the 19th century more than 1000 Jews were there, that is about 50 percent of the total population. They lived in the center of the town.

The Jews of Olshan considered Vilna the "Jerusalem of Lithuania", a source of inspiration and emulation, attaching great importance to the study of Tora and the fostering of scholars. A wooden Beth Midrash, which also served as a synagogue, was raised immediately after the establishment of the community. When the Jewish population increased, a second wooden Beth Midrash was built for the same purposes. It had colored glass windows and architectural decorations on the Aron Hakodesh.

From the second half of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, rabbi Moshe Simcha Rabinovitz, known as the "Ilui from Tinkewitz", officiated as the community's rabbi. He became a Zionist and a close friend of rabbi Izchak Jacob Reiness, the rabbi of Lida and founder of the Mizrahi movement. After him, rabbi Reuben Baharav Baruch Jizchak Hadash served in Olshan as rabbi and presiding judge. He was a religious and spiritual leader who also had influence in non-religious matters. Like other members of his community, rabbi Reuben Hadash perished in the Holocaust.

The children of Olshan studied in the Heder and Talmud Tora schools, where the poor were taught free of charge.

In the early 20th century, a modern Jewish school, in which religious and secular subjects were studied, as well as Hebrew, was opened in the old Beth Midrash. Most of the Olshan Jews knew Russian. After the first World War, when the region became part of Poland, the compulsory teaching language was Polish. The school became part of the Tarbut network of Hebrew schools and consisted of five grades.

There was a library with Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish and Russian books, as well as a drama circle.

Many of Olshan 's Jews went to study in the great Yeshivas of Lithuania, and some completed their studies at various high schools and at the University of Vilna.

The community set up welfare institutions and mutual benefit societies such as Linath Zedek and Bikur Holim, as well as a Gmiluth Hassadim Fund, which gave loans to the needy.

Olshan was a center for the linen and wool trade and Jews were engaged in this commerce. Many were craftsmen, tinsmiths, blacksmiths, tailors and shoe makers. Some were bakers and shopkeepers and others were engaged in agriculture. They acquired farms and organized improvements of agricultural output. Market days were held twice a week.

In 1925 the Jews of Olshan set up a people's cooperative bank, which assisted craftsmen, shopkeepers and farmers.

Under the influence of the Russian revolution (1905), branches of the Bund and the socialist Zionists were set up in the town at the beginning of the 20th century. When the revolution failed, the activists left Russia; some of them emigrated to Eretz Israel.

An organizing committee of Keren Kayemeth was active in Olshan at the beginning of the 20th century.

A branch of Hehalutz was set up in 1923. It had a cultural club and trained young people for aliya to Eretz Israel. Most of the young Jews belonged to the youth movements Hashomer Hazair and Betar, which held regional gatherings and had training camps for aliya to Eretz Israel.

In 1939 there were about 1000 Jews in Olshan , out of a total population of 2000.

The Holocaust Period
On September 1, 1939, when Poland was invaded by the German army, many of the town's young men were called up for service in the Polish army. On September 17, the Red Army entered Olshan .

On October 10, 1939 Germany and the U.S.S.R. signed an agreement under which Lithuania came under Russian influence. The new civil authority of the town was headed by a Jewish communist.

On June 25, 1941 (after the outbreak of war between Germany and the U.S.S.R.) the Germans occupied Olshan. The town was placed under the authority of the S.S. headquarters in oshmyany and a Polish police force was set up in Olshan. Jews were ordered to wear a yellow badge and forbidden to walk on the pavement. Polish policemen seized Jewish men in the streets and sent them to forced labor. Some of them were beaten up and killed.

In November 1941, the local police handed over Jewish refugees to the S.S. in Oshmyany; they were killed there immediately. At the end of 1941, the Jews of Olshan were rounded up in a ghetto and a Judenrat was appointed. It was headed by rabbi Reuben Hadash who declared that it was the Judenrat's task to make life in the ghetto easier for the time being, because there was no doubt that the Germans intended to exterminate all Jews. The Judenrat organized the transport of Jews to forced labor and tried to find work for them in the vicinity. It also collected valuables which the community had been ordered to hand over to the Germans.

At this time Olshan was attached to the central German administration in Lithuania and the ghetto took in Jews who had escaped the slaughter which the Lithuanians had carried out in Vilna, Kowno (Kaunas) and other provincial towns. In March 1942, fearing the entry of Lithuanian rioters in the town, the refugees left, together with local Jews, among them rabbi Hadash, and went to Volorzin, accompanied by local police.

In the spring of 1942 the Germans started the systematic extermination of Lithuanian and Bielorussian Jews. In May 1942, the Jews of the Volorzin ghetto were slaughtered. The survivors were ordered to bury the dead.

In the summer of 1942, the ghetto of Olshan was liquidated. 200 young people were sent to the transit camp Ziezmariai near Kowno. In October 1942 the Jews from Olshan were transferred to the ghetto in Oshmyany. On the 12th of Heshvan, Lithuanian policemen, accompanied by Jewish policemen from the Vilna ghetto, took some 200 Olshan Jews and another 200 Jews living there temporarily to nearby Zelonka. They were shot and killed, and buried in a common grave. After the war a monument was raised there. Other Jews from the Olshan ghetto were transferred to the Vilna ghetto, to the camp at Kaisidoris and to extermination camps in Estonia, to Ponary near Vilna and Fort 9 in Kowno. Some went to camps in Germany such as Stutthof, Schomberg and Landsberg Am Lech, the latter being part of the extermination camp Dachau.

In 1944, the Germans murdered all the children who were with their parents in the Kaisidoris labor camp. That day all Jewish children in Lithuanian camps and ghettos were murdered as well.

Jewish inhabitants of Olshan, including those who had succeeded in escaping from the ghetto and labor camps (especially those from Kaisidoris), joined the partisans; some became officers and were awarded military orders.

After the war, about 70 Jews returned to the town. The two Beth Midrash had been destroyed and the cemetery desecrated; houses belonging to Jews had been taken over by local residents who refused to vacate them. After a short time these Jews left the town. A few remained there until 1957 and then moved to other places in the U.S.S.R., especially Vilna. Some of them emigrated to the U.S.A. and European countries; the majority emigrated to Israel.

From: Beit Hatfutsot