Massacre of Eišiškės

Eišiškės is a town in eastern Lithuania whose Jewish population, established there for centuries, was gathered over three days in the enclosures of the horse market, then led to the cemeteries — the men on the first day, the women and children on the days following — and shot by the Einsatzkommando and Lithuanian auxiliaries.

The town is known far beyond its own history: the family photographs that Yaffa Eliach, born in Eišiškės and a survivor, gathered from survivors around the world form the Tower of Faces at the Washington museum. They show an ordinary community in the years before, something the execution reports never reveal. The numerical toll, for its part, appears in the report that the Einsatzkommando commander, Karl Jäger, drew up of his own work.