Eišiškės

History

Eišiškės is mentioned for the first time in the Treaty of Königsberg (1384) between Grand Duke Vytautas and the Teutonic Knights. East of the town there is a castle site, dating back from the 14th–15th centuries. Historian Ignas Jonynas argued that Anna, Grand Duchess of Lithuania and wife of Vytautas was a sister of Sudimantas, a nobleman from Eišiškės and commander of Vytautas' army. An important route, connecting Vilnius, Hrodna, and Warsaw, ran through the town. Protected by the castle and boasting a church built by Vytautas, the town became one of the important trading centers in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It had a court and here nobles gathered for a sejmik. Eišiškės was sacked and burned in 1655 during the Russian invasion and in 1706 during the Great Northern War. The town lost the majority of inhabitants and lost its former status as a trade center. At the end of the 17th century, in hopes to revive the economy, Eišiškės were granted Magdeburg rights and became known for its horse and cattle markets. The town's importance decreased after the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, especially after it was sacked during the French invasion of Russia. However, the town grew rapidly following the Uprising of 1863 and the abolition of serfdom. In the Holocaust, German troops came in Eišiškės on June 23, 1941, and on September 21, 1941, an SS Einsatzgruppen entered the town, accompanied by Lithuanian auxiliaries. More than four thousand Jews from Eishishok and its neighboring towns and villages were first imprisoned in three synagogues and then taken in groups of 250 to the old Jewish cemetery where SS men ordered them to undress and stand at the edge of open pits. There, Lithuanian auxiliary troops shot them. The old cemetery is now a site of…