Tag #116107 - Interview #100368 (Dobre Rozenbergene )

I and all my ancestors whom I know, were born in the small Lithuanian town of Jurbarkas [about 200 km from Vilnius]. That town is in the western part of Lithuania, not far from the border with Germany. Jurbarkas stands on the river Neman. During my childhood, ships navigating between Jurbarkas and Kaunas were the main means of transport. Those ships and barges belonged to two rich owners, Jews: Lemberg and Vodopian. My paternal relatives had a direct influence on the development of automobile transport in the 1930s. Jurbarkas was a small town with a population of approximately five thousand people. About half of them were Jews, residing in the downtown area. The stores owned by Jews were also concentrated in the downtown area. I remember big manufacture and textile stores owned by Polovin. His daughter Golda kept a vegetable store, where our family used to go. Small shops and ateliers were also located in the center. They belonged to Jewish craftsmen: tailors, cobblers, hatters, glaziers. There was a gorgeous Catholic cathedral in the heart of Jurbarkas. Catholics – Lithuanians and Poles – went there. There were several synagogues – a large wooden and a large stone synagogue. Usually my parents went to the stone synagogue. There were several small synagogues apart from the big ones.