CAMERA OBSCURA

קאַמעראַ אָבסקוראַ

CELEBRATE │ INVESTIGATE │ DOCUMENT

Pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographs provide a unique and irreplaceable record of a civilisation that no longer exists.1 Camera Obscura is a combined cultural history and provenance research project... that celebrates these images through the eyes of the mostly forgotten women and men who made them, that investigates their theft and near-total destruction during Nazi Germany’s occupation of Lithuania between June 19412 and January 1945, and that documents the present locations and—wherever possible—the previous life stories of the few photographs that survived the war. Camera Obscura is funded with assistance from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the EVZ Foundation, the German Federal Ministry of Finance, the Jewish Historical Society of England and a wide range of kind and generous individuals around the world. The project is ongoing, and is far from complete. If you’d like to make a financial contribution towards its continuing development, please don’t hesitate to send an email for more information.3 To find out how to get involved as a volunteer, please send an email to the same address.  

1 Lithuanian Jewish photographers were once active in cities, towns and villages throughout Lithuania and beyond, until nearly every single one of them who was alive in Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War—professional or otherwise—was robbed and murdered. Over eight decades later, the many Lithuanian Jewish contributions to both Lithuanian and international photographic culture still go largely unrecognised. Camera Obscura is a long-term project to fix this.

2 March 1939, if you include the Klaipėda Region/Memel Territory.

3 thedatabrigade@gmail.com

THE INVISIBLE MAGICIANS

די אומזעעבאַרע מאַגיקערס

PHOTOGRAPHERS, TECHNICIANS & MORE

On the day Nazi Germany invaded Lithuania,1 there were somewhere in the region of 10 million Lithuanian Jewish photographs in the country, some of them dating back almost a century. Who created them? Currently featuring the collective biographies of almost 800 Lithuanian Jewish photographers who were active before 1941 (including Lithuania's first ever photographer!), plus a handful of Jewish women and men who were in one way or another also involved in the creation of these extraordinary images, The Invisible Magicians is possibly the largest information source of its kind anywhere in the world. And it's growing... 

1 The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic at the time.

AKMENĖ

Akmian אַקמיאַן

Originally called Dabikinė/Dabiķene after the eponymous river that flows around its southern edge, Akmenė was granted city rights in 1592, well over a century before the first Jewish families are believed to have made the town their home. By 1850, the majority of the population was Jewish, a demographic that fluctuated depending on the politics of the day, and that was reduced to zero in August 1941, when every Jewish man, woman and child who lived there was transported to neighbouring Mažeikiai (↓) and murdered. Always small, and relatively poor, today Akmenė is home to 2,000 or so Lithuanian inhabitants, and is barely recognisable as the provincial shtetl it once was. Click here to find out more about the local organisation that’s trying to preserve and protect the memory of Akmenė’s Jewish past.

CHAIM YISRAEL DEKES

Deicas, Deich

Born in 1867. Passed away in Tel Aviv on January 18, 1935. Whether Mr. Dekes was active as a photographer before he emigrated is currently unknown. It’s also not clear exactly when he emigrated.

ALYTUS

Alite אליטע

Jewish life once bordered both sides of the Nemunas/Neman. Almost all business activity, including photographic business activity, was located on its western side.

ISAAKAS ABRAMAVIČIUS

Izaak, Icik Abramowicz

Not much is currently known about Mr. Abramavičius, beyond the fact that he was born in Sokółka near Białystok in 1863, that he appears to have passed away during a visit to Palestine in 1934, and that his wife, Mina, owned the business, which archival records indicate also included a glove-making establishment. Quite a few of the photographer’s simple but often strangely exotic photographic prints survive, many of them held among the collection at the Alytus Regional Museum. A sample of some of Mr. Abramavičius’ work can be seen here.

ŠIMELIS ABRAMAVIČIUS

Shimel Abramowicz

✡

Born on March 10, 1899, Šimelis Abramavičius inherited his parents’ businesses after his father, Isaakas (↑), passed away in 1934. The family photography studio was based at Juozapavičiaus g. 21, which was in the central marketplace in the most developed part of the city on the western side of the Nemunas river. It's believed that the studio was destroyed by heavy German bombing on the first day of the invasion. Šimelis married 29-year-old Necha Zarchi-Zarkaitė from Stakliškės on June 25, 1933. 

ZALMAN BOKŠICKIS

Bokshitsky

Born in about 1909. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine just over three weeks after he married 23-year-old Baseva/Bat-Seva Lipavičiūtė from Svėdasai. The newlyweds are recorded as having sailed from Trieste on February 17, 1935, disembarking at either Haifa or Jaffa a couple of days later.

MORDKHEL GORBIKAS

Max Gorbik

Born in Alytus in 1910 or 1912. Although it’s not entirely clear whether Mr. Gorbikas worked in Alytus and/or Kaunas, it is known that he survived both the Kovno Ghetto and Dachau (where his documents at the Arolsen Archives somewhat confusingly record his name as Mat and his profession as optician). After having been liberated by the US Army on April 29, 1945, Mr. Gorbikas spent time at the Augsburg DP camp, and later emigrated to Palestine. The photographer, whose 1940 internal passport can be seen here, passed away on October 10, 1990, and is buried at the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv. Whether he continued to work as a photographer after he emigrated is currently unknown.

KHAYA KAPLANAITĖ

Chaja

Born in 1907. Bentsion Kaplanas’ (↓) sister? Known to have been active in 1925. A 1946 list of Holocaust survivors includes a Ch. Kaplanaitė and her unnamed brother, both from Alytus. Same person/people?

BENTSION KAPLANAS

B. Kaplan

Born in about 1904. Khaya Kaplanaitė’s (↑) brother? Known to have been operating a photography studio at Pulko g. 1, and possibly another (at a different time) somewhere on Vilniaus g. during the 1930s. Although records indicate that Mr. Kaplanas emigrated to Palestine in 1934, this appears to be very unlikely. Several surviving photographs credited to him appear to have been taken after this date. A small selection of the photographer’s work can be seen here.

ARON MAROCZNIK

Mr. Marocznik is said to have owned and operated a photography studio in Alytus between about 1894 and 1897. 

Emigrated to Palestine

For reasons that remain something of a mystery, some of the photographers and their families recorded on this site who are listed as having emigrated to Palestine on the JewishGen website did no such thing. Clearly not the fault of JewishGen, Camera Obscura is currently looking into this somewhat confusing and/or misleading issue. Apologies for any inaccuracies in the meantime, and we hope to have the error fixed as soon as we can find the exact problem. For newcomers to the JewishGen site, registration is necessary before you can use it, but it's mostly free after that, including the parts for emigation and most other services you'll ever need.   

ABRAHAM PITLERIS

Pitler

Born in about 1906. It’s recorded that Mr. Pitleris emigrated to Palestine with his wife, Miriam/Marija née Jurshevich, on December 17, 1934. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for clarification.

ANYKŠČIAI

Aniksht אניקשט

Home of the sisters Feige Gantverger (↓) and Yokha Traubienė (↓). See also Beilė Deliačkaitė in Kavarskas (↓).

ŠULA CHATIMLIANSKIENĖ

Chotimlianskienė 

✡ 

Born in 1908. Zlata Chatimlianskienė’s sister-in-law (see Plungė ↓). Recorded as still being alive in the 1942 Šiauliai Ghetto census. See also Mordchelis Chotimlianskis in Siauliai (↓).

G. CIRTAS

The name G. Cirtas is somehow associated with another currently unknown photographer by the name of Ch. Rebé (↓). A single photograph credited to both photographers, who are understood to have briefly shared a photography studio at an unknown address, can be seen here. Also (incorrectly?) recorded as G. Ciris in some sources. 

FEIGE GANTVERGER

✡

Born in about 1907. When she was a young woman, Feige travelled the region with her sister, Yokha (↓), working as an itinerant photographer. At some point, she gave one of her cameras to Beilė Deliačkaitė in Kavarskas (↓). Miss Gantverger is believed to have been murdered at the Stutthof concentration camp in 1944. 

LIBA KAGANIENĖ

Known to have been active in 1932. 

N. KOPANS

Active in the 1920s and possibly later, Mr. Kopans’ business stamps are written either Kopan or Kopanso. All known surviving examples of his work feature as part of the collection at the A. Baranauskas & A. Vienuolis-Žukauskas Memorial Museum.

ICIKAS MELNIKAS

Melnik

✡

Born in 1907 (the Arolsen Archives record the date as October 5, 1908) to Gercas Melnik(as) and Sara née Frutkė, Icikas Melnikas opened his first photography studio somewhere on, or close to, Anykščiai’s central marketplace in about 1926. A board member of the Lithuanian Society of Professional Photographers (see Glossary ↓) and the owner of the most modern and best equipped studio in the region, in 1939, he moved to Kaunas (↓) and opened a combined photography studio and shop selling electrical goods. A prisoner in the Kovno Ghetto, on October 26, 1943, Mr. Melnikas was said to have been deported to the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia, although other records state that he was deported to Dachau in July 1944. Several copies of his photographs survive among the collections at the Lithuanian Central State Archives, the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History, the National Museum of Lithuania and elsewhere. A collection of his portraits of the acclaimed Lithuanian writer Antanas Žukauskas-Vienuolis can also be found among approximately 50 other original prints by the photographer at Anykščiai’s semi-eponymous A. Baranauskas & A. Vienuolis-Žukauskas Memorial Museum. A photograph of Icikas, taken when he was about 24 when he received permission to own a revolver, can be seen here. His wife, Rachil née Nitz (born in 1908), was last recorded as being alive at Stutthof in the summer of 1944, and the individual fates of their three unnamed children remain a mystery. Exactly what exactly happened to Mr. Melnikas in what seems to have been the last months of his life is still being uncovered.

I. MULCA

Multze

The mysterious Mr. Mulca is believed to have operated one of the first photography studios in town. Active at around the turn of the 20th century, the Antanas Vienuolis-Žukauskas Memorial House-Museum in Anykščiai and the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai feature several of his original prints among their collections. 

CH. REBÉ

Ch. Rebe, Ch. Rebė

The name Ch. Rebé is somehow associated with another mysterious photographer by the name of G. Cirtas (↑).

YOKHA TRAUBIENĖ

Jocha Gantverger, Jocha Hinda Gantverger-Traubienė

Born in about 1916. Worked as an itinerant photographer with her elder sister, Feige Gantverger (↑), when she was a young woman. Among the subjects the pair photographed were recently deceased Catholics, lying in their coffins and clutching their favourite saints, a tradition among rural Catholic families in Lithuania until fairly recently. Active in a local Jewish theatre group in Anykščiai until the Soviets outlawed it, Yokha somehow survived the Holocaust, and passed away in Israel where she moved sometime after the war, in 1999. 

AUKŠTADVARIS

Visoki-Dvor וויסאָקי-דוואָר

An interesting history of the town can be read here.

SIMAS VAISMANAS

Veismanas

✡

Born in Vilna/Vilnius in 1898. Known to have been active in 1935. Murdered in Trakai. One of Mr. Vaismanas’ surviving prints includes a stamp from the Kaunas photography studio and photographic supply shop belonging to Ilja Jasvoin (↓). A small selection of the photographer’s work can be seen here.

BABTAI

Bobt באָבט

Small but still reliant on a photographer when needed.

ISAI PILOVNIK

Pilovnikas, Pilovniko

✡

Born in Kybartai in 1906. Recorded as having been a photographer when he married Shprintse Reize Tamsh in Kaunas on November 29, 1925. Several of the photographer’s original prints are held among the collection at the Kaunas District Museum in Raudondvaris and can also be seen here. Yad Vashem records the fact that Mr. Pilovnik perished in 1944, suggesting that he was a prisoner in the Kovno Ghetto.

BAISOGALA

Beisegole בייסעגאָלע

The literal and spiritual birthplace of the Jasvoin dynasty of Lithuanian Jewish photographers (↓).

ILJA JASVOIN

Ilija, Iliya, Yasvoyn, Josvain, Yosvain, Jasvoinas

✡

Born in about 1882. According to legend, Mr. Jasvoin was the official photographer at the manor house in Baisogala. At some point he moved to Kaunas, almost certainly after the First World War, which he spent living in forced exile in the Russian city of Voronezh with his wife and two young children, and where it’s believed he ran a photography studio. A small selection of surviving photographs that are all credited to Mr. Jasvoin, including some rare hand-coloured examples, can be seen here. Almost certainly Izrael Yazvoyn’s (↓) brother or cousin. See The Jasvoins (↓) for more.

IZRAEL YASVOYN

Jasvoin

Born in about 1880. Known to have been active on January 28, 1907. Almost certainly Ilja’s (↑) brother, or possibly cousin. Deported to Russia in May 1915. Returned September 12, 1922.

BALBIERIŠKIS

Balbirishok באלבירישאָק

Masha Izakson/Šapirienė seems to have moved to Kaunas after she got married in 1932. Was she replaced by anyone?

MASHA IZAKSON

Izakson, Izaksonaitė, Šapiro, Šapirienė

Recorded in different places as having been born in 1908 and 1912. Married the Kaunas photographer Chaim Šapiro (↓) on September 22, 1932, henceforth she seems to have lived in what was at the time the capital city. Survived the Kovno Ghetto. The last known record of her being alive is listed in a document from the Stutthof concentration camp, where she arrived on July 13, 1944. She’s recorded as having had two children, but there’s no record of their fate, or that of Chaim. Nothing yet found concerning her photography. 

BIRŠTONAS

Birshton בירשטאן‎

A summer resort and therefore no full time photographers, at least we’ve never come across one.

JOSIEL KOIRANSKI

See Kaunas (↓).

BIRŽAI 

Birzh בירזש

Historically home to a significant Karaim community as well as a Jewish one, Biržai is now strictly for the locals. One of Lithuania’s once privately owned towns, a few traces of its multicultural past survive, but not much. 

AARON CALKOVIČIUS

Tsalkovich

Born in 1906. Listed on an application for an internal passport, dated May 20, 1921. No further information has yet been found.

ABRAM LEIBA CYGAN

Tzigan

See Ana Cygan (↓).

ANA CYGAN

Tzigan

Born in about 1872. Along with her husband, Abram Leiba (↑), was known to have been operating a photography studio in Biržai in 1903. The couple moved their business to Žiežmariai (↓) the following year.

ETELĖ

Quoted at an exhibition at the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in March 2025 as having been a student of the Lithuanian photographer Jadvyga Vaitaitienė-Markevičiūtė (1903-1994). See also Ber David Magidas (↓).

GETSEL

Girshovich

Born in 1900. Active in 1926.

JOSELIS GOLDAS

See Vilnius (↓).

BER DAVID MAGIDAS

Berel, Magid

Born on either April 11 or June 11, 1913. Active in 1937. Vanishes, then reappears on entering Dachau in July 1944, suggesting that he was a prisoner in a camp or ghetto (or both) somewhere. Temporarily registered at an address in Munich, Mr. Magidas is recorded as having subsequently departed for the United States on October 4, 1948, whereupon he promptly disappears again. According to a poster at an exhibition at the Lithuanian National Museum of Art in March 2025, a photographer by the name of Magitas is mentioned as having been a student of the Lithuanian photographer Jadvyga Vaitaitienė-Markevičiūtė (1903-1994). See also Etelė (↑).

BORUCH MICHELSON

Borucas Michelsonas, Borukh Mikhalson

An evidently fascinating individual whose biography consists of a few surviving fragments and who was born on April 17, 1872, Boruch Michelson began taking photographs relatively late, in about 1905. A lifelong bachelor who lived with his sister (↓), his first photography studio operated sometime before 1914 in a rented apartment at Vytauto g. 16. Forced into Russian exile along with thousands of other Lithuanian Jews during the First World War, Mr. Michelson returned to Biržai to discover that a Lithuanian photographer by the name of Petras Ločeris had taken possession of his studio, a situation that allegedly involved a legal case in which both the plaintiff and the defendant claimed victory. Reluctant to work on Saturdays because of his faith, Boruch conducted a lot of his business on Sundays from his new studio at his house at Ligoninės g. 1, when it was said that substantial queues of customers waiting for a picture would gather in the garden outside. The photographer’s archive is said to have been lost during a fire at his house five years after he passed away of apoplexy on July 13, 1939. Around 200 of Mr. Michelson’s prints survive among the collection at the Biržai Regional Museum, including a wonderful print featuring Boruch and his fellow orchestra members dressed in their voluntary firemen’s uniforms. A small selection of his often very exceptional work can be seen here. See also Renaissance man (↓).

Renaissance man

The weighty 1951 yizkor book to Lithuania, Lite, was edited by the Vilna/Vilnius-born Yiddish writer Uriah Katzenelenbogen (1885-1980), who was an active member of the Bund and an advocate of closer ties between the Lithuanian Jews and other cultural groups in the country among other things before he emigrated to the United States in 1927. Among the immensely valuable snippets of information found in Lite are a couple of short pieces by Katzenelenbogen about two visits he made to Biržai in 1903 and 1921, where he wrote short but immensely valuable reports about his meetings with the local photographer and polymath Boruch Michelson (↑). Thanks to Katzenelenbogen, we get a fascinating insight into Michelson’s mindset and the difficulties of earning a living in rural Lithuania at the time. Thus we learn that as well as bringing in a meagre income from his photography, Mr. Michelson installed locks on people’s houses, made furniture, painted pictures for local landowners (none other than Countess Tiszkewicz sent Michelson to Vilnius/Vilna to study art when he was a young man), played the violin and flute, spent the First World War travelling with a Ukrainian theatre troop (for whom he painted scenery and wrote music) and was a volunteer fireman who also played in the local firemen’s orchestra.

FREIDA MICHELSONAITĖ

Chana 

The Biržai photographer Boruch Michelson’s (↑) sister, Frieda, who was born in about 1887, and who became Frieda Fainienė after she married Abe Chone Fainas in Biržai on September 11, 1925. Several of the photographer’s surviving prints are held in the archives at the Biržai Regional Museum, although it seems that they haven’t yet been digitised (or at least they weren’t the last time we checked in 2025). 

RAFAEL GERSHON RAKOVSCIKAS

Rakovshchik

Born in 1908. Active in 1934. Leiba Rakovscikas’ (↓) son.

LEIBA RAKOVSCIKAS

Rakovshchik

Born in 1878. Active in 1920. Rafael Gershon Rakovscikas’ (↑) father.

LEIBA ŠADEVIČIUS

See Žiežmariai (↓).

GIRSH SCHNEIDER

Hirša Šneideris

One of the first photographers known to have been working in Biržai, little information has yet been uncovered about Mr. Schneider. Several of his original photographic prints are kept at the Biržai Regional Museum. His photography studio is known to have been working at Pasvalio g. 5 in 1926.

ETA SLUŽIETELYTĖ

Sluzhitel

✡

Born in 1922. Active in December 1939. Although not strictly a Holocaust victim, Eta was nevertheless killed by the Germans, fighting as a partisan at Alekseyevka during the Third Battle of Kharkov on March 17, 1943.

C. ŠNEIDERYTĖ

Schneider

Very little is currently known about Miss Šneiderytė’s identity or photographic history, although it’s understood that she worked at Pasvalio g. 5, meaning that she was almost certainly the sister or daughter of the photographer Girsh Schneider (↑), whose photography studio was at the same address. Several of her surviving photographs are held among the collection at the Biržai Regional Museum, although none of her work was online the last time we looked.

BUTRIMONYS

Butrimantz בוטרימאַנץ

A surprisingly good record kept by none other than Wikipedia.

ABROMAS BLECHERIS

Active during the 1930s. Seems to have been a member of Histadruth Cionith Belita, the Lithuanian branch of a considerably larger Zionist association/organisation. The same person as A. Blecher in Šiauliai (↓)?

KAPANSKI

✡

First name unknown. Recorded as having been a photographer and as having been murdered in Butrimonys on the Yad Vashem website. Possibly Taube Vinickienė (↓)?.

RESNIKAITĖ

The smudged stamps on the reverse side of the surviving photographs from the 1930s the we’ve seen that bear Ms. Resnikaitė’s family name have regrettably rendered her first name indecipherable.

TAUBE VINICKIENĖ

Teba, Teiba, Vinitsky, Kaplan

✡

Née Kaplanaitė. Born in about 1896. Murdered along with her husband, Berelis, and 13-year-old daughter, Sulamit, in 1941. Incorrectly recorded in at least one source as having emigrated to Palestine with her family in 1934 (see Emigrated to Palestine ↑), Mrs. Vinickienė and her husband also had two sons, Shraga, who’d have been about 15 in 1941, and Shmuel, who was about five years older, of whom the fates of both remain a mystery. No surviving examples of Taube’s work have yet been found.

ČEKIŠKĖ

Chaykishok צײַקישאָק

Home and murder site of the photographer Leizer Beker and his wife Šifra. A wider bit of background.

LEIZER BEKER

Eliezer Bekeris, Leizeris Bekeris, Becker. L. Bekker

✡

The town’s photographer... and maybe also an artist. Born in Jurbarkas in 1910. Murdered together with his wife, Šifra née Zalmanovitz (born in 1914), in August/September 1941. See The Box (↓) for more information. 

The Box

Some time after Leizer Beker (↑) was murdered, a box of his photographic prints was ‘found’ somewhere inside his former house and studio. According to a reliable information source, they still exist in the hands of a private individual/collector. Currently under investigation.

DARBĖNAI

Dorbyan דורביאַן 

Where a Jewish photographer has been remembered by a stolpersteine. See Elijahu Bruckus below for more (↓).

ELIJAHU BRUCKUS

Eliahu Brutzkus, Yakov Eliyahu Bruchky, Elijah Bruckus

✡

Born in about 1902 (other sources write 1907). Learned from his maternal uncle, Abraomas Pekelis (↓), from whom he also inherited all of his photographic equipment after Mr. Pekelis passed away. Also worked in Šventoji. Mr. Bruckus is believed to have been murdered along with his wife, Khava, and the couple’s son, Abraham, during the summer of 1941. An undated record of the family’s application to emigrate to Palestine suggests that their luck ran out before they could leave. It’s been mentioned that the location of Mr. Bruckus’ studio remains unknown. Several of the photographer’s original prints are held among the collection at the Kretinga Museum, of which a few can be seen here. On the initiative of local school teacher Edita Gliožerienė, a stolperstein was laid in memory of the photographer in Darbėnai’s former marketplace at Turgaus a. 13 on September 22, 2020. A second stone, placed nearby at Turgaus a. 9 on the same day, commemorates the short life of the local high school student Estera Kverelytė, who was saved from the initial slaughter of the majority of the town’s Jewish inhabitants, only to be raped and murdered in the nearby forest by a Lithuanian policeman by the name of Vladas Jašinskas a short time later.

ABRAOMAS PEKELIS

Abraomas Isakas Pekelis

Elijahu Bruckus’ (↑) maternal uncle. Probably the first permanent photographer in town. Began working in about 1910. Passed away in 1921. 

DIEVENIŠKĖS

Divenishok דיװענישאָק

Dieveniškės Yizkor/memorial book. 

TSVI KRIZOVSKI

The self-taught Tsvi Krizovski was the town’s unofficial photographer during the interwar period. Many of his photographs feature in the town’s yizkor book (↑), in which he also wrote a short account of his survival in Russia. The photographer emigrated to Israel in about 1971. 

DOTNUVA

Dotneve דאַטנעווע

Just Abram Yasvoin?

ABRAM YASVOIN

Abram Ilyich Yasvoin

Born in nearby Baisogala in about 1837. Registered as living in Dotnuva in 1866. An outstanding member of the Baisogala Josvain/Jasvoin dynasty of Lithuanian Jewish photographers. Under circumstances that have yet to be fully explained, Abram became a court photographer in St. Petersburg, producing among many other extraordinary portraits this image of Maria Feodorovna, Empress of Russia, in about 1885.

DUBINGIAI

Dubinik דוביניק

For more about Judelis Kacenbergas, see Jonava (↓) .

JUDELIS KACENBERGAS

Yudel Katsenberg

See Jonava (↓).

DŪKŠTAS

Duksht דוקשט 

A sort of history can be found here.

MOSZE FELMAN

✡

Born in about 1911. Married 18-year-old Bejla Aron on May 24, 1932. 

DUSETOS

Dusyat דוסיאַט

On JewishGen.

NAFTALI SARVER

Serber

See Rokiškis (↓). 

MICHA SLEP

Miša-Michelis, M. Slepas, M. Slepo

✡

Born in Dusetos on December 27, 1912. Studied under Chanan Schneiderman in Rokiškis (↓). Is known to have worked in his home town, as well as in Zarasai and elsewhere in the region. Was active from about 1933 until 1940, when he moved to Vilnius under circumstances that remain unclear (he was quite possibly in trouble with the Soviet authorities, which would have cost him his business and also meant he had to move to a big city where the NKVD would have been able to keep a close eye on him), and where he lived in an apartment near to the old town at Šv. Stepono g. 2, and worked in a department store. Surviving the Vilna Ghetto and several labour camps in Estonia and Poland, the photographer died of exhaustion at the Dautmergen-Schomberg concentration/labour camp in Germany on December 30, 1944. Although hardly any of his photographs are known to have survived in Lithuania, a considerable amount are believed to be held among the photography collection at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem under unclear circumstances. 

LEIBA VINOKUR

Vinokuras

See Rokiškis (↓). 

EIŠIŠKĖS

Eyshishok אײשישאָק

The one woman and three men listed below were thought to be responsible for taking almost all of the approximately 1,000 photographs that were used for the creation of the permanent Tower of Faces exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. A selection of the photographs used in its construction can be seen here.

ALTE KATZ

Alta, Kac, Kats

✡

Alte Katz, née Dwilanski, was born in Eišiškės in about 1887, and is known to have been actively involved in the photography business in Eišiškės from at least 1926. The photography studio that she ran with her husband Yitzhak (↓) was located somewhere on the town’s central marketplace, almost certainly at ul. Rynek 13 (today’s Gegužės a.). A qualified doctor who also owned a bakery and served on the local Jewish education committee, the photographer was one of four Jewish photographers from Eišiškės who were responsible for producing nearly all of the approximately 1,000 photographs that were used for the creation of the permanent Tower of Faces exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. 

YITZHAK KATZ

Kac, Kats

Born in Dieveniškės in about 1880. Passed away in Eišiškės in 1929. Alte Katz’s (↑) husband and business partner.

RAFAEL LEYBOVICH

Rephael Lejbowicz

Born in 1905. Known to have been operating a photography studio somewhere on ul. Wileńska/Vilniaus g. in 1941. It’s believed that Mr. Leybovich worked for Alte and Yitzhak Katz (↑), almost certainly as their assistant or apprentice before opening his own business. The photographer’s name is also mentioned (as Leibovitz) in the partial English translation of the town’s Yitzkor book, which is available to read online here.

BEN-ZION SZREJDER

Benyamin, Srederis, Shreder 

Believed to have worked for Alte and Yitzhak Katz (↑) as their assistant. Known to have been active in June 1940. 

ENDRIEJAVAS 

Andreyave אנדריאַווע

Here.

DORA LIPŠICAITĖ

Lifshitz, Kringelienė, Dina Krengel

✡

Dora Lipšicaitė was born in Endriejavas on December 27, 1904, and is known to have shown two photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933. She married in 1937, becoming Dora Kringelienė, and was murdered in Rietavas four years later. A small selection of her photographs can be seen online.

GARGŽDAI 

Gorzhd גאָרזשד

Interesting entry here.

ZUSE AKERMAN

Ziusl, Zusel

✡

Born in 1918.

KHANA BARKANAITĖ

Barkan

On June 28, 1934, a 20-year-old photographer from Gargždai by the name of Khana Barkanaitė received permission to emigrate to Palestine. Thirteen days earlier, on June 15, a 25-year-old photographer from Šilalė with the same name (↓) was also granted permission to emigrate to Palestine. Whatever the mystery may be, copies of her/their work form part of the collection at the Gargždai Regional Museum. A photograph of Miss Barkanaitė is recorded as being included in each of the Aliyah-related documents at the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius. 

GEORGE BIRMAN

Hiršas Birmanas

Born Hiršas Birmanas into a wealthy Lithuanian Jewish family in Königsberg on May 31,1922, Mr. Birman spent his childhood in Gargždai whilst travelling to school every day in Klaipėda (↓). At the age of 10, he was given a camera as a gift, an event that would result in a large outpouring of creativity that saw him take hundreds of photographs of his friends, family and the world around him. After his mother’s death in 1939, the teenage Hiršas moved to Kaunas to live with his father, Abel, where the pair were among the tiny handful of Jews who managed to survive the Kovno Ghetto. With the help of forged passports obtained under circumstances that are currently unknown, the pair fled to Vienna before emigrating to the United States, where Hiršas changed his name to George Birman and passed away in his 80s in 2009. Quite a few of Mr. Birmanas’ prewar Gargždai photographs and others that he took before the war survive, many of them now held among the collection at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His internal passport from 1939 is here.

GRINKIŠKIS

Grinkishok גרינקישאָק 

A formal image by Mr. Kiršteinas (↓).

BORUKH KIRŠTEINAS

Boruchas, B. T. Kiršteinas, Tevel, Kirshtein, Kirshteyn

✡

Born in about 1880. Known to have still been working in 1940. Worked in Jonava (↓) before the First World War. Some of his photographs are held among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai.

ITZIK KIRSHTEIN

✡

Born in about 1920. Borukh’s (↑) son?

AVRAHAM LIPSHITZ

✡

It’s not entirely clear whether Mr. Lipshitz worked here and/or in Krakės (↓).

GRUZDŽIAI 

Gruzd גרוזד

Gruzdžiai Jew, 1938.

ISAKAS ARONŠTOMAS

Isaak Aronshtom

The town’s first photographer is said to have been active in 1903.

S. LEVINAS

Levin

Born in about 1889. Known to have been working on December 26, 1928.

JONAVA

Yonava יאָנאװא

Little is currently known.

YOSIF ARIA CHIENAS

Khyen

Born in Jonava in 1902. Known to have been working in 1926. 

EPSTEIN

See Fevelis Joffė (↓).

BENTSEL HATSKELIOVICH

Khatskeliovich

Born in about 1850. Active in 1872.

FEVELIS JOFFĖ

Joffe, Tevel, Tuvia Yoffe

Born in Jonava on February 28, 1897. Opened the Union photography studio at Plento g. 68 in about 1918. Is also associated with another photographer by the name of Epstein (↑). Mr. Joffė and most of his immediate family survived the Kovno Ghetto. Persecuted by the Soviets after the war, the photographer was deported to Siberia in 1949. He passed away in Irkutsk in 1971.

JUDELIS KACENBERGAS

Yudel Katsenberg

The Dubingiai-born studio photographer and photojournalist Judelis Kacenburgas (c.1915-1978) is believed to have worked as a professional photographer in Jonava, Telšiai and Klaipėda between about 1935 and 1940, after which he briefly worked in a Soviet-run photo laboratory at a currently unknown location. He survived the war by working as a press photographer with the (in)famous 16th Rifle Division. Best remembered for some of the outstanding work he produced in Soviet-occupied Lithuania after 1945.

BORUKH KIRŠTEINAS

✡

See Grinkiškis (↑).

DAVID KREJERAS

Kreyer

Born in about 1907. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine in December 1935.

ISAK SHLAPOCNIK

Elias Abramas Šlapočnikas, Shliapochnik

Born in about 1904. Not currently clear whether he worked in Jonava or Žasliai. 

UNION 

Opened in about 1918 by Fevelis Joffė (↑). Operated out of an address at Ralio g. 17. A small handful of original photographic prints from the studio survive in several Lithuanian museums.

JONIŠKIS 

Yanishok יאַנישאָק

Birthplace of the photographer Chaim Zaks (see Šiauliai ↓), who was almost certainly a close relative of the entertaining and eccentric British neurologist and author, Oliver Sacks (1933-2015), whose doctor father was from Joniškis.

ILJA FIŠERIS

Fisher

Journalist and photographer. Jankelis Fišeris’ (↓) son. Born in Joniškis on May 13, 1927. Passed away on October 21, 1983. Nothing is currently known about his photography before the war, mostly because he was only 14 when the family escaped to Russia. After returning to Lithuania after the war, Mr. Fišeris worked as a photojournalist for several newspapers and magazines, and was one of the first photographers in the Soviet Union to start using colour photography in his work. Buried with his wife, Vanda, in the Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. The whereabouts of his private archive is currently unknown.

JANKELIS FIŠERIS

Jokūbas, Yankel Fischer, J. Fischer

Born in 1886. Ilja Fišeris’ (↑) father. Known to have first been active in 1910. Along with thousands of other Lithuanian Jews, the photographer and his family were forced to live in exile in a region of the Russian Empire well away from the front during the First World War, from where he returned in 1921, running a photography studio at Šiaulių g. 5 and/or 9, between about 1923 and 1941, when the family escaped the German invasion. The studio was apparently on the top floor of the family home, which also contained the Lira cinema at street level. Several of his surviving photographic prints can be found among the collections at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai, the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius and various other institutions around Lithuania. Mr. Fišeris married Mere Šapočnikaitė on December 12, 1923. Mere appears to have been the sister of the Joniškis photographer Elias Abramas Šapočnikas (↓). 

YANKEL GER

Jankelis Geras

Born in 1902. It’s possible that Mr. Ger became a British citizen in about 1935, although it’s not clear exactly what this means. A copy of his 1922 internal passport is here.

ABEL GILMANAS

Abelis, Gilman

Born in 1909. Active in 1926. A copy of his internal passport is here.

CHAJA GOLDMANYTĖ

Khaya Šapočnikienė 

Born in about 1894. Despite the fact that Chaja Goldmanytė is mentioned in more than one source as having worked as a photographer in Joniškis during the early 1920s, no record of either her or her photographs has ever been discovered. This is almost certainly down to the fact that she married the local photographer Elias Abramas Šapočnikas (↓), thus becoming Khaya Šapočnikienė, who, the same as her husband, is recorded as having been 27 on her return from Russian exile on May 29, 1921. 

SHURA MILVIDSKAITĖ

Milvidsk

Born in about 1904. Applied for an internal passport on January 28, 1922.

ELIAS ABRAMAS ŠAPOČNIKAS

Eliyash, Eliya, Shapochnik

Known to have lived and worked in Joniškis during the early 1920s. Married to Chaja Goldmanytė (↑). Recorded as having been 27 on his return from Russian exile on May 29, 1921. 

CHAIM ZAKS

See Šiauliai (↓).

JURBARKAS

Yurburg יורבורג

An interesting read on Wikipedia.

MOTELIS ABRAMSONAS

Motel Abramson

The photographer Motelis Abramsonas (1914-1992) is known to have been running a photography studio at Klišių g. 3 in 1922. His brother, Dovydas (1915-?), survived the Kovno Ghetto, and was famously photographed by Motelis after the war in the place where he hid during its liquidation in July 1944. 

N. D. ABRAMSON

Abramsona

✡

A tiny handful of surviving prints featuring a rather threadbare photography studio and several other outdoor locations testify to the fact that Mr. Abramson was probably Motelis’ and Dovydas’ (↑) father. According to the JewishGen Yizkor Book Necrology Database, the N stands for Natan.

BENTSEL BEIMAN

Bencelis Beimanas

Born in Jurbarkas in about 1894. Married Beilė Pomušaitė from Kaunas on November 10, 1922. The photographer appears to have passed away at an early age. His wife and the couple’s daughter, Batia, are believed to have been murdered during the Great Action at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas on October 29, 1941.

LEIZER BEKER

✡

See Čekiškė (↑).

MEJER GORDON

Born in a currently unknown location in 1848. Recorded as having been active in Jurbarkas, Vilkaviškis, Trakai and other locations in what’s now Belarus between about 1875 and 1890. It’s not entirely clear whether Mr. Gordon worked in photography studios in these places, or whether he was simply a wandering/itinerant photographer. Or perhaps both.

LEIB FRAKT

Eliyash, Fraktas

✡

Active between at least 1926 and 1929. Known to have been residing at Mėsinių g. 16 in 1929.

ABRAM KUŠNER

See Kaunas (↓).

CHANONAS LEVINAS

Chanon Levin, K. Levinas, H. Levinas

Born on March 12, 1914. Owned and operated a photography studio at Vytauto Didžiojo g. 6 in Jurbarkas between 1929 and 1940. Displayed two photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933, and another at an exhibition organised by the Lithuanian Society for Photo Enthusiasts and others in Vilnius in April 1940. Survived the Holocaust, and passed away in Vilnius on July 22, 1992, where he lays at rest in the city’s Jewish cemetery. Published two photography books, Mūsų Gyvenimo Dešimtmečiai in 1981, and Gyvenimo Žingsniai in 1983, during the Soviet occupation after the war, and worked as a photographer with the Red Army as it reoccupied Lithuania during the second half of 1944 and January 1945, which explains his survival during the Holocaust. Several of his pre-Second World War photographic prints survive in a number of different museums in Lithuania. 

KUSHEL LEVIN

Jekutiel, Kushelis Levinas

✡

Born in 1910. Known to have been working as a photographer in 1931, the year he married Frade Velionskaitė in Kaunas. 

ARON STRASHUNER

Born in 1883. Listed as having been a photographer on February 5, 1914. 

JŪŽINTAI 

Yuzhint יוזשינט

A single copy of one of Ch. Kuras’ photographic prints (↓) is known to be held among the collection at the Rokiškis Regional Museum (↓).

CH. KURAS

Next to nothing known about him (?) at the moment.

KAIŠIADORYS

Koshedar קאָשעדאַר

Historical information is limited to say the least.

VULF ŠIMKOVIČIUS

Vulfas

✡

Recorded as having been born in Vilkomir/Ukmergė in both 1880 and 1886, Mr. Šimkovičius appears to have been active in Kaišiadorys in 1937. No evidence of his work has yet been found. A Vulfas Šimkovičius from Kaunas married someone by the name of Rachil/Rozalia Frakeraitė, a milliner from Kaišiadorys, who was born on April 24, 1886, which may help clarify the confusion. See also Wulf Shimkovich in Kaunas (↓) and Ukmergė (↓), who was clearly the same person. 

KALVARIJA

Kalvarye קאלװאריע

A once important town on the old road between Warsaw and St. Petersburg, in 1856 Kalvarija was home to over 6,500 Jews, or more than 80 percent of the town’s total population. 

I. MIRLIN

I. Mirlinas, I. Mirlino, Izakas, Ichak

Miscellaneous accounts remember Mr. Mirlinas as having been a kind and popular young man who operated a photography studio at Prekybos g, 13. Many of his original prints survive. Some are held among the collection at the Lithuanian Central State Archives. A surviving record from May 2, 1935 suggests that the photographer emigrated to Palestine.

NEW PHOTOGRAPHY

See Zorahk Rozental (↓).

ZORAHK ROZENTAL

Z. Rosenthal, Rozentalis

Born in 1893, also recorded as 1896. Operated a photography studio called New Photography (↑) at Prekybos g. 45. Discharged from the Lithuanian army in 1921 for health reasons. Lived at Rinkos g. 7 in 1918.

Š. SIDERIS 

Mr. Sideris apparently operated a photography studio during the late 1930s.

ABEL SILBERSTEIN

Zilberšteinas

Widely believed to have owned and operated Kalvarija’s first photography studio, Mr. Silberstein’s oldest known print dates from 1899. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Ralph Salinger, the undisputed champion of Jewish memory in the region where many of his descendants originally came from, it’s known that the photographer’s grave survives in the local Jewish cemetery. According to the reverse side of one of his elaborate studio prints that was produced in 1909, Abel Silberstein also owned a photography studio in Suwałki, 40 kilometres to the south in what’s now northeastern Poland.

MANUELIS VIGDORAVIČIUS

Manuel Vigdorovič, Manuelis Vigdorovičius, Wigderowicz

✡

Mr. Vigdoravičius studied painting at the Ivan Trutnev School of Art in Vilna/Vilnius, but abandoned his original calling after discovering that he couldn’t make a living from it. He opened his first photography studio in Kalvarija before the First World War (one account dates the event to 1912), before re-opening for business at Prekybos g. 9 after the First World War in 1921. Active until the Nazis arrived in June 1941, Mr. Vigdoravičius was murdered along with the rest of the Jews of Kalvarija soon after. At least one of his surviving prints is held in the archives at the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius. 

VISHNEVSKY

Nothing currently known.

KAUNAS

Kovne קאָװנע

The first photography studio is said to have opened in the city in 1854. The number of photography studios increased from 16 to 28 during the 12-month period between 1922 and 1923. On the day the German army entered Kaunas on June 24, 1941, there were about 50 operating in the city, almost all of them owned and staffed by Lithuanian Jews. Lithuanian Jewish photography studios could be found in the old town, on and around Laisvės al. in the city centre, in the suburbs of Aleksotas and Šančiai, up the hill in the fancy and not-so-fancy parts of Žaliakalnis, and even in the poverty-ravaged Vilijampolė/Slabodka neighbourhood, which would later become the location for the Kovno Ghetto. Just like almost everywhere else in the country, nothing survives of original studio negatives, and almost all family photographs, including negatives, were also destroyed. 

NAUM ABRAMAVIČIUS

Born in 1917. Nothing is currently known about Mr. Abramavičius, other than he served in the (in)famous 16th Division of the Red Army during the Second World War.

ITSYK AMSTIBOVSKIS

Born in Raguva in 1911. Known to have been working as a photographer in 1927. A copy of Mr. Amstibovskis’ 1927 internal passport can be seen here.

ARON ALTSZULER

Alšuleris, Altshuler

Born in 1873. Known to have been active in 1921, although it’s currently not entirely clear whether this was in Vilna/Vilnius or Kovno/Kaunas. Possibly studied in, and/or was originally from, St. Petersburg. Registered as living in Vilijampolė/Slabodka, a small town/shtetl in its own right until it became part of Kaunas in 1919.

MOISEY ARONAS

Aron

Born in 1881. Known to have been active in 1921 and 1932. See also Fotolit (↓).

LEJA ARONAITĖ

Leah

Born in 1912. Listed as working as a photographer in 1929. Recorded as having lived with her photographer mother, Mira Aronienė (↓), at Lukšio g. 5-2 on January 12, 1941. A copy of her internal passport can be seen here. A document kept in the Arolsen Archives provides information about a woman who was admitted to the Stutthof concentration camp on July 13, 1944, who may have been Leja. For photographs that are believed to have been taken by Leja, see Mira Aronienė below (↓).

MIRA ARONIENĖ

Mera, Mere

✡

Born Mera Zisesaitė in Vilijampolė in 1879. Known to have owned the Splendid (sometimes mistakenly written as Flendlo) photography studio between 1936 and 1941, although it’s not clear if Mira was a photographer herself, or whether she simply owned the business. Mrs. Aronienė is recorded as having lived with her photographer daughter, Leja Aronaitė (↑), at Lukšio g. 5-2 on January 12, 1941. The Splendid photography studio was located at Daukanto g. 8 on the northeastern corner of the Laisvės al./Daukanto g. intersection. Housed inside a building that was demolished to make way for the Merkurijus shopping centre in 1983 (which itself was demolished in 2009), the studio attracted a wide range of clients, from residents of the city who needed a simple likeness for their passport to minor celebrities in search of a formal portrait, such as the engineer Napoleonas Dobkevičius, who among other things was involved in the construction of the iconic Aleksotas funicular railway. Accompanied by an unmistakable company logo that featured an image of an artist’s palette, surviving photographs from the studio can be found in the archives of several museums in Kaunas and Lithuania. A small selection of photographs that have been accredited to the studio can be seen here.

BAERO & ŠIMKOVIČIAUS

A lavish photography studio that’s known to have been operating at Laisvės al. 58 in 1921. Were perhaps Mr. Baeras and Shimon Bajer (↓) the same person. Almost certainly. See also Wulf Shimkovich (↓).

ISRAEL BASSARABIJA

Bessarabia, Besarabye

✡

Born in Panevėžys in about 1902. Believed to have been active in Kaunas soon after the end of the First World War. Is known to have been operating the Progres [sic] photography studio (↓) at Laisvės al. 33 in 1931. It’s recorded that the photographer, who married Hanna Zucker, the daughter of a baker from Ariogala, on December 26, 1919, was murdered in 1942, presumably while he was a prisoner in the Kovno Ghetto. No surviving examples of his work have yet been discovered.

SHIMON BAJER

Shiman, Bajeris, Bayer, Šimonas Bajeras, Š. Bajer

✡

Born in Ukmergė in about 1893. Struck out on his own (see Mauša Levi in Ukmergė ↓) in the new Lithuanian capital in what seems to have been about 1918. Owned and operated a large photography studio in the city centre at Laisvės al. 58. Produced some wonderful photographs for ORT among many others. See his ORT page here. Married Feiga Rashel (Raja) Zalk/Zalkaitė (born in Ukmergė in 1895) in 1922, who worked as a midwife and who became a senior nurse at the Jewish hospital in the old town. Creative and innovative, his work was in demand by people with money and influence. His work was published widely in Lithuanian newspapers, the Jewish press and the New York Yiddish newspaper The Forward. As a photojournalist he was widely known. He was also active in the Kaunas professional photography scene and was one of the initiators of the Lithuanian Professional Association of Photographers, established in March 1926. It was formally registered in May that year, and Mr. Bajer was one of the seven founders listed in the statutes. The Association was run from his studio, where its official meetings were usually held. Shimon Bajer and his wife are understood to have been murdered in the Kovno Ghetto in 1942.

SHEVACH BARSCHHEVSKY

Ševachas Barščevskis

Born in Betygala (confusingly recorded elsewhere as Białystok and Grodno) in 1894, 1898 or 1899. Was selling photographic accessories in Kaunas in 1939. A copy of Mr. Barschhevsky’s 1930 internal passport is here.

DAVID BEDEK

✡

See Pandėlys (↓).

Z. BELODUBROVSKIS

Belodubrovsky

Owned the Renaissance photography studio (↓) at Laisvės al. 47 during the interwar period. Two photographs featuring the same unidentified young woman that were made in the studio in 1936 are held among the collection at the Jurbarkas Regional Museum. Belodubrovskis/Belodubrovsky is a particularly unusual name, and just exactly who the photographer was is currently a complete mystery. Is/are Z. Belodubrovskis and S. Bielodoubrovsky (↓) the same person? Probably,

ARON BERDECKIS

Berdetski

Born on December 8, 1910. Registered as working for a Mr. Jasreinas (Jasvoinas?) at Laisvės al. 6 in 1939.

ISAAK BERENSHTEINAS

Born in Kaunas in 1903. Known to have been working in the city in 1922.

BEREL BERK

Born in Vilna/Vilnius in 1910. Known to have been active in 1940. 

LIUBA BERKOVSKIENĖ

Berkovsky, Kravets, Kravacaitė, Liba 

Listed in several different sources as having been born Liuba Kravets in Šilalė in 1900, 1903 and 1904. Married Aizik Berkovsky from Smalyavichy/Smolevichi (in today’s Belarus) in 1926. Although no surviving examples of her work have been found so far, a copy of the photographer’s 1932 internal passport, which includes her profession on it, survives here. 

GERMANAS BERLIS

Owned the Elena photography studio (↓) at Vilniaus g. 29 (today Vilniaus g. 26) between 1935 and 1941. 

SH. BERSHTEIN

Born in Kovno/Kaunas in about 1904. Known to have been active in 1922. Possibly the brother-in-law of Rosa/Roza Bershteinienė, who was the sister of the Kudirkos Naumiestis photographer, Joseph Kliachko (↓).

S. BIELODOUBROVSKY

Whoever S. Bielodoubrovsky was, he appears to have specialised in classic studio portraits of single subjects. His studio stamp changed to reflect the time that he was living and working in, the earliest dating from the end of the 19th century (Prospect de Nicolas, Maison Witkind-Rabinowitsch), and the later ones from the 1920s being physically embossed onto the image. Although it’s not completely clear at the moment, the photographer’s name has been connected with a photography studio at Laisvės al. 82. Some of the photographer’s surviving prints are known to be held among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai. Is S. Bielodoubrovsky and Z. Belodubrovskis (↑) the same person? Probably.

EFROIM BIRKGANAS

Born in Kėdainiai in 1909. Known to have been active in 1926. A copy of Mr. Birkganas’ internal passport is here.

MOISEY BIRKGANAS

Born in 1901. Known to have been active in 1921.

SHMUEL BISKAS

Bishk

Born in 1920. Nothing is currently known about Mr. Biskas other than he served in the (in)famous 16th Division of the Red Army. 

ZINA BLUMENTALIENĖ

Rachko, Račkaitė, Zinaida Bliumenthal

Born in Žiežmariai in about 1900, Mrs. Blumentalienė operated the renowned Zinaida photography studio (↓), first at Laisvės al. 58, and later on the opposite corner of the current Savivaldybė building at Laisvės al. 72, where her enviable list of clients included the Lithuanian president, Antanas Smetona, the writer, Sofija Kymantaitė-Čiurlionienė, and the opera singer, Kipras Petrauskas, of whom the last two were both recognised as Righteous Among the Nations. Her husband, who was a famous aviation engineer before the war and who served as chief engineer in the Lithuanian Air Force, and young son, both perished in the Kovno Ghetto. Persecuted by the Soviets after the war, the photographer spent eight years in the Gulag system before being released after Stalin’s death and finally emigrating to Israel in 1960, where she passed away in Tel Aviv in 1971.

JOKUB BORSHTEIN

Borshteinas

Born in 1919. Active in 1936.

BROLIAI RUBINAI

Br. Rubinų

Although several high quality photographs from the interwar period survive with the Br. Rubinų stamp embossed into the actual print, there doesn’t appear to be any information about the company, or at least none has been found so far. Broliai is the Lithuanian word for brothers, suggesting that there may well have been a connection with/between Moiseijus, Chaim and Geshel (↓).

IDEL BRUK

Born in 1905. Married 27-year-old Feiga Keizansky from Jonava on January 1, 1934, the same year he was recorded as working as a photographer.

EDUARDS BRZOZOVSKI

See Frères Brzozovski (↓). 

J. BRZOZOVSKI

See Frères Brzozovski (↓). 

FRÈRES BRZOZOVSKI

Brzozowska

Originally operating as a one-photographer studio, a couple of years after moving from Vilna to Kovno/Kaunas in 1877, the original J. Brzozovski went into partnership with his cousin, Eduards, after which the business became known by its more familiar name, despite the fact that the two weren’t brothers. It’s recorded that the studio was sold to a non-Jew by the name of Zatorski in 1882.

S. BUCHER

Šimelis Bucheris, Vulf Bukher, Semen Volf Bukher, Szymiel Bucher

Believed to have been from Ariogala, and known to have been working as a photographer in Kaunas/Kovno in 1868. Operated his own photography studio somewhere on Nikolaiewski Prospekt (today’s Laisvės al.) at around the same time. Mr. Bucher also shared a photography studio with Adolf Kaspari (↓). See here for a small selection of wonderful surviving examples of the work that the studio produced.

ABE ŠLIOMAS BURŠTEIN 

See Radviliškis (↓).

ESTHER CHALMANOVIČIENĖ

✡

See Kybartai (↓).

SHMERL CHALMANOVIČIUS

✡

See Kybartai (↓).

LEYBA LEYZER CIPELMANAS

Leiba Leizeris, Tsipelman

Born in 1878. Active between 1922 and 1926 at least. A copy of his internal passport can be seen here. 

SARA CHEIFECAITĖ

Kheifets

✡

Born in Eišiškės/Ejszyszki on October 31, 1917. Known to have been a student in Kaunas in 1934, and to have been living at Maironio g. 25 in 1941. It’s thought that Miss Cheifecaitė was deported from the Kovno Ghetto to the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia on October 26, 1943, where she was subsequently murdered on an unknown date. A copy of her internal passport is here.

JOSELIS CHJENAS

Known to have owned the Union photography studio (↓) at Savanorių pr. 138 (also recorded as Ukmergės pl. 50) between 1931 and 1941.

MOISEY CVIKAS

Moze, Tsvik

Retoucher. Studio(s) unknown. Born in Tryškiai in 1903. Active in 1931. Married 47-year-old Erna Fiselyte/Fishel on September 4, 1934. Divorced her on December 2 of the same year, and married 21-year-old Judese Neistataite/Neishtat from Virbaalis nine days later.

ONA DAMSKAITĖ

Damsky

Born in about 1896. A copy of her 1920 internal passport can be seen here.

JUOZAS DIMENSHTEIN

Born in about 1885. Sold photographic accessories in Kaunas in 1939. Possibly in business with Shevach Barschhevsky (↑).

ITSYK DUKAS

Duk

Born in Raseiniai in 1897. Active in 1920. A copy of his internal passport is here.

ABRAMAS-ŠIMELIS EFFAS

Abram Shimel Eff

Born in Marijampolė in 1893. Active in 1928. A copy of Mr. Effas’ internal passport is here.

ELENA

See Germanas Berlis (↑).

FOTO-BAZAR

Foto-Radio-Bazar

A photographic supplies and services business at Laisvės al. 18 (today Laisvės al. 32), owned by the photographer Ilja Jasvoin (↓), and known to have been operating in the 1930s. The business, which was nationalised by the Soviets on September 27, 1940, also produced and sold photographic paper and glass plate negatives under the brand name Jaskaun.

FOTOLIT

The Fotolit photography studio opened at Vytauto pr. 1 (opposite the train station) in 1937. Owned, operated and managed by Moisėjus Aronas (↑), a former owner of the city’s Modern photography studio (↓), and someone by the name of Icikas Langas. One surviving photograph is known to be held among the collection at the Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum.

JUDELIS FRIDMANAS

Yudel Fridman

Born in Vitebsk in 1903. Listed as running miscellaneous photography studios during the interwar period, at Laisvės al. 23, Laisvės al. 25 and Laisvės al. 41. His internal passport survives in the Kaunas Regional State Archives. Several of his photographs survive in Lithuanian institutions, as well as in the ORT archive in London. Very possibly the same gentleman as below (↓).

YUDEL FRIDMAN

✡

Born in about 1907. Murdered in 1944. A relative of the contemporary Dutch photographer, Sarah Mei Herman, who’s carried out some research into her family history in Lithuania. Very possibly the same gentleman as above (↑).

CHAIMAS GILUCAS

Chilučio, Chilučis

Ran the Gilucas photography studio at Laisvės al. 25. Was known to have been working in 1925. Possibly also previously active in Latvia and Russia. According to some sources, Mr. Gilucis and the rest of his family emigrated to Brazil in 1926, after which his photography studio was taken over by Judelis Fridmanas (↑). 

H. GLADŠTEINAS

Hercas, Gercas

✡

Shop owner dealing in printing, developing and several other photographic services. Also sold cameras, medical instruments, and was a professional optician. The father of Maya Gladshtein. See Gercas & Maya (↓) for more. A copy of Mr. Gladšteinas' internal passport is here.

Gercas & Maja

The steady increase in the availability of portable—and affordable—cameras aimed at serious enthusiasts and beginners alike during the first few decades of the 20th century created opportunities for both new and already established businesses to cash in on a market that, as well as selling the cameras themselves, also saw a good trade in supplying black and white film and associated developing and printing services. Business was so good in fact that by 1934 the Lithuanian telephone directory featured a large advertisement for Agfa on the cover, and several photographic businesses bought ad space inside, including H. Gladšteinas (↑ the H. stands for Hercas, or Gercas), who ran a combined photographic, radio, medical instrument supplies and opticians at Laisvės al. 47 (today 83) in Kaunas (↑) until it was nationalised by the Soviets on September 28, 1940. Less than a year later, Gercas, his wife Sara (née Levinaitė, born 1902), and their 14-year-old daughter, Maja, were forced into the Kovno Ghetto, where Maya not only survived (Gercas and Sara were both murdered), she served as a violinist, where she was photographed, third from the left, in the Kovno Ghetto Orchestra. Maya also features twice in Annushka Varšavskienė's (↓) collection of photographs she saved from the Kovno Ghetto in 1943, here and here. Maja passed away in Israel in about 2019.

MEYER GOKHOVICH

Mejeris Gochovičius 

Born in Vilna/Vilnius on October 9, 1909. Already documented as being a photographer in Kaunas when he was 11. Two of the photographer’s internal passports survive, which can be seen here and here. Last recorded as being alive in January 12, 1941, when he was listed as living at Maironio g. 23.

MORDKHEL GORBIKAS

Gorbik

See Alytus (↑).

CHAIM GORDON

Gordonas

Born in Vilna/Vilnius in 1914. Active in 1937. Also may have worked in Šiauliai (↓).

IZRAEL GORDON

Izraelis Gordonas

Born in Malat/Molėtai in 1903. Active in 1920. A copy of Mr. Gordon’s internal passport is here.

SHLIOMA YOSEL GURVICH

Gurvičius

Believed to have been born in Zarasai in about 1906, Mr. Gurvich is briefly mentioned in a handful of documents dating from the 1930s. Registered in Vilijampolė, the site of the Kovno Ghetto eleven years later, in 1930, the year he married 20-year-old Esta Etel née Kats/Katsaitė, originally from Vilkija, on June 15. As yet, not a single one of his photographs has been unearthed. 

HIRŠA GURVIČIUS

✡

See Mažeikiai (↓).

R. Goldbergas

A sadly forgotten artist who created a large number of the intricate designs on a series of wonderfully detailed multiple portraits for a variety of schools, businesses and other institutions when he was working at the Modern photography studio (↓) and elsewhere during the interwar period. The R stands for Ruvin, a painter about whom records show was born in around 1878 in Vilna/Vilnius. Mr. Goldberg/Goldbergas lived at Ožeškienės g. 19 (today’s Ožeškienės g. 27), right in the centre of the city. A small selection of his amazing work can be seen here. Recent research has also uncovered a multiple portrait from the Zinaida photography studio (↓) belonging to Zina Blumentalienė (↑) that features the initials R.G. A copy of Mr. Goldbergas' internal passport is here.

IDEAL

See Boruchas Mirbachas (↓).

ITSIK IZRAILIOVICH

See Varniai (↓).

JACOBY

See Ona Pinkertienė-Šneiderienė (↓).

ILJA JASVOIN

Ilija, Iliya, Yasvoyn, Josvain, Yosvain, Jasvoinas

✡

Born in Baisogala (↑) in about 1882. Murdered in 1941. Several glass plate negatives that were exposed by Mr. Jasvoin are held among the collection at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art for reasons that no one can fully explain. Last recorded as being alive in a January 12, 1941 document, in which he’s listed as having been living with his son, Lazar (1912-1941 ↓), at Gedimino g. 32. Also possibly associated with a shop that was located at Ukmergės pl. 29 in 1922. See also Baisogala (↑), Foto-Bazar (↑), and The Jasvoins (↓) for more..

LAZAR JASVOIN

See Ilija Jasvoin (↑).

JAVORSKI

See P. Piotrowicz (↓).

JAVORSKI & PIOTROVITCH

Responsible for a single known photograph, dated 1878, that’s held among the collection at the Rokiškis Regional Museum. 

ROKHA KACERGINSKAITE

Kacherginski

Born in 1919. Worked as a clerk at Ilja Josvain’s Foto-Radio-Bazar at Laisvės al. 18 (today Laisvės al. 32) in at least 1939. Lived at Lukšio g. 10-2 (not believed to survive).

GEORGE KADISH

Girsh, Zvi Kadushin

Born Zvi/Girsh Kadushin in Raseiniai/Rossieny on August 25, 1910. Passed away in Hollywood (Florida) on September 2, 1997. Changed his name to George Kadish after the war. Worked as a science teacher at a Jewish school in Kaunas in the 1930s, probably until 1940. Registered as living at Prieplaukos kr. 15 (today’s Karaliaus Mindaugo pr. 17) on January 12, 1941. Venerated for the undeniably extraordinary photographs he claimed to have taken while he was a prisoner in the Kovno Ghetto. Seldom challenged on the authenticity of some of them, and on a few technical details about his story in general. Although Mr. Kadish almost certainly took the majority of the photographs, including the ones that are known to have been recreated after the event, several may have been taken by the Marijampolė photographer Chaim David Ratner (↓), who was killed fighting as a Jewish partisan in July 1944. A more detailed insight into the controversy can be found in a recommended article by the Lithuanian historian Šarūnė Sederevičiūtė here.

CHAIM KALIKOVICH

Kalikovičius

Born in about 1913. Active in 1935. 

JOZEP BENJAMINAS KAPLANAS

Yozep Benyamin Kaplan

Born 1896. Active in 1924.

IDA KAPLANIENĖ

Listed as owning a photography studio at Laisvės al. 38 in 1931.

ADOLF KASPARI

Listed as working as a photographer in 1867. Ran a studio with S. Bucher (↑) for a while.

ICYK KLIWAŃSKI

Active from before 1863 until about 1865. Generally believed to have been the second photographer working in Kaunas.

MEYER KLOINER

Born in about 1914. Lived in the Kaunas suburb of Šančiai. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine in 1934. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for more information.

JOSIEL KOIRANSKI

Jochiel, Josif, Józef, Koirański

Active from about August 1896. Worked for the summer season in Birštonas (↑) in 1902. Almost certainly the same photographer who produced photographic prints bearing the name Brzozowska and Koirański in about 1914. See Frères Brzozovski (↑).

S. KOTONAS

Judging by the sheer diversity of photographs that survive with an S. Kotonas stamp on the reverse side, it seems fairly obvious that Mr. Kotonas wasn't a photographer as some sources claim, but instead ran a busy processing and printing service for camera owners. 

Woolf Kresovsky

Born in Kovno/Kaunas in 1857 (it's not clear whether it was the city or the Gubernia), Mr. Kresovsky operated a photography studio with his son, Benjamin, at 87 Leman Street in Whitechapel in the East End of London at the beginning of the 20th century, and almost certainly earlier. The 1901 United Kingdom census records the illuminating fact that he shared the same address with the Lihuanian Jewish violinist, Leon Balk, who went on a couple of decades later to become one of the most important photographers in prewar Lithuania (see Klaipėda for more ↓). From what's known, it seems as if Leon Balk began his photography career under the tutelage of Mr. Kredovsky. A popular name in written accounts of historical London photographers from the East End of London at the time, Mr. Kresovsky passed away in Stepney in 1930.

ABRAM KUŠNER

Abramas Kušneris

✡

Born in Jurbarkas in 1890 (also written 1896 in some sources). Known to have been active in about 1920. A document held at the Arolsen Archives records the fact that Mr. Kušner entered Dachau on July 15, 1944, and that his wife, Ita née Wolk, was a prisoner at the Stutthof concentration camp at the same time, meaning the couple must have survived the Kovno Ghetto. Another document attached to the photographer’s file includes the word Auschwitz, and the date October 8, 1944. The fate of Ita remains unknown. A copy of Mr. Kušner’s internal passport is here.

JOSEF LANCEVICKIS

Josifas 

✡

Born in Vilna in about 1910. Married 23-year-old Chana Berzakaitė from Musninkai on June 15, 1939. Definitely worked in Kaunas, and may have also been active in his wife’s hometown, where the couple are understood to have been murdered in 1941. 

LATORSKI

No information currently available.

LAWDANSKY & CO

See E. Lawdański (↓).

E. LAWDAŃSKI

Eugeniusz Laudan, E. Laudański

Eugenijus Lawdański is understood to have operated a photography studio in Kovno/Kaunas at around the turn of the 20th century. Not much is currently known on the subject, although it’s possible that the studio was part of a larger studio photography empire based in Warsaw. The business was almost certainly connected with the Lawdansky & Co photography studio (↑), which is known to have been operating in 1892. At least one surviving photograph from the latter includes the words ‘Photo Crayon’ next to the studio name, indicating that the staff were capable of producing so-called crayon portraits, or crayon enlargements/pastel portraits, a popular style of photography at the time in which small and inferior images could be improved by being retouched using various pencils, charcoal, pastels and crayons after they’d been enlarged onto photographic paper. Somehow also connected with a photography studio by the name of Centralny. 

Š. Levinas

On January 19, 1940, less than six months before the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania, 23-year-old Chana Melamedaitė and her 20-year-old brother, Isakas Melemedas, set sail for New York on the S. S. Drottningholm from Gothenburg in Sweden, taking 49 cherished photographs of their friends and family with them, of which several included S. Levinas’ studio mark on the reverse side. Located just across the street from Chana and Isakas' home in the suburb of Aleksotas, barely nothing is known about Mr. Levinas business, or anything else about him for that matter. It's not even known what his first name was. Did he perish? We keep looking. See also Zach in the Glossary (↓).

DAVID LIPŠICAS

Born in Kharkiv on February 1, 1913. Recorded as having been a ‘semi-literate photographer’ in 1934. 

ESTHER LURIE

Ester Lurje

Best remembered as one of the painters who chronicled life in the Kovno Ghetto between 1941 and 1944, Latvia-born Esther Lurie attended classes at the Kaunas Art School during the late 1930s, where she’s known to have dabbled in photography. Thirteen of her surviving negatives from the period are held without any information concerning their provenance among the multiple collections at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas. 

AVRAAM MAGILEVICH

Believed to have been working as far back as 1869.

NOSIN MEDANSKY

Medanskis

Born in 1913. Active in 1935.

ICIKAS MELNIKAS

✡

See Anykščiai (↑).

BORUCHAS MIRBACHAS 

Borukh, Mirbukh, Mirbakh

Born in Pilviškiai in 1893, Mr. Mirbachas is known to have owned—or co-owned—the Ideal photography studio, which was located at different times at Laisvės al. 35, Laisvės al. 41 and Prezidento g. 15 during the interwar period. Records show that the photographer was the son of Mina Mirbachienė and the brother of Chiene Vinokurienė. One surviving stamp from the photography studio at Laisvės al. 35 also suggests that he worked (or at least liked to advertise himself) as a photojournalist, an almost non-existent profession in Lithuania at the time. Survived the Holocaust by moving to Palestine on a currently unknown date. See also The Vinokurs box, directly above the entry for Chiene Vinokurienė.

MODERN

A large and popular photography studio at Laisvės al. 80, located inside a no longer standing building that also housed the ORT workshop for ladies’ tailoring trade school during the 1920s and 1930s. The studio was originally at another address, and was owned by several different individuals over the years. 

The Kassels

On July 3, 1921, a group of approximately 100 men, women and children gathered together to have their photograph taken on the steps of the 19th-century Kursaal building in the spa town of Bad Brückenau in northwestern Bavaria. Who they were is a mystery. Even more puzzling is the connection between the photograph and the Kassels, a Lithuanian Jewish family from Kaunas who were murdered during the German occupation of the city between 1941 and 1944, and in whose former attic the photograph was discovered in 2016. The Bad Brückenau portrait is one of 43 clearly intimate and no doubt once treasured family photographs from Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Mozambique, Switzerland, South Africa and the United States that the Camera Obscura project is trying to ‘reunite’ with surviving members of the Kassel family who must be out there somewhere! Complete with some (possibly) helpful captions/descriptions, all 43 photographs can be seen here. 

WULF MURNIK

Recorded as running a photography studio in his apartment at Jonavos g. 15-1 in 1922.

GIRŠA NEACHOVIČIUS

Nauchavičius

Known to have been active between at least 1922 and 1941, Mr. Neachovičius, who was born in Kovno/Kaunas in 1901, is recorded as having worked as one of the city’s so-called ‘fast’ or ‘five-minute’ photographers, who ploughed their trade outdoors using early Polaroid cameras, making a living by charming passing strangers into having their picture taken for a small fee. Associated with the centrally located Miesto Sodas, or City Garden, a copy of Mr. Neachovičius' 1926 internal passport can be seen here.

HIRSH PANARIS

Girša, Giršas, Panar

✡

Born in 1905. Active in 1926. According to his younger brother’s testimony at Yad Vashem, Mr. Panaris was murdered in France in 1942. A copy of the photographer’s internal passport can be seen here. 

ONA PINKERTIENĖ-ŠNEIDERIENĖ

Šneider, Šneideraitė 

Born in Žasliai on September 11, 1899. Records show that the young Ona spent the First World War living in involuntary exile in either the city or gubernia of Minsk, where she married a man by the name of Leiba Pinker in 1920, the same year she’s believed to have moved to Kaunas. Understood to have owned the Rafael photography studio (↓) at Laisvės al. 17 between 1930 and about 1937, further records show that by 1938 at the very latest, Ona had either changed the name of the business to Jacoby (↑) and moved to new premises at Laisvės al. 34, or they were two different business of which she owned both. The Jacoby photography studio was responsible for producing this wonderful portrait of the Pinsk-born actress Malvina Rappel (1904?-1987) that was made during her stay in Kaunas in January 1938. Although it’s not entirely clear whether Mrs. Pinkertienė-Šneiderienė was a photographer or a business owner, it is known for a fact that she was the sister of the Kaunas photographer Giršas Šneideris (↓), not his wife, as most photography writers/historians mistakenly believe.

P. PIOTROWICZ

One photograph known to exist at present. Almost certainly one half of the Kovno/Kaunas studio photographers, Javorski & Piotrovitcz (↑).

YANKEL PODKOVETSKI

Yankel Podkovetski was born in Kalvarija in 1912, and is believed to have been active in Kaunas in about 1940.

POLYFOTO

See Sulamita Rabinavičienė (↓). 

ARKADIJUS PRESAS

Ariel Presas, Pres, Arcady Press

Artist and photographer. Born in 1912. Last heard of in 1941, when he was listed as a Soviet evacuee during the German invasion. Also listed as having been a photographer for the NKVD, and for serving in the (in)famous 16th Division of the Red Army. For reasons that are not quite clear, the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas holds several of Mr. Presas’ paintings, and negatives featuring miscellaneous buildings around Kaunas’ old town.

PROGRES

See Israel Bassarabija (↑).

ARON PULEREWICZ

See Gitla Pulerewicz (↓).

GITLA PULEREWICZ

Pulerewicz, A. Pulerewitsch

With what appear to be photographic origins in Jurbarkas, Gitla Pulerewicz (born in about 1859) and her husband, Aron (born in about 1841 ↑), are recorded as having subsequently operated a photography studio in the centre of Kovno/Kaunas that specialised in the production of tintypes/ferrotypes during the last two decades of the 19th century. 

YANKEL MORTKHEL PUTRISHANSKI

Born in Marijampolė in 1909. Active in 1940.

GESHEL RABIN

Geshelis, Geshel, Rabinas

Born in 1906. Active in 1926. The same person as Geshel Rubin (↓)?

SULAMITA RABINAVIČIENĖ

Shulamit, Rozenbliumaitė

Born Shulamit Rozenblium in Minsk on May 15 (some records state May 28), 1901, Mrs. Rabinavičienė is listed in numerous places as having been the owner of the Polyfoto photography studio (↑) at Laisvės al. 76 between about 1935 and 1940. Although there’s no reason to doubt this, it doesn’t seem to be the case that she was in any way involved in the creative side of the business, having clearly worked somewhere else as a teacher. Registered as living at Gardino g. 65 (today’s Muitinės g. 4) in January 1941, Sulamita entered the Kovno Ghetto seven months later, and doesn’t appear again until she’s registered at the Stutthof concentration camp on July 13, 1944. A record from the Nahalat Yitzhak Cemetery in Tel Aviv records the fact that not only did she survive the Holocaust, she went on to live a long life until she finally passed away on February 1, 1996. The fate of her husband, Isak/Isaak, who appears to have been a chemist, and the couple’s three sons, Amos, Benjamin and Shmuel, remain a mystery.

ABRAM PEISAKH RABINERIS

Rabin

Born on July 26, 1914. Lived at Savanorių pr. 95-5. Worked as a photo technician at Ilja Josvain’s Foto-Radio-Bazar at Laisvės al. 18 (today Laisvės al. 32) in at least 1939. 

RAFAEL

See Ona Pinkertienė-Šneiderienė (↑) and Giršas Šneideris (↓). A small selection of photographs from the photography studio can be seen here.

CHAIM DAVID RATNER

✡

Partsan murdered fighting the Nazis and their allies while a prisoner in the Kovno Ghetto. See Marijampolė (↓) for more information.

GERSHON REBE

Geršonas

✡

Born in Friedrichstadt in Germany on April 13, 1903. Recorded as having been active as a photographer in 1923. Also recorded as having worked as a painter and decorator in 1931. It’s thought that he may have worked as a photographer in Panevėžys at some time as well. Documents held at the Arolsen Archives record the fact that Mr. Rebe was murdered at Dachau on November 6, 1944.

MOISEY RICAS

Rits

Born in Dvinsk/Daugavpils in today’s southeastern Latvia, on April 29, 1912.

CHAIM RUBIN

Active before 1914. See also Broliai Rubinai (↑). 

ELIA RUBINAS

Ella, Rubin

Born in 1914. Active in at least 1939. Photographer who worked for Ilya Jasvoin (↑). Lived at Lukšio 15.

GESHEL RUBIN

Heshel, Rubinas

Born on January 19, 1906. Active in 1925. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine in 1925. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for more information. See also Broliai Rubinai (↑). The same person as Geshel Rabin (↑)?

MOISEIJUS RUBINAS

Moisey Rubin

Born in 1873. See also Broliai Rubinai (↑).

NAUTANAS RUBINSKAS

Nautan Rubinsky

Born in 1901. Active in 1924.

LEIB ITSIK SANDERIS

✡

Born in Raseiniai in 1913. Married Taube Rochama Karlikaitė (born in Pilviškiai in 1914) in Kaunas on August 26, 1939. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine in 1940, which doesn’t actually seem to be the case. Not only does Mr. Sanderis appear to have been registered as living at Vilniaus g. 29 (today’s Vilniaus g. 26) on January 12, 1941, Yad Vashem records that he was murdered at the Ninth Fort. 

SARA SANDLER

Ida Sora, Sandleraitė, Gelmanienė

✡

Born in about 1907. Active in 1932. Records suggest that Sara survived the Kovno Ghetto, and was subsequently murdered at the Stutthof concentration camp.

CHAIM ŠAPIRO

Chaimas Šapiras. Chaim Shapiro, Chaim Girsh Shapiro

Recorded as having been born in Raseinai in 1905. Two photographs from the photographer’s studio (dated 1940 and 1941) are currently known to survive. The studio address was located somewhere on Stalino pr. (today’s Laisvės al.). Mr. Šapiro married the Balbieriškis photographer Masha Izakson (↑) in 1932. 

PINKHUS ŠER

Pinchus, Šeras

✡

Born in Kovno/Kaunas on August 25, 1893. Recorded as having been a photographer in 1925, and residing/working at Juozapavičiaus pr. 62. Estera Šeraitė’s (↓) brother.

ESTERA ŠERAITĖ

Ester, Eige

Born on July 3, 1898. Is known to have been working in a photography studio at Juozapavičiaus pr. 62 in 1931. Pinkhus Šer’s (↑) sister.

MEYER SHAPIRAS

Shapir

Born in 1910. Believed to have survived the Holocaust after he escaped to Russia ahead of the Germans in June 1941. 

JAKUBAS SHURA

Yakub Shur, Yakub, Šuras, Jakob 

Born in 1904 in Kuršėnai. Registered as working as a photographer in the Kaunas suburb of Šančiai on March 21, 1929. Obviously very closely related to Maksas Šuras (↓). Son? See also Mendel Šuras in Kuršėnai (↓).

MAKSAS ŠURAS

Born in Kuršėnai in about 1872. Known to have been active in Kaunas in 1922 and 1940. Obviously very closely related to Jakubas Shura (↑). Father? See also Mendel Šuras in Kuršėnai (↓).

WULF SHIMKOVICH

Šimkovičius

✡

Born in Vilkomir/Ukmergė in 1890 (other accounts write 1880), strongly suggesting that the photographer is/was the same Shimkovich/Šimkovičius who worked at Baero & Šimkovičiaus (↑). According to the testimony of a relative that’s kept at Yad Vashem, Mr. Shimkovich was murdered in 1942 when he was a prisoner in the Kovno Ghetto.

ALTER SHUSTER

Šusteris, Šusterio

See Sholom Meyer Shuster (↓).

IUDE SHUSTER

Šusteris, Šusterio

See Sholom Meyer Shuster (↓).

MALKIEL SHUSTER

Šusteris, Šusterio

See Sholom Meyer Shuster (↓).

SHOLOM MEYER SHUSTER

Šusteris, Šusterio

Born on December 5, 1905, Sholom Meyer Shuster appears to have been the leading figure among a large family of self-taught photographers that also included Alter, Iude (born 1918) and Malkiel (born about 1891), of whom records suggest all shared the same photography studio that used to be located across the street from the still standing 1930s fire station on the eastern edge of Kaunas’ interwar red light district at Nemuno g. 1 (there's a modern building containing a bank there now). Only a handful of the family’s photographs are known to survive in various museums in Kaunas, at least one of which is believed to have been found at the Ninth Fort mass murder site. Sholom also ran another photography studio at a considerably more salubrious address at Laisvės al. 59. 

MEJERIS SMEČECHAUSKAS

Meyer Smecechauskas, Meyer Smechekhovsky, Meer Smechekhausky

✡

Studio photographer and photojournalist for Lietuvos Aidas. Known to have been working in 1939. Born in Suwałki (unclear whether the city or the gubernia) in about 1897. Also listed elsewhere as born in the same place on May 11, 1890. Issued an internal passport on March 18, 1930, when he stated that his profession was a photographer. Father’s name, Chaim Berk. Married Dveyra Mirbukh from Virbalis on April 24, 1925. Dveyra, who was born in about 1905, was almost certainly the daughter of the photographer Mina Mirbachienė (see Virbalis ↓), and the sister of the photographer and business owner Chiene Vinokurienė (↓). There are also some currently unclear connections between Mr. Smečechauskas and Eliash Yasvoin, the father of the Dotnuva photographer Abram Yasvoin, a member of the large Yasvoin/Josvain family of Lithuanian Jewish photographers. The photographer is also known to have produced at least one series of photographs for OZE, a Jewish organisation dedicated to health, hygiene and childcare that still exists in some countries. One series, taken at an OZE children’s camp in Karmėlava near Kaunas in July 1938, survives among the as yet unexplored ‘Lithuanian Jewish Communities’ collection of photographs that are held at YIVO in New York. Despite the fact that he appears to have survived almost three years living in the Kovno Ghetto, documents held at the Arolsen Archives record the fact that Mr. Smečechauskas entered Dachau on July 15, 1944, and that he was murdered there on February 8, 1945. 

GIRŠAS ŠNEIDERIS

Hirsh Shneyder

Born in Žasliai in 1903 (some records state 1899). Ona Pinkertienė-Šneiderienė’s (↑) brother. Is known to have owned and operated the Rafael photography studio (↑) at Laisvės al. 17 in 1931. 

DOVYD LEIB SOKHET

Born in Marijampolė in 1901. Known to have been active in 1925, when he married 23-year-old Golde Dvorech on June 21. 

SPLENDID

Written in several sources as having operated between 1936 and 1941, the Splendid photography studio was located on the northeastern corner of the Laisvės al./Daukanto g. intersection at what was Daukanto g. 8. Housed inside a building that was demolished to make way for the Merkurijus shopping centre in 1983 (which itself was demolished in 2009), the studio was owned by Mira Aronienė (↑), whose daughter, Leja Aronaitė (↑), appears to have been the studio’s photographer. Splendid attracted a wide range of clients, from residents of the city who needed a simple likeness for their passport to minor celebrities in search of a formal portrait, such as the engineer Napoleonas Dobkevičius, who was involved in the construction of the Aleksotas funicular. Accompanied by an unmistakable company logo that featured an image of an artist’s palette, surviving photographs can be found among the collections of several museums in Kaunas and beyond. 

STRAUSS

See Aleksander Strauss (↓).

A. STRAUSS ET BRZOZOVSKI

Run by Aleksander Strauss (↓) and one of the two members of the Brzozovska/Brzozovski family (↑), sometime during the 1870s and/or 1880s. Note the typically French affectation in the title.

ALEKSANDER STRAUSS

Born in Vilna/Vilnius in about 1834. He passed away in Kovno/Kaunas in about 1896. The original founder of the Strauss photography studio (↑) in about 1868. See also Vilnius (↓).

BENCEL SZER

Bencel-Jankiel

See Bencel & Samuel Szer (↓).

BENCEL & SAMUEL SZER

As photographers in their own right, the two Szer brothers, Bencel (↑) and Samuel (↓), appear to have been quite active in various regions from about 1890 onwards. It’s also recorded that they ran their own company together in Kaunas during the interwar period.

SAMUEL SZER

See Bencel & Samuel Szer (↑).

MEYER HIRSH TEPERIS

Teper

Born in Jonava in 1918. Known to have been working in 1938.

UNION

See Joselis Chjenas (↑). 

ANNUSHKA VARŠAVSKIENĖ

Anna

The woman whose actions in 1944 inspired this entire website. A fascinating look into Annushka’s world (see also Vilnius ↓) is here. To see her photographs she saved, click here. Four of her songs are here. 

About the Author

Richard’s relentless work to preserve the images that survived the unspeakable events that destroyed families like mine should be supported at all costs.

David G. Roskies. New York.

Sol and Evelyn Henkind Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture and Professor of Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Annushka Varšavskienė (↑) and Grisha Matz's (see Vilnius ↓) nephew. 

For more about Richard, see CV (↓).

LEIZER VIDETSKY

Videckis

Born in Vilkomir/Ukmergė in 1903. Active in 1934. Married to Mera Riva Videckienė (↓).

MERA RIVA VIDECKIENĖ

Mere, Rive, Videtsky

Née Shalminaitė. Born in Kretinga (or possibly Palanga) in 1910. Married to Leizer Videtsky (↑).

RAFAEL VINERAS

Viner

✡

Born in 1898. Active in March 1924. Married 25-year-old Leja Stargert from Pilviškiai on August 25, 1925. Rafael and Leja were murdered in Pilviškiai in 1941. No information concerning Mr. Vineras’ photographic activity has yet been discovered.

The Vinokurs

Siras Vinokur (↓) died of the Spanish flu sometime around the end of the First World War, and his wife, Chiene (↓) was left to bring up their four children, on Rita, Sholom (Shoma/Shomi/Shuma ↓), Ethel and Irving (↓), alone. A combination of factors led to the decision to get everyone out of the country, and gradually all five members escaped before the Nazis and the Soviets destroyed Jewish life entirely. Of the four children, three went to the United States and one—Shuma—to Palestine. Ethel married a man called Meyer Israel Melamed, who ran a photography studio in New York with his brother, and who had connections in Wilno/Vilnius. Also escaping around the same time was Chiene’s brother, Boruchas Mirbachas (b.1893 ↑), who emigrated to Bulawayo, where he ran a photography shop. Irving, the youngest of the four, fought in Europe under General Patton. One of the lucky ones to come back in one piece, he went on to become a photographer for the Long Island press and several other newspapers. Chiene passed away in Flushing, New York, at the age of 63. Research continues.

CHIENE VINOKURIENĖ

Khiena, Chiena

The photographer and business owner Chiene Vinokurienė was born Chiene Mirbakh/Mirbach in Pilviškiai in about 1890. Known to have been running a photography studio in Kaunas at Laisvės al. 40 (also mentioned as Laisvės al. 17) during the 1930s, a tiny handful of original prints from her studio survive in a variety of museums around Lithuania. Mrs. Vinokurienė was married to the photographer Siras Vinokur (↓), and was the daughter of the photographer Mina Mirbachienė (see Virbalis ↓). She moved to the United States sometime before the Holocaust (see The Vinokurs ↑). 

GIRŠAS VINOKURAS

Hirsh Vinokur, Vinikuras

Born in 1886. Active from at least 1910 until 1939 or even later, when he was known to have been operating a photography studio at Juozapavičaus g. 58. For reasons that currently remain unclear, a large number of Mr. Vinokuas’ surviving photographic prints feature portraits of Lithuanian military pilots, including several that were taken in Rokiškis, suggesting that he was related to the Rokiškis photographer, Leiba Vinokuras.

SIRAS VINOKUR

Sir

Born in Vindau/Ventspils in 1889. A surviving print in the possession of the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai appears to show that Mr. Vinokur was running a photography studio at Laisvės al. 50 in 1922. Contradictory records also show he died of the Spanish flu in both 1918  1919. Married the photographer and business owner Chiene Vinokurienė (↑) in Pilviškiai on a currently unknown date. 

Feedback

I have to say how truly delighted I was to find your website. Most of our family history and memory was either left behind or destroyed, and this felt like recovering some important bits of it.

Elizabeth Neswald. Great-granddaughter of Chiene Vinokuriene (↑) and Siras Vinokur (↑)

SHOLOM VINOKUR

Born on November 25, 1914. Siras Vinokur’s (↑) and Chiene Vinokurienė’s (↑) son. Moved to Palestine sometime before the Second World War (see The Vinokurs ↑).

VINOKURAS

Active at Daukšos g. 29 in 1931. First name?

MEJERIS DANIELIS VINOKURAS

Meer Daniel Vinokur

Born 1894. Believed to have been working in the city in 1924. What seems to be the same person is listed as a prisoner at Dachau in August 1944.

OTTO VITKOPAS

Agfa dealer. Duonelaičio 7 (today's Donelaičio). Business nationalised by the Soviets in 1941.

SORA VIZGIRDISKAITĖ

Vizgirdishky

Born in 1914 in the suburb of Šančiai. Active in 1931.

SZMUEL WINOKUR

Vinokur

✡

Arrived in Kaunas from Latvia in 1893. Owned and operated a photography studio in the city centre. Sold the business and moved to Rokiškis (↓) in about 1898.

ZINAIDA

Opened for business on November 1, 1931. See Zina Blumentalienė (↑). 

KHAIM ZELTSER

Movsha

Born in about 1860. Drafted into the Russian army at the age of 16.

SHLIOMA ZUNDELIS

Salomon Zundel

Born in about 1906. Recorded as having been working as a photographer in 1921.

KAVARSKAS

Kovarsk קאָוואַרסק

No other photographers have yet been identified.

BEILĖ DELIAČKAITĖ

Beile Delechky, Betty Del

Born in about 1914, Miss Deliačkaitė acquired her first camera from Yokha Traubienė’s sister, Feige (see Anykščiai ↑). Along with her younger brother, Moise (↓), she subsequently spent the next few years working as the unofficial photographer in the region, photographing everyday life and creating her own outdoor studios by hanging temporary backdrops on the sides of buildings. Surviving the Holocaust thanks to emigrating to the United States in November 1938, Beilė, who was also a poet and keen amateur violinist, kept over 250 of her prints, of which several have been included in the highly recommended book, The Last Bright Days, which was produced by her son-in-law, Frank Buonagurio, in 2012. Beilė’s entire surviving archive can be seen online at the United States Holocaust Museum, or on our site, here.

MOISE DELIAČKAS

See Beilė Deliačkaitė (↑).

Simulated Studios

When a studio photographer couldn’t find or afford a quiet and bright indoor space to use for taking pictures of people—especially in the undeveloped countryside—she'd/he'd improvise. Thus, if you pay close attention to your old family photographs from places around Lithuania you’ll often find a photographer’s studio ‘floor’ was actually just compressed mud and/or grass, with the painted backdrop hung on the side of a convenient barn or similar building. A couple of examples of this type of picture, which often look very silly to our modern sensibilities, from Beilė Deliačkaitė’s (↑) ‘studio’, can be seen here and here.

KĖDAINIAI

Keydan קײדאן

Such a small amount of information considering its former importance.

MORDUCH DANCIG

Born in 1853. Studied photography in St. Petersburg, and is believed to have also been a student at a yeshiva in Vilna. Opened a photography studio in Kėdainiai in 1889, which doesn’t appear to have been operating for very long.

YOSEL GOFMAN

Born in about 1824. Active in 1870.

Š. HEIMANAS

Ran a photography studio at Gedimino g. 44. Possibly Šliomas, born in Kvėdarna in 1914. 

MEJERIS JOFFĖ

M. Joffė

Ran a studio at Josvainių g. 2 around the time of the First World War. See also Panemunis (↓).

MOVSHA LEVIN

Born in about 1823. Active in 1867.

SHLIOMA LIKHTENTAL 

Born in about 1835. Active in 1869.

GERTS SOLEVEY

Born in about 1840. Active in 1873.

YEHUDA ŠOLOMOVIČIUS

Sholomovich

✡

Born in 1905. Murdered in 1941.

KELMĖ

Kelm קעלם

Very limited information found so far.

A. DANINIENĖ

See Lazaris Daninas (↓).

LAZARIS DANINAS

Eleazer Danin

✡

Owned and operated the Progres [sic] photography studio (↓) at Tauragės g. 31. Believed to have been active between about 1922 and 1941. Several surviving examples of his work are held among the collection at the Kelmė Regional Museum. It’s also recorded that Mr. Daninas was the head of the town’s voluntary firemen. According to one source, the photographer worked together with a woman by the name of A. Daninienė (↑), whose identity and fate remain unknown, but who was almost certainly his wife. 

MOTEL FURMANSKY

Born in 1911. Appears on a list stating he was arrested (by whom is unclear) on June 28, 1941.

V. GIRŠOVIČIUS

First known to have been active before the First World War, Mr. Giršovičius is also recorded as having worked at a photography studio at Tauragės g. 41 in 1940. 

AVRAM KAČERGINSKAS

Kaczerginski

Born in 1904, Mr. Kačerginskas is known to have operated a photography studio at Skalos g. 23 during the interwar period. Along with his wife, Beila (born 1905), and the couple’s two young daughters, Rokha (born 1934) and Basia (born 1936), Avram managed to escape to Russia after Nazi Germany invaded Lithuania in June 1941. Related to Shmerke Kaczerginski. 

PROGRES

See Lazaris Daninas (↑).

KLAIPĖDA

Meml מעמל

Once Germany’s northernmost city, Memel/Klaipėda became part of Lithuania from 1923 until Nazi Germany occupied it—their last uncontested land grab before the Second World War—on March 22, 1939. Its large Jewish population was forced to flee east, the vast majority of them to unoccupied Lithuania, where nearly all of them would be murdered in the Holocaust a couple of years later. Jewish life in interwar Klaipėda is a fascinating subject, one that remains almost entirely untouched by serious researchers at home or abroad. Very little of the original city—Jewish or otherwise—was left standing by the time the last German soldiers in Lithuania were forced out of the city on January 28, 1945. Rebuilt and expanded by the Soviets along whatever socialist realist vision was in style at the time, the so-called Jewish Renaissance of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Klaipėda (which became part of independent Lithuania again in 1990/1991) was a strange affair involving almost exclusively Jews from elsewhere, who arrived from other Soviet republics and settled after the war. 

JUDITH BALK

Born on February 15, 1926. Leon Balk’s (↓) daughter from his second marriage to Lena née Bergmann. Seems to have learned her craft as a retoucher from her father when she was a girl in Klaipėda. Started her professional career sometime after she left school in Glasgow in about 1941.

LEON BALK

L. Balk

An otherwise unremarkable footnote in the history of Edwardian portrait photography, Leon Balk (1878-1939) was a naturalised British citizen who arrived in England from Lithuania in about 1900, and who briefly ran two relatively successful photography studios in the fashionable English seaside resorts of Eastbourne and Bexhill-on-Sea before getting involved in a series of scandals and temporarily vanishing from public life during the First World War. After the early death of his first wife, Mina—or Minnie—in London in 1923, under circumstances that remain unclear, Mr. Balk returned to the country of his birth, where he inadvertently reinvented himself as the foremost photographer of Jewish life and culture in the port city of Klaipėda in the years leading up to the Holocaust. Dying of a heart attack just five days before Nazi Germany’s occupation of Klaipėda, Leon Balk’s British nationality ensured that his second wife and two young children were able to escape to the safety in England via the British Embassy in Berlin in April 1939 (where the children’s names were added to their mother’s passport), unlike almost every other member of the family, of whom nearly all perished in the ghettos and concentration camps of Europe. See Leon close to the bottom of the page (↓) for more about the story.

Three Glasgow Photographers

The three photographers below are all believed to have met in what was still Memel at the time. Not much is currently known about their early lives, nor for that matter not much about their new lives in Scotland after they arrived either. See also Judith Balk (↑).

MAURICE PEARLMANN

Moritz

Married to Benjamin Wohlgemuth’s (↓) niece. Emigrated to Glasgow on an unknown date, where he passed away in 1911. 

JECHIEL STERNSTEIN

Born in Virbalis on January 3, 1849. Believed to have been active in Memel/Klaipėda as far back as 1878, the same year he married a local girl by the name of Sarah/Sara Wohlgemuth, whose brother was the photographer Benjamin Wohlgemuth (↓), and whose father, Rabbi Scheu Abraham Wohlgemuth, conducted the proceedings. Lived at Neue Straße 5 (today’s Turgaus a.). After a short stay in Hamburg, the photographer emigrated to Glasgow on a currently unknown date, where it’s understood a son, Sigmund, was born in about 1895 to Jechiel’s second wife, Helene née Brzoza, Sarah having passed away childless at a young age. It seems that Mr. Sterstein continued to work as a photographer in Glasgow under the name Herr J. Sternstein, working out of a studio with his son at 434 St. George’s Road, and specialising in group portraits of school children. The photographer passed away in March 1928, and is buried in the Hebrew section at the complex of multi-faith cemeteries on Glasgow’s Tresta Road. Sigmund Sternstein, the first Jewish photographer in Scotland to have been elected an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society (in 1931), continued the business, which operated until 1974 after the death of Jack Sternstein, Sigmund’s son and Jechiel’s grandson. Several surviving examples of Jechiel’s original photographic prints are held among the collection at the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre (see Hidden Treasures ↓). 

BENJAIMIN WOHLGEMUTH

Born in about 1850. The son of a rabbi. Jechiel Moses Sternstein’s (↑) brother-in-law. Known to have been working in Glasgow in 1879.

M. COHN

An advertisement in a copy of the Memeler Wochenblat from 1852 records Mr. Cohn (first name unknown) as having been running a photography studio producing daguerreotypes somewhere on Rossgartenstrasse (today’s Vytauto g.).

M. GARFEIN

Responsible for a small number of surviving studio portraits from around the turn of the 20th century that are now held among the collections of several museums in Lithuania. As well as operating a photography studio at Libauer Strasse 20 (today’s Manto g.), Mr. Garfein also maintained a photography business at Steindamm 154 in Königsberg. The name behind the M remains unknown. A small selection of the photographer’s surviving studio portraits can be seen here.

NADIA KAPLAN

Born in 1907, Nadia, her husband Bernard and their two children, Igor and Naomi, managed to escape Lithuania in 1940 on a Sugihara visa, where they resettled in Canada, and where Nadia passed away in Vancouver in 2004 at the age of 96. Next to nothing is currently known about her early work.  

NATHAN ŠAPSELBONAS

Shapselbon, Shabselbon

Born in Telšiai in 1903, where he’s recorded as having been working as a photographer in 1920, Mr. Šapselbonas operated a photography studio in Klaipėda/Memel (↓) at Junkerstr/Junkerių g. 4/5 soon after, which was subsequently taken over by Leon Balk (↑) after the latter returned from England.

PAUL VENIKAS

✡

Born on April 27, 1921. Deported to Auschwitz from the Mechelen transit camp in Belgium in 1942. Murdered at. 

Dorothy Bohm

Born Dorothea Israelit into a wealthy and cultured Lithuanian Jewish family living in Königsberg in 1924, after moving with her parents to Klaipėda in about 1932 and then to Šiauliai (↓) seven years later, the teenage Dorothea was given a Leica camera and sent to the safety of the UK a few weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War. After studying photography in wartime Manchester and marrying a fellow Jewish refugee from Łódź in Poland in 1945, Dorothy Bohm as she was now known went on to become not only an established photographer in her own right, but also a leading figure in British photography in general. Not quite making it to a hundred, Dorothy insisted on sticking around to see the birth of her grandchildren before finally passing away in 2023. Gone but by no means forgotten, her work continues to tour galleries at home and abroad. To find out more, Dorothy’s official website is here. 

KRAKĖS 

Krok קראָק

An interesting page of information here.

SIMKHA LEYBA GOLOCHEVSKY

Active in 1909. Possibly the father of the Panevėžys photographer, Menakhem Glocevskis (↓).

AVRAHAM LIPSHITZ

✡

It’s not entirely clear whether Mr. Lipshitz worked here and/or in Grinkiškis (↑).

KRAŽIAI 

Krozh קראָזש

Here.

HENACH JOVEL

Jovelis

✡

Born in 1913, Henach Jovel is known to have operated a photography studio at Valančiaus g. 15 during the interwar period, and to have married Tema Golda Avner (born 1908) in Kražiai on March 5, 1937. A single surviving photograph can be found among the collection at the Kelmė Regional Museum.

KREKENAVA

Krakinove קראַקינאָווע

A few illuminating statistics here.

ABRAHAM YANKEL ŠEVELIS

Shevel

Born in 1905. Active in 1922. His internal passport is here.

JANKELIS TRAKMANAS

See Panevėžys (↓).

KRETINGA

Kretinge קרעטינגע

An interesting little history here.

DAVID KOLOMBUSAS

Kolombus

Born in about 1909. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine with his wife, Sore Reize, on September 2, 1934. A photograph of both him and his wife are kept with their other emigration paperwork at the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius.

FAITEL MARKUS

Markusas

Born in 1919. He emigrated to Palestine on December 27, 1936, having been invited by the Mikveh Israel Jewish Agricultural School. A photograph of him is kept with his other emigration paperwork at the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius.

SURVILLO

On June 11, 1912, an 18-year-old woman by the name of Elena Survillo identified herself in her postal savings account book as married to an otherwise anonymous photographer. First name unknown.

MOTLA ZINGER

Born in 1915. Almost certainly the Motelis Zingeris who married Seine/Sheine Kopelytė from Vabalninkas (born in 1914) in Palanga on December 3, 1939. Escaped to Russia ahead of the German invasion in June 1941. 

KUDIRKOS NAUMIESTIS 

Nayshtot-Shaki נײַשטאָט־שירווינט 

Nayshtot-Shirvint נײַשטאָט־שאַקי

Along with the town of Žemaičių Naumiestis (↓) in western Lithuania, Kudirkos Naumiestis was somewhat confusingly (for research purposes at least) known as Naumiestis (New Town) during the early part of the 20th century.

ŠMERELIS CHLAUKAVIČIUS

Believed to have operated a photography studio during the early 1920s at Prekyvietė 26.

JOSEPH KLIACHKO

Josifas Kliačkas

A soldier in the Russian army during the First World War, Mr. Kliachko, who was born in Panevėžys in about 1892, was awarded a loan by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint) in 1923 that enabled him to rebuild his photography studio in what was still known at the time as Naumiestis. Two surviving photographs taken by Joseph can be found here. A small image of his photography studio kept in the Joint archive can be found here. 

ABELIS SMOLENSKIS

Aba Smolensky

✡

Born in 1908. Active during the 1920s and 1930s. Although it’s recorded that Mr. Smolenskis received permission to emigrate to Palestine on December 31, 1934, other records clearly show that he married 32-year-old Cile Ribovskaitė from Vilkaviškis on May 19, 1938, and that he was murdered on September 16, 1941. A few of the photographer’s prints are known to survive in a number of different museums in Lithuania.

KULAUTUVA

Kalatove

Although there appear to be no known records of a permanent photography studio in Kulautuva, its reputation as a popular resort during the interwar period made it an attractive option for urban photographers looking to make a little extra money during the short summer season.

ILJA JASVOINAS 

✡

The photographer Ilja Jasvoinas (see Kaunas/Baisogala for more ↑) is known to have taken several informal portraits of visitors to Kulautuva during the 1930s.

KUPIŠKIS 

Kupishok קופּישאָק

Did Joselis Šapiro survive the war?

H. KĖRBĖLIS

Operated the Menas photography studio (↓) at Vytauto Didžiojo g. 21. Is known to have been active in 1935.

MENAS

See H. Kėrbėlis (↑).

JOSELIS ŠAPIRO

Josel Shapir

Born in 1905. Operated a photography studio during the interwar period, almost certainly at Gedimino g. 20. Also associated with an address at Vytauto g. 5, which may have been the photographer’s home address. Believed to have left Kupiškis and/or closed his business shortly before the war. Married Seina Feiga Levinaitė on September 17, 1935. Two photographs held in the Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum dating from what appear to be not long after the war, one taken in the small village of Graužikai and the other in Panevėžys, are credited to the photographer, suggesting Mr. Šapiro somehow survived.

DAVID TSEPLOVICH

Is known to have been operating a photography studio at Gedimino g. 6 in 1935.

KURŠĖNAI

Kurshon קורשאַן

A very interesting page.

MENDEL SHUR

Šuras

Active on July 31, 1929. See also Jakubas Shura and Maksas Šuras in Kaunas (↑)

KVĖDARNA

Khvidan כװידאן

Here.

ISRAEL FISHEL

Born in about 1907. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine on May 18, 1933. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for more information.

KYBARTAI

Kibart קיבאַרט

A small but extremely interesting collection of photographers, in an equally unique border town.

ESTHER CHALMANOVIČIENĖ

Khlamnovitz

✡

Born in about 1897. Married to Shmerl Chalmanovičius (↓). Believed to have been murdered in Kaunas.

SHMERL CHALMANOVIČIUS

✡

Born in about 1890. Married to Esther Chalmanovičienė (↑). Known to have been active in 1925. A portrait of the author Juozapas Albinas Herbačiauskas bearing the stamp of Mr. Chlamnavičius’s photography business at Senapielis g. 83 survives in the Maironis Museum of Lithuanian Literature in Kaunas, the city in which the photographer and Esther are believed to have been murdered.

MIKHEL JOSVAIN

Yosvain, Yasvoin

Born in about 1843. Active before the First World War. See the Josvains (↓) for more.

MIKHEL JOSVAIN

Yosvain, Yasvoin

Mikhel apparently beget Mikhel (↑). Research continues.

ISAI PILOVNIK

✡

See Babtai (↑).

The Jasvoins

The start of what became the Josvain photography dynasty can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth century and three brothers, Abram, Wulf and Mikhel Josvain, all of them metalsmiths, probably silversmiths, who changed their professions to become photographers. Exactly how, why and when this happened is currently a bit of a mystery. It is known however that Abram and Wulf Josvain moved to St. Petersburg, where they somehow managed to become official photographers to the tsar, and Mikhel Josvain set up business in Kybartai on the notorious border with East Prussia (which today is the on notorious border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad). Mikhel had two sons who followed in their father’s footsteps, one also called Mikhel and the other, arguably the most well known of them all, Ilja, who set up shop in Kaunas. Ilja married Khala Bune née Finkelshtein from Marijampolė in 1911, and the couple had two children. Lazar, the eldest, who was born on May 21, 1912, also became a photographer, before he was murdered during the Holocaust.

LAUKUVA

Loikeve לויקעווע

Information here.

ZVI TABAČNIKAS

Tabacznik

✡

Born in 1899.

LAZDIJAI

Ladzey לאַזדײ

Some basic information about Jewish Lazdijai before the war is here.

ZALMANAS TEZBA

See Marijampolė (↓).

SHLIOMA IDOVIČIUS

Born in 1911.

CHAIM MARKAS

Chaimas, Khaim

✡

Born in Telšiai in about 1898. Active during the late 1920s and early 1930s at least. Several of his photographs are marked on the reverse side with the stamp, ‘Ch. Marko, Fotograija, Lazdijai’. Appears to have operated a makeshift/portable studio. Married Taube Kovalsky (born in 1903) on December 15, 1926. Murdered in 1941. 

ISAK VILENSKIS

✡

Appears to have been born in Simnas (↑) in about 1906. Known to have been active in 1931.

LINKUVA

Linkeve לינקעװע

Some background information here.

LEJA MILCHAITĖ

Chaitienė

Born in 1907. Believed to have married Leizeris Chaitas, the brother of the photographers Icik Chaitas (see Pasvalys ↓) and Dora Chaitaitė (see Saločiai ↓), on March 4, 1933. Active from about 1930. Several surviving examples of Miss Milchaitė’s original prints are held among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai.

LIUBA RIVKINDIENĖ 

✡

See Šiauliai (↓).

LUKŠIAI 

Lukshy

A sleepy backwater.

H. EHRENBERG

Photo enthusiast. Displayed nine photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933.

E. MENBERGAS

Photo enthusiast. Displayed five photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933.

LUOKĖ

Luknik לוקניק

On Wikipedia.

SLOMO GLIKMAN

✡

See Telšiai (↓).

LYGUMAI

Ligem ליגעם  

A bit of background information.

ISAAC ABRAMSONAS

Abramson

Born in 1905. Active in 1921 when he applied for an internal passport.

MARIJAMPOLĖ

Mariampol מריאמפול

During a single six-hour period on Monday September 1, 1941, more than 5,000 Jewish men, women and children from Marijampolė and the surrounding area were shot by a group of German soldiers and Lithuanian policemen at the city’s military base. Among them were Movšė Buchalteris (↓), Judelis Fridbergas (↓), Abramas Pimšteinas (↓), Zalmanas Tezba (↓) and Jakobas Vindsbergis (↓), five of the city’s most celebrated photographers. 

LEON ANSCHER

Early studio photographer. Known to have been working in the city in 1873. A single surviving print by Mr. Anscher, taken in the same year and believed to be the earliest photograph taken in the city, is held among the collection at the Institute of Lithuanian Literature & Folklore in Vilnius.

O. BERENSTEIN

Berenšteinas

Ran a photography studio in the city before 1914. A single portrait is currently known to survive.

IZIS BIDERMANAS

Israëlis Bidermanas, Israel Biderman

Before he moved to Paris in 1930 and became famous, Izis Bidermanas (1911-1980) was a young photographer with no money in 1920s Marijampolė who’d studied under the tutelage of the city’s most respected interwar photographer, Movšė Buchalteris (↓). Wikipedia.

MOVŠĖ BUCHALTERIS

Moisiejus Buchalteris, Mowsza Buhalter

✡

Born into a large family of Jewish booksellers in 1868, Movšė Buchalteris was by far the most important photographer to have ever lived and worked in Marijampolė. Having abandoned his studies at the illustrious Ivan Trutnev School of Art in Vilna/Vilnius, the young Buchalteris turned his attention to photography, and was probably already working professionally when he came back to live in Marijampolė and opened his first studio in the city in about 1891. Widely respected as an outstanding studio portrait photographer, Mr. Buchalteris also known to have dabbled in early street photography, taking one of his cameras out and about to record the good, the bad and the ugly things that he serendipitously discovered as he walked around the city. Alleged to have won a gold medal at an exhibition in Milan in 1909 (it was more likely to have been in 1906), Movšė Buchalteris was also a respected teacher (see Izis Bidermanas (↑), Abramas Pimšteinas (↓) and Jakobas Vindsbergis ↓). Many of the photographer’s surviving prints can be found among the collections of museums, other cultural institutions throughout Lithuania and abroad, and digitised on LIMIS. By sheer luck, a photograph of Mr. Buchalteris’ somewhat rickety wooden studio survives in the Marijampolė Regional Museum. Known to have been located in the city centre, where everything was destroyed by the Luftwaffe and/or local looters on and around June 22, 1941, it’s not hard to understand why so few original glass plate negatives by any pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographers are known to survive.

BUCHALTERIS & VINDSBERGIS

The Marijampolė photographers Movšė Buchalteris (↑) and Jakobas Vindsbergis (↓) appear to have run a photography studio together for a while during the early 1920s.

ELEKTRO PHOTO-ATELJĖ MODERN

Modern

See Abramas Pimšteinas (↓).

FOTOSTUDIO

See Jakobas Vindsbergis (↓).

JUDELIS FRIDBERGAS

Jakov, Jakovas, Fridberg, Friedberg

✡

Born in the tiny village of Pinigėliai near Panevėžys in about 1890, and allegedly settling in Marijampolė four decades later, nothing much is known about Judelis Fridbergas’ life at all. Becoming a photographer in about 1924, and marrying (for the second time) a wealthy and much younger woman by the name of Berta Kaminarskaitė on August 28, 1934, it’s written in some sources that his photography studio at Laisvės g. 3 was destroyed by the Luftwaffe during first few days of the war. Conversely, it’s also been noted by the Lithuanian photographer and photo historian Stanislovas Žvirgždas that it was the only photography studio in Marijampolė to survive the German invasion, and that the local municipality subsequently ‘offered’ it to the city’s non-Jewish photographers after Mr. Fridbergas was murdered. A selection of photographs representing Mr. Fridbergas’ diverse range of work can be seen here.

LEJB FRYZYNSKI

✡

Born in 1910. Believed to have been the son of M. Frizinskis (↓).

M. FRIZINSKIS

✡

A student of Abramas Pimšteinas (↓), the photographer M. Frizinskis operated the Rojal photography studio (↓) at Vytauto g. 17. A single surviving example of his work, dated April 8, 1941, can be seen here. The M. is said to have stood for Moshe. Lejb Fryzynski’s (↑) father.

V. HOMAN

Possibly the same person as the Riga photographer V. Homann, who was active at around the turn of the 20th century.

MOSHE IAKOBSON

✡

Born in about 1914.

LEIBA LEPOLADSKIS

Recorded as having owned and operated a photography studio at Vilkaviškio g. 4 in 1922.

SHEPSEL NALICKIS

Shabtai-Hirsh Nalizki 

✡

Born in Suwałki in about 1916. An active Zionist within the Brit Kanaim organisation, although Mr. Nalickis is recorded as having emigrated to Palestine on March 20, 1935, it seems that his visit to the Holy Land was a brief one, and that he met the same fate as several other photographers in the city. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for more information.

NAUJA FOTOGRAFIJA

See Jakobas Vindsbergis (↓).

ABRAMAS PIMŠTEINAS

Abram/Abrom Pimstein, Fimshtein

✡ 

The son of a Jewish baker from Kalvarija, Abramas Pimšteinas was born in about 1910. Learning his craft at an unknown location in Kaunas as well as under the supervision of the legendary Marijampolė photographer Movšė Buchalteris (↑), Mr. Pimšteinas, who married a young woman by the name of Sara Dobsanskytė on March 8, 1936, is believed to have operated photography studios at Bažnyčios g. 1 and Vytauto g. 28, of which one or both was known by the flamboyant name of Elektro Photo-Ateljė Modern (↑), and that was famed throughout the region for possessing the finest German-produced equipment. It’s also been noted that Mr. Pimšteinas became a teacher himself, and that learning to become a photographer under his tutelage took three years to complete, and cost 500 Lithuanian litas. A photograph of Abramas standing outside one of his photography studios in the company of his then student, Chaim David Ratner (↓), can be seen here. The photograph appears to have been taken in around 1930.

CHAIM DAVID RATNER

Ratneris

✡ 

Born in 1914 and a former student of Abramas Pimšteinas (↑), Chaim David Ratner is believed to have operated a small photography studio at Kęstučio g. 17. A prisoner in the Kovno Ghetto after moving to Kaunas at an unknown date, Mr. Ratner’s experiences in the Lithuanian army during the mid-1930s led to him join the ghetto’s Jewish underground resistance organisation as a military instructor, a decision that would ultimately lead to his death in combat in July 1944. A few of his surviving photographs from Marijampolė are held among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai. Some of his Kovno Ghetto photographs, of which some may have been mistakenly attributed to George Kadish/Zvi Kadushin (see Kaunas ↑), can be found online. 

ROJAL

As in Royal. See M. Frizinskis (↑).

SOLOMON TIASBA

Salman, Zalmanas, Tiazba, Tiasbe

✡

Born in 1898. Listed in some places as having run a photography studio at Bažnyčios g. 1, and in others at Bažnyčios g. 3. Suffering from increasingly bad eyesight, Mr. Tiasba, who was murdered in 1941, apparently retired from photography in the late 1930s and moved into the fruit business. Possibly the same person as the Lazdijai photographer Zalmanas Tezba (↑).

JAKOBAS VINDSBERGIS

✡

Born in Vilkaviškis in 1890. Another former student of Movšė Buchalteris (↑). Opened his first known photography studio, Nauja Fotografija (↑), at Vytauto g. 21 in about 1926. About 12 years later, he opened the Foto Studio photography studio (↑), which, being supplied with electricity and therefore being able to provide extra artificial lighting, enabled him to produce much better quality negatives that he had complete control over. Examples of Mr. Vindsbergis’ original photographic prints are known to survive among the collections at the Panevėžys Regional Museum and the Ukmergė Regional Museum.

MAŽEIKIAI

Mazheik מאַזשײק

Quite a story (↓). 

HIRŠA GURVIČIUS

Girsh, Girshas

✡

Born in Telšiai in about 1888 (some sources state 1891). After studying photography while living in forced exile in Saratov during the First World War, Mr. Gurvičius established his first photography studio in his father’s house at Laisvės g. 8 in Mažeikiai in about 1920. Married Fruma née Braudaitė (↓), a paediatrician from Kaunas, in 1924. Not particularly religious, it’s said that he did at least attend synagogue every Friday, when his assistant, a non-Jew by the name of Kostas Bužokas, would accompany him to the door, carrying his copy of the Talmud for him so as to not break Shabbat law. One of the most respected and well-known figures in Mažeikiai during the interwar period, Hirša Gurvičius’ business was nationalised by the Soviets, where after he moved to Kaunas in 1940 or 1941 (whether the move was forced or not remains unknown). Along with Fruma and the couple’s two young daughters, Bela and Eta, Mr. Gurvičius was imprisoned in the Kovno Ghetto. All three women are known to have survived the experience, thanks in part to several Lithuanians who helped hide the girls. Fruma Gurvičienė later wrote about the family’s survival in a 1967 article when it’s believed she was already living in Israel, in which she mentioned that the photographer’s glass plate negatives were stolen and wiped clean with vinegar by a local family, who used them to build cloches for their vegetable garden. Fruma also wrote a book after she emigrated to Israel. It’s also mentioned in one source that the Lithuanian photographer Pranas Vaišnoras ‘moved into’ Mr. Gurvičius’ Mažeikiai photography studio during the war. A single document held in the Arolsen Archives notes that the photographer entered Dachau on July 15, 1944, and that he was murdered there four months later on November 10. See also Kaunas (↑) and below (↓).

Fruma Gurvičienė 

Fruma (sometimes Frume) Gurvičienė, née Braudė/Braudaitė, was born in Kovno/Kaunas on October 23, 1899. A trained doctor, Fruma married the Vilna/Vilnius-born photographer Hirša Gurvičius (↑) in Kaunas on October 9, 1924. Hirša ran a popular and successful photography business in Mažeikiai during the interwar period, and the couple had two daughters, Bella, born in about 1925, and Etta, born in about 1929. For reasons that currently remain unclear, Fruma’s husband was persecuted during the first Soviet occupation, and the whole family were almost certainly forced to move to Kaunas, an event that would ultimately save most of their lives. At around the same time as the Kovno Ghetto Kinderaktion (see Glossary) towards the end of March 1944, Fruma set about the task of trying to save not only her two daughters, but also her young niece, Naomi, the daughter of Fruma’s sister and brother-in-law, of whom both were murdered on a currently unknown date. Smuggling at least one of the girls out under one of the legendary sacks of potatoes, Fruma found homes for everyone. Her eldest daughter, Bella, was initially saved the wife of the former head of the Provisional Government, Ona Landsbergienė. Fruma and all three girls/young women survived. Her husband entered Dachau on July 15, 1944, and was murdered there a few months later on November 10. Fruma eventually emigrated to Israel, where she wrote her memoirs (in Hebrew), Recollections of a Doctor. More to follow.

MERKINĖ

Meretsh מערעטש

A bit of background.

KHANA FUNK

Chana, Hanka, Kabacznik, Fink

✡

Born Khana Kabacznik in 1895. Known affectionately as Hanka. Not entirely clear for how long she lived and worked in Merkinė. What’s known for sure is that at some time after the First World War she moved to the newly independent Polish city of Lublin and married the photographer Eljasz (sometimes Elijah, or just Eli) Funk, who was born on October 18, 1886, and who operated the Bernardi photography studio at ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 60 in the centre of the city. Along with their son, Tzemakh, Khana and Eljasz were murdered on an unknown date at Majdanek in 1941 or 1942. An amazing collection of surviving photographs featuring all three members of the Funk family can be seen by clicking on the relevant names/links on this page on the Yad Vashem website. 

JUDELIS MILERAS

Yehuda, Judelio Milero

✡

Born in Skidzyelʹ/Skidel in what's today’s western Belarus in 1880. Simselis Mileris’ (↓) father. There remains much confusion concerning the two photographers to the point that the surviving examples of their work are rather muddled up. One or both of them is/are believed to have operated a photography studio somewhere on the central marketplace.

SIMSELIS MILERIS

Mileras

✡

Born in 1907. Judelis Mileras’ (↑) son. 

MOLĖTAI

Malat מאַליאַט

Wikipedia.

JUDEL IBEDAS

See Širvintos (↓).

MOSĖDIS

Maishad מײַסיאַד

Some interesting information online here.

HELENA GITKINDAITĖ-ZORAN

✡

Born Helena Gitkindaitė in about 1910. Married Faivel Zoran, a miller from Kantaučiai, on February 7, 1938. Believed to have operated a photography studio somewhere on Bažnyčios g. during the 1930s. Murdered in the Jewish cemetery in Kretinga in July 1941.

MALKA SEKOLEKTORAITĖ

Sekolektor

✡

Born in 1906. Nothing is currently known about the activities of the photographer Malka Sekolektoraitė, although it’s recorded that she operated a small photography studio on Kęstučio g. and that she was murdered in the Jewish cemetery in Kretinga in July 1941. Several of Malka’s surviving photographic prints are held among the collection at the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius. See also the Mosėdis Shtetl Project website for more information, including the only known surviving photograph of Malka herself. 

MUSNINKAI

Musnik מוסניק

JOSEF LANCEVICKIS

✡

See Kaunas (↑).

NEMAKŠČIAI

Nemoksht נעמאָקשט

A very interesting history here.

BERTA KATSNELENBOGEN

Pumpiansky

Born in Vilna in 1859. Listed as having been working in Nemakščiai in 1894.

NEMENČINĖ

Nementchin נעמענטשין

KALMAN APATOW

Apat

Born on April 5, 1907. Recorded as having been a photographer on May 29, 1922.

PABRADĖ

Podbrodz פּאָדבראָדז

As I remember.

MOZES FEJGENBERG

May have worked here before moving to Wilno/Vilnius in the early 1920s. See also Vilnius (↓).

ABRAHAM ZAJDENBERG

Zaidenberg

Born on September 24, 1889. Active in 1922.

PAKRUOJIS

Pokroy פּאָקראָי

The Jewish population of Pakruojis peaked at the turn of the 20th century, when there were approximately 2,000 Jews living there. By the time the Nazis occupied the town on June 28, 1941, more than 75 percent had already left the country in search of better and more peaceful lives in South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, Palestine and elsewhere. During the first days of the Nazi German occupation, a group of Jews from the town were sent to Šiauliai. More were shot on July 10, and the rest were murdered a few weeks later (probably on August 4) by a group of Lithuanian white armbanders and German soldiers in the nearby forest. Contemporary reports state that these final killings were photographed (presumably by the Germans), and that there was a party afterwards to celebrate the event. The white armbanders were allegedly paid 100 roubles each for their work.

A. SKOKA

A single known studio photograph from 1913 survives among the collection at the Maironis Museum of Lithuanian Literature in Kaunas.

RACHEL ELJASON

Rakhel Eljasonaitė

✡

Born on July 29, 1910. It’s not entirely clear whether Rachel was a photographer or if she owned a shop that sold photographic supplies. Or both. In a 1931 document, she described herself as a 'tradeswoman'.

The Lion on the Ceiling

It’s believed that there were somewhere in the region of 150 wooden synagogues of all shapes, sizes and degrees of sophistication in Lithuania before the Second World War, with less than 20 surviving today, all of them now used for other purposes or abandoned, yet they still make up the largest collection in any one country in the world. The number was set to reduce by one more in 2009 when the abandoned wooden synagogue in Pakruojis in northern Lithuania (constructed in 1801, and the oldest surviving synagogue in the country) ‘burned down’, but thankfully an extensive ethnographic study of the building in 1938 led by the Jewish lexicographer Chackel Lemchen (see also Papilė ↓), complete with drawings, photographs and other documents that are today stored in the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai, meant it was possible to faithfully rebuild it—albeit without the bimah and the Torah ark. Opened as a combined children’s library, multipurpose arts venue and small museum in 2013, the building, which measures 16m x 12m, is decorated throughout with wonderful naïve and authentic folk art motifs, biblical themes and more. 

PALANGA

Polangen פּאַלאָנגע

Very interesting.

J. BLOK

Bloch

One of the photographer’s prints from 1932 is held among the collection at the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius.

HENIA DAVIDOVITZ

✡

Murdered in 1941.

WULF HEIMAN

Heyman

Born in Palanga on June 18, 1870. Known to have been active in Riga in about 1919. Whether Mr. Heiman ever worked in Palanga remains a mystery.

PANDĖLYS 

Ponedel פּאָנעדעל

Here.

DAVID BEDEK

✡

Born in 1915. May have also worked in Kaunas.

O. ČADOVIČIUS

Active in the 1930s. The O possibly stands for Orcikas. A small number of the photographer’s original prints are held among the collections of several museums in Lithuania. Most photographs appear to have been taken in a very rudimentary/makeshift photography studio. A couple of examples are here.

HAIM GILUC

Chaim Giluts

Recorded as being a photographer on returning with his family from enforced exile in Voronezh in 1921.

PANEMUNIS

Ponim

Read Matilda Olkinaitė’s Unlocked Diary if you can.

MEJERIS JOFFĖ

Three original prints by the photographer are held among the collection at the Rokiškis Regional Museum. See also Kėdainiai (↑).

PANEVĖŽYS

Ponevezh פּאָנעװעזש

A couple of pictures by Sara Traub.

ROCHA ZELDA BENIAMINAVICH

Rokha, Benjaminavičiūtė

Born in 1915. Registered at Tilto g. 6 in 1933.

MOVSHA-MORDCHEL BERKOVICH

Born on March 27, 1914. Registered at Respublikos g. 49 in 1931.

BEREL GIRSH BINGER

Born in Raguva in 1915. Known to have been working as a photographer in 1939. The location of his business however remains a mystery.

MEIER BIRMAN

Born in about 1892.

ABEL EIDELSHTEIN

See Šiauliai (↓). 

SHULAMIT FRIDAITĖ 

Fried

✡

Recorded as having been born in Krekenava on December 20, 1913 (or possibly 1916). Icikas Fridas’ (↓) and Chana Fridienė’s (↓) daughter.

ICIKAS FRIDAS

Icik, Itsyk, Berel, Fried, Friedas

✡

Born in about 1883. Chana Fridienė’s (↓) husband and Shulamit Fridaitė’ (↑) father. Operated a photography studio at Bataliono g. 2 in 1925. A number of his original prints survive among the collection at the Panevėžys Regional Museum. Known to have worked with an artist by the name of M. Gendelis (↓). The same person as Itsik Berel Frid in Pasvalys (↓)?

CHANA FRIDIENĖ

✡

Born Chana Jofe in Joniškėlis in about 1889. Icikas Fridas’ (↑) wife and Shulamit Fridaitė’s (↑) mother.

M. GENDELIS

Artist connected with the work of the Panevėžys photographers Icikas Fridas (↑) and Aron Gutner (↓). An example of his extraordinarily detailed work, in this case on an image from the photography studio of Aron Gutner (↓), can be seen here. What the M stands for is unknown.

MOTEL GER

Born in about 1890. Active in about 1910.

BENCION GLAZERY

Gencel

Opened a photography studio at a currently unknown address in about 1875. Reported to have emigrated to the United States after the building in which it was located burned down.

MENAKHEM GLOČEVSKIS

Golotchevski

Born in 1905. Applied for an internal passport on December 9, 1925. Almost certainly the son of the Krakės photographer, Simkha Leyba Golochevsky (↑).

YANKEL GOR

Born in Seredžius on July 15, 1881, Mr. Gor is recorded as having been working as a photographer in April 1900. See also Jacob Gor in Ukmergė (↓).

LEIBA GREISERIS

Leibas

✡

Leiba Greiseris is understood to have emigrated to South Africa in 1905, where he earned enough money in order to return to Panevėžys and open a photography studio at Respublikos g. 12 in about 1921. Despite acquiring British citizenship during his 16-year absence from Lithuania, it seems that he decided to stay in Lithuania as the Second World War moved increasingly closer to the Baltic States, a decision that ultimately cost him his life during the summer of 1941. Several of Mr. Greiseris’ original prints can be found among the collection at the Panevėžys Regional Museum. 

ARON GUTNER

A. Gutneras, Aronas Gutneris

Born in 1889 in Žasliai. Well known for his formal studio portraits, and believed to have been working since at least 1925. Many of Mr. Gutner’s photographs are held among the collection at the Panevėžys Regional Museum. 

HERMAN JAKOLEVAS

Yakolev

Born in Salamiestis in 1905. Active in 1920. Pinkhus’ (↓) brother.

PINKHUS JAKOLEVAS

Yakolev

Born in Salamiestis in about 1893. Active in 1920. Herman’s (↑) brother.

BARNEY JOFFE

Born in Panevėžys in 1889. Emigrated to South Africa in about 1906. Obviously not born Barney. It’s also unlikely that Mr. Joffe was already working as a photographer when he left Lithuania, unless perhaps he was related to Israel Jofė (↓).

ISRAEL JOFĖ

Yoffe, Jofas

Born in April 1902. Active in 1921. Became a British citizen in 1932. Almost certainly the Israel Joffe who passed away on October 18, 1993, and who lies at rest in the Pardes Shalom Cemetery in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.

M. KATSAS

Mr. Katsas’ music and photographic supplies shop at Laisvės al. 41 (today Laisvės al. 75) is recorded as having been nationalised by the Soviets on November 26, 1940. 

A. KERBELIS

Ran a studio at Vasario 16-osios g. 7. Known to have been working in 1940. Some of his original prints can be found among the collection at the Panevėžys Regional Museum.

JOSEPH KLIACHKO

See Kudirkos Naumiestis (↑).

VULF KRIGERAS

Krieger

Born in 1908. Known to have been working in 1925. 

ZALMAN LEIBMAN

Libman

✡

Born in 1918.

LEIB LEIZEROVITCH

Born in about 1904. Registered at Siauroji g. 5 in 1920.

MAUSHA LIUBIČAS

Lubich

✡

Probably born in Grodno in about 1885.

IAKOV MARIAMPOLSKI

Born in Panevėžys on November 17, 1926, Mr. Mariampolski is recorded as having been working as a photographer in 1940. Other sources note that he was in prison, and that he was deported to Siberia, presumably on or around June 14, 1941 It’s also noted that he passed away in Panevėžys on July 25, 1996.

MARSAS

See H. Spingis (↓).

MATYR

At some point between 1911 and 1914, a 29-year-old woman by the name of Khana Matyr identified herself as being married to a photographer, first name not recorded.

ZELMAN MATYS

Possibly the mysterious photographer Matyr (↑). See also Pasvalys (↓).

MENDEL MEJEROWICZ

Under circumstances that remain unclear to say the least, Mendel Mejerowicz worked for a while during the 1890s using a licence/permit that he stole from his former teacher, a Mr. Szleifer from Panevėžys.

SHAYA LEIBA PAGERAS

Pager

Born in 1901. Listed as being a photographer in 1921. 

DAVID RICAS

Ritz

Born on July 8, 1901.

SHEVEL RIVKINDAS

Rivkind

Born in Šimoniai in about 1905. 

ISAAK SINAYSKY

Born in Vilna in about 1878.

LEIBA SLONIMSKIS

Leiba Slonimsky

Originally a draughtsman, Leiba Slonimskis is known to have applied for a permit/licence to become a professional photographer in 1903. An active and conscientious member of the local Jewish community, his name appears in relation to all sorts of activities, and it’s recorded that among other things he was involved in a Jewish aid society for the poor, and that he was on the board of the local volunteer firemen’s society. Surviving examples of his original photographs are held among various collections at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai and elsewhere. Mr. Slonimskis is also known to have operated a photography studio in partnership with someone by the name of M. Pugačevskis/Pugachevsky early in his career. A single surviving photograph from the duo can be seen here.

BENYAMIN HIRSH SMOLNIKAS

Smolnick

Born in Kupiškis on June 17, 1907. Registered as working as a photographer in Panevėžys on January 9, 1926.

H. SPINGIS

Ran the Marsas photography studio (↑) at Plukių g. 1. 

ZELDA TEPER

✡

Born Zelda Fridberg in Panevėžys in about 1894, Mrs. Teper is known to have been active in 1936. 

JANKELIS TRAKMANAS

Yankel Trakman

Born in Krekenava in about 1874. First recorded as operating a photography studio somewhere on today’s Šeduvos g. in 1905. Is known to have still been working as a professional photographer in 1924. Other photography studio addresses included Laisvės a. 34 and Respublikos g. 44. 

SARA TRAUB

Traubė

✡

Born in 1878. The daughter of a wealthy merchant, Sara Traub was issued with a photography permit/license from the Russian authorities on January 21, 1900. Her photography studio was located at a currently unknown location on Marijos g. (today’s Smetonos g.). A couple of Sara’s original studio portraits are held among the collection at the Panevėžys Regional Museum (see city introduction for digital copies ↑). Although she appears to have been known as Traub, her biirth name, her married name was Bliumenshtrausch.

ITSYK TSYNOBER

Born in about 1891.

YOVNE YANKELEVICH

Jankelevičius

Born in 1914. Active in 1932. 

PAPILĖ

Popelyan פּאָפּעליאַן

CHACKEL LEMCHEN

Chackelis Lemchenas

Renowned lexicographer, linguist, ethnographer, photo enthusiast, former student of Jonas Jablonskis and survivor of the Kovno Ghetto, 1904-2001. A photograph of Mr. Lemchen with his twin lens reflex camera inside the Summer Synagogue in Pakruojis in 1938 is here. See also The Lion on the Ceiling (Pakruojis ↑) for more. 

PASVALYS

Posvol פּאָסװאָל

More here.

ICIK CHAITAS

Icikas

✡

Born in Saločiai in 1904, Icik Chaitas apparently started taking photographs during the late 1920s. The brother of the photographer, Dora Chaitaitė (see Saločiai ↓), it’s known he was living and working at Biržų g. 10 in Pasvalys in 1937, three years after moving to the town in about 1934. One of Mr. Chaitas’ surviving photographic prints is known to be held among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai. A listing in the 1937 Lithuanian telephone directory mentions that as well as being a photographer, Icik also ran a small shop that sold radios and electrical equipment, a popular way of bringing in some extra money in the Lithuanian provinces during the interwar period, where professional photographers weren’t as busy as their counterparts working in large towns and cities. For reasons that remain unclear, Icik became a prisoner in the Šiauliai Ghetto, where he was recorded as last being alive on May 27, 1942. 

ITSIK BEREL FRID

Born in about 1885. The same person as Icikas Fridas in Panevėžys (↑)?

H. KERBAL

Operated a photography studio at Vytauto a. 17. Surviving copies of his photographs are held among the collections at the Panevėžys Regional Museum and the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai.

ZELMAN MATYS

Photo enthusiast. Born in about 1888. See also Panevėžys (↑).

PIKELIAI

Pikeln פּיקעלן

Some basic background on Wikipedia.

ITSYK NAKHMAN

Recorded as working as a photographer in 1892. Described as well-to-do.

PILVIŠKIAI

Pilvishok פּילווישאָק

The fate of the town’s Jews.

RAFAEL VINERAS

Viner

✡

See Kaunas (↑).

PLUNGĖ

Plungyan פלונגיאן

Beginnings.

MENDELIS MOVŠA BERKOVIČIUS

Michaelis

✡

Born in Ludza in the eastern part of Latvia when it was occupied by the Russians in 1881, nothing is known about the first few years of Mendelis Berkovičius’ life and photographic training, except that on October 21, 1903, he was issued with a photography license/permit that enabled him to open a photography studio inside a small wooden house that apparently still stands in Plungė at today’s Vytauto g. 6a. Locally renowned for photographing everyone from members of Plungė’s interwar Jewish community to Catholic priests to the local Jewish football team, on July 15, 1941, Mr. Berkovičius, who was married with two children, is believed to have been locked inside a synagogue along with many other of the town’s Jews, after which there are several conflicting versions of exactly how and when he was murdered. A selection of Mendelis’ surviving photographs can be seen here. 

ZLATA CHATIMLIANSKIENĖ

Chotimlianskienė 

✡

Born in 1912. Šula Chatimlianskienė’s sister-in-law (see Anykščiai ↑). Recorded as still being alive in the 1942 Šiauliai Ghetto census. Murdered at an unknown location on an unknown date. See also Mordchelis Chotimlianskis in Siauliai (↓). 

B. GLIKMANAS

A single photograph from 1938 featuring Plungė’s Hapoel (Worker) football team that’s kept among the collection at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius is recorded as having been taken by B. Glikmanas.

PUŠALOTAS

Pushelat פֿושאַלאַט

A small settlement, as Mr. Fergizas’ multiple occupations suggest (↓).

J. FERGIZAS

Photographer, carpenter and repairer of radios and bicycles.

RADVILIŠKIS

Radvilishok ראַדווילישאָק

Here.

A. Š. BURŠTEINAS

Burštein

Ran or possibly just owned the Modern photography studio (↓) on unknown dates at Šeduvos g. 3 and Dariaus ir Girėno g. 4. At least one of his photographic prints (from the latter studio) survives among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai. Further research strongly suggests that the person in question was Abe Šliomas Burštein, who was born in Kovno/Kaunas in 1901, and whose name crops up in various places in connection with photography in interwar Lithuania. His 1922 internal passport states that he was a trader. 

YUDEL LIBERMAN

Judelis Joselis Libermanas

Born in about 1879. Operated a photography studio at Šeduvos g. 16. Known to have been active in 1930 and 1931. Mr. Liberman passed away on February 6, 1938. A single surviving example of his work appears to be kept among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai.

GUTMANAS LIBERMANAS

Gutman Lieberman

Recorded as having owned a photography studio at an unknown date at Maironio g. 20. The address dates the event to sometime between 1920 and 1940. 

MODERN

See A. Š. Buršteinas (↑).

RAGUVA

Rogeve ראָגעווע

Read this.

I. GROSAS

J. Grosas, Gross, Grosso

One of the many pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographers whose memory survives almost exclusively in the photographs they produced, examples of Mr. Grosas’ work, including the only known image of the former wooden synagogue in Raguva, are held among the collections at the Panevėžys Regional Museum and the Ukmergė Regional Museum. 

HENOKH STEINAS

Shtein

Active in 1926, when he was recorded as being 16 years old.

RASEINIAI 

Raseyn ראַסיין

A very rare photograph of the Lithuanian Jewish photographer, Chaim Tellem (↓) c.1917. The photo also includes the German Jewish artist Jacob Steinhardt, who's photograph it originally was, and who served in Lithuania during Germany’s occupation of the country during the First World War. The location is somewhere in Raseiniai. The third person is unknown.

ISER BANK

See Šiauliai (↓). 

ARYE DAVIDAVICH

Born in 1912. Nothing is currently known about Mr. Davidavich, other than he was imprisoned by the NKVD, and that he served in the (in)famous 16th Division of the Red Army.

GILEL ERUZALIM

Born in 1889. Recorded as having been a photographer in 1903.

GOVŠA GLEZER

See Panevėžys (↑). 

HIRŠA GRINBERGAS

✡

See Tauragė (↓).

J. KACEVAS

Kacew

✡

Born in about 1910. Several photographs bearing the stamp ‘J. Kacevo, Raseiniai, Maironio g.’ survive in a number of different locations, although little else is known about the photographer. The address shows that Mr. Kacevas was active during the interwar period. The photographer was murdered along with his wife, Breina, and the couple’s three-year-old son, Zelig, in 1941.

MORDUKH KAPLANAS

Born in about 1905. Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine with his fiancée, Mina, in December 1934. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for more information.

TSEMAKH KAPLAN

Born in 1886 or 1887. Known to have been active between at least 1903 and 1910. A surviving example of his studio mark notes the address as ul. Senat/Senatorskaja (today’s Vytauto Didžiojo g.).

MEJER KOPEL KUSZELUK

Opened a photography studio at a currently unknown location in 1868.

LEIBA MEIER LEBENSZTEJN

Generally believed to have been the first photographer in Raseiniai, where he worked between 1866 and 1868. See Telšiai (↓) for more information.

ILIA YAKOV LEVIN

Born in about 1895. Active in 1915, the year he appears to have been drafted into the Russian army.

M. LIUDGINAS

Mauša Liudginas’ photography studio was located at Maironio g. 6, and is known to have been operating in 1936.

FAIWUSZ LUNC

See Šiauliai (↓)

JOSEF MEL

✡

Born in 1914. Somehow related to Sonia Tellem (↓).

MODERN

See Chaim Tellem (↓).

MAUŠA RUBINŠTEINAS

Morris Rubinstein

✡

Born in about 1890. Known to have been working in 1927 and 1932.

CHAIM J. SACHS

The well-known Šiauliai studio photographer Chaim Zaks (↓) operated this business using a French-sounding version of his name, somewhere on ul. Senat/Senatorskaja (today’s Vytauto Didžiojo g.) before the First World War.

CHAIM TELLEM

Khaim Nosel, Tilin, Tilim, Tellen, Telem

Born in 1884. His studio mark from before the First World War refers to him as Ch. O. Tellem (the O is apparently for Ovsey). Known to have operated the Modern photography studio, on Senatorių g. (today’s Vytauto Didžiojo g.), in about 1916. Chaim’s wife, Sonia née Mel (↓), was born in about 1889, and is sometimes also listed in historical records as having been a photographer like her husband. Several surviving prints from the Modern photography studio can be found among the collection at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai. Considerably more interesting perhaps is that not only does a photograph of the photographer survive, the image in question is from a collection of photographs that belonged to the German Jewish artist Jacob Steinhardt, who appears to have been stationed in Raseiniai/Rossieny during the First World War. Even better news can be found in an archive document that records the fact that Mr. Tellem’s parents, Gabriel, a retired lawyer, and Elisheva, both of them 76 years old, made Aliyah on June 18, 1929, sailing on the Italian passenger ship Carnaro. The document also notes that Gabriela and Elisheva were on their way to join Chaim and Sonia, who along with their children were already living in Palestine.

SONIA TELLEM

See Chaim Tellem (↑).

YUVAL WEISS

✡

Born in 1915. Murdered in 1941.

DOVYDAS ZOLINAS

Dovyd Zolin

✡

Born in about 1880. Nachumas Zolinas’ (↓) father. Remembered as being one of the more interesting and creative Lithuanian Jewish photographers of the time, Dovydas Zolinas originally operated a traditional photographic studio with a glazed roof and no artificial lighting, and also photographed everyday life in the streets in and around Raseiniai until at least 1937. Along with the other Jewish residents of the town, Mr. Žolinas was murdered during the summer of 1941. A few of his surviving photographic prints are held in several institutions in Lithuania, including the Panevėžys Regional Museum and the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai. A small selection can be seen here.

NACHUMAS ZOLINAS

Born in 1920. Dovydas Zolinas’ (↑) son. Although it’s a known fact that Mr. Zolinas survived the Holocaust, the story of how he survived, and what he did after the war, are conflicting and contradictory to say the least. What seems to be undisputable is that he was saved by at least three Lithuanians, and that at some point he left the country. It’s also believed that he worked as a press photographer at some point. For whom remains a mystery. 

RIETAVAS

Riteve ריטעווע

Interesting history.

GITA EPEL

Volfovitz, Epelienė

✡

Married to Aaronas Epelis (↓). Believed to have been murdered in Telšiai.

AARONAS EPELIS

Aaron Epel

✡

As well as being a professional photographer in his own right, Aaronas Epelis also taught photography to young students who wanted to enter the profession. Known to have been active in 1933. Several of Mr. Epelis’ original prints survive among the collection at the Alka Museum of Samogitian History in Telšiai, the town in which it’s believed the photographer was murdered. A small selection of photographs from his studio can be seen here. Possibly related to Volfas Ipelis (↓). Married to Gita Epel (↑), née Volfowitz.

MOSES GOLDBERGAS

Mausha, Moische, Alte, Goldberg

✡

Born in about 1908. Registered as being a photographer on February 28, 1935. Murdered in Telšiai.

VOLFAS IPELIS

Possibly active in 1932. No other information is currently available. Ipelis and Epelis (↑) are almost certainly different transcriptions of the same family name. Possibly related to Aaronas Epelis (↑).

DORA LIPŠICAITĖ

Dina Krengel

✡

See Endriejavas (↑).

J. RŽEŠANSKIS 

Rzešauskis

Displayed no less than 23 photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933.

ROKIŠKIS

Rakishok ראַקישאָק

Overview of the destruction.

CHAIM FINKEL

Finkelis

Two of the photographer’s original (and very different) prints are known to survive in Lithuanian institutions. The first is a wonderfully moody 1936 portrait of an unknown young woman that’s held among the collection at the Rokiškis Regional Museum. The second features a collection of photographs of 41 corroded metal items that were dug up during an archaeological expedition to a former village by the name of Černiai, 50 kilometres south of Rokiškis. Dated July 11, 1928, it would be fascinating to find out how Mr. Finkel, whose life and work remain a total mystery, end up working on such a project.

SARAH FINKEL

✡

Born in 1906. Moved to Utena on a currently unknown date. Related to Chaim?

MORDECHAI GERMAN

Born in 1901. Operated one of the most popular photography studios in the city. Emigrated to South Africa in about 1935. A small selection of his surviving photographs can be seen here.

REIZA GERMANIENĖ

Raisa

✡

Although Mrs. Germanienė is recorded as having been running a photography studio at Kamajų g. 3. in 1932, it’s not entirely clear whether she was working there as a photographer or if she just owned the business. 

IZAOKAS KLINGMANAS

✡

See Naujiena (↓).

NAUJIENA

The Naujiena photography studio and photographic supplies shop on the ground floor of the Hotel Europe at Nepriklausomybės a. 18-5b was owned and operated by Izaokas Klingmanas (↑), who was also available for basic photography lessons. The business is recorded as having been nationalised by the Soviets on November 18, 1940.

RENESANS

As in renaissance. See Jerachmiel Ruch (↓).

JERACHMIEL RUCH

Rakhmiel, Rukh

✡

According to some sources, Mr. Ruch, who was born in about 1892, owned the town’s Renesans (as in Renaissance) photography studio (↑). Whether he was actually a photographer or just a business owner remains a mystery.

SAMUEL SADUR

Born in about 1902. Listed as having been a photographer on returning from exile in Samara on April 7, 1921. 

NAFTALI SARVER

Serber, Toli

Interwar photographer. Known to have made some extremely rare colour photographs during the 1930s. A former student of Chanan Schneiderman (↓). It’s not entirely clear whether Mr. Sarver was from Rokiškis or Dusetos, although it is known that he survived the war, and passed away in Tel Aviv on April 27, 1980.

CHANAN SCHNEIDERMAN

Born in Molėtai in 1909, Mr. Schneiderman operated a photography studio in Rokiškis during the interwar period, where he also taught students, including the Dusetos photographer Micha Slep (↑). Displayed one photograph at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933. Survived the war under circumstances that remain anything but clear, and continued to work as a photographer, emigrating at an unknown pointn and operating a studio in Hadera. Appears to have been married to Reizel Šneidermanienė (↓).

ROZA SHULMAN

Born in Aknīste in Latvia in about 1892. Recorded as having been active in 1912.

REIZEL ŠNEIDERMANIENĖ

Rosa, Liba, Libka

✡

Born in 1906? Possibly the wife of Chanan Schneiderman (↑).

ELKANAH ŠNEIDERMANAS

Recorded as having emigrated to Palestine with his wife, Aviva, on August 5, 1935. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for more information.

LEIBA VINOKURAS

✡

Almost certainly the same Leiba Vinokur/Vinokuras who appears in some records as having been born in about 1888, and who’s believed to have also worked as a photographer in Dusetos. Several of the photographer’s original photographs survive in the Rokiškis Regional Museum and other institutions in Lithuania. Mr. Vinokuras’ photography studio is listed in an interwar telephone directory as having operated at Kamajų g. 3. Another record places the business at Respublikos g. 5. 

SZMUEL WINOKUR

✡

See Kaunas (↑).

RUMŠIŠKĖS

Rumshishok רומשישאָק

Just the one?

MENDELIS CODIKOVAS

Tsodikov

Born in about 1905. Active in 1938. 

ŠAKIAI 

Shaki שאַקי

Here is Šakiai.

SHLOMO FRUMAN

Froman

✡

Born in 1916. Murdered at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas.

SOLOMONAS GOLDINAS 

Known to have been active in 1932. 

SALAKAS 

Salok סאַלאָק

This is Salakas.

MOTKA GRUBIN

Motel

Born in Salakas in 1882. Known to have been active as a photographer in 1914. At some point, Mr. Grubin moved to Vilna/Wilno/Vilnius, where as well as marrying 22-year-old Khaia Sora Langfain on May 30, 1907, he’s also recorded in 1923 as having been a ‘printer’ living in the suburb of Zwierzyniec (today’s Žvėrynas) at ul. Mickiewicza 46-24 (today’s Mickevičiaus g.).

SALANTAI

Salant סאַלאַנט 

A collection of Mr. Olstein’s (↓) photographs and more information about his life and work can be found online (in Hebrew) here. 

ISRAEL ISSER OLSTEIN

Elizur

Born in Salantai in 1880. Made Aliyah in 1926. Passed away in 1978. A keen amateur photographer, Mr. Olstein spent some time travelling around Palestine with his camera before abandoning his hobby and becoming a farmer. His relatively small archive of about 300 photographic prints was later discovered by an old friend, and they’ve since become the focus of some attention. Nothing is currently known about the pictures he took in Lithuania before he emigrated.

SALOČIAI

Salat סאַלאַט

Established on a secondary trade route that links Pasvalys with Bauska, and cut in half by the north-south running Mūša river that relied on a ferry to transport anything bigger than a person across it until the first 'proper' bridge was constructed in 1930, Saločiai’s Jewish population began establishing itself at the beginning of the 19th century, 300 years or so after the town was first mentioned in written records in 1514. Barely a kilometre south of today’s Latvian border, and closer to Riga than Vilnius or Kaunas, with few exceptions most of the town’s Jews subsisted on a combination of agricultural work and various crafts whilst maintaining their faith inside a long-destroyed wooden synagogue and mikvah that sat close to the aforementioned river. Although accounts of the annihilation of the town’s Jewish community vary, the infamous Jäger Report records that on August 26, 1941, 1,358 Jewish men, women and children from a variety of local towns and villages, including Saločiai, were assembled together in Pasvalys, from where they were led on foot to a nearby forest and slaughtered.

DORA CHAITAITĖ

Khait, Chaitaitė-Šekienė

✡

Saločiai’s only professional photographer when the war came. A small selection of Dora’s surviving photographs can be seen here. See also the box below (↓).

ICIK CHAITAS

✡

See Pasvalys (↑). 

Dora

On an undisclosed afternoon in late July 1941, the small town of Salociai on the border with Latvia in north central Lithuania suddenly found itself liberated from a year of communism by a random group of Lithuanian ‘freedom fighters’ and some Nazis. The Red Army had fled, and Dora Chaitaitė’s life suddenly looked very different to one she’d been living just a few hours earlier. Saločiai’s only professional photographer, Dora, who was Jewish, was stripped naked, doused in petrol and set on fire. Also killed that summer were what seems to have been both her brothers—also photographers, living in neighbouring towns—and a lot of other Jewish photographers alongside everyone else. By the end of 1941, most Jewish photographers in Lithuania had met similar fates, their possessions also meeting a variety of similar destinies, including all their photo equipment. See The Elephant in the Darkroom (↓) for a growing collection of information about the organised theft and opportunistic looting that accompanied the murder.

ŠEDUVA

Shadeve שאַדעווע

Home to arguably the strangest museum in Lithuania.

LEIBA CYGANAS

Ran a photography studio during the early part of the 20th century. Possibly the same person as the Biržai photographer Abram Leiba Cygan (↑).

CH. FRIDAS

Nothing is currently known about Mr. Fridas, whose stamp appears on the reverse side of a single known photograph. The spelling of Fridas strongly suggests that the photographer was active during the interwar period. 

J. GERŠEIN

Nothing is currently known about Mr. Geršein, other than the fact that the photographer’s stamp was written in Yiddish. Possibly the same person as the Utena photographer Isaak Goršeinas (↓).

REMBRANDT

See A. Treskunov (↓).

A. TRESKUNOV

Appears to have operated the Rembrandt photography studio (↑) at the turn of the 20th century. The single known photograph that’s credited to him can be seen here. 

SEIRIJAI

Serey סערײ

Return to Serei.

A. FRIDMANAS

The mysterious Mr. Fridmanas is responsible for two surviving outdoor portraits dating from what appear to have been the 1930s, of which one is kept among the collection at the Lazdijai Regional Museum, and the other at the Kretinga Museum.

RAKHEL KAGANIŪTĖ

Rochel Lea Kagan

✡

Born in about 1912.

SEMELIŠKĖS

Semilishok סעמילישאָק

No introduction necessary?

BASĖ LEVINIENĖ

Bashe, Batia, Lancmanaitė, Lantsman, Lantzman

✡

Born in 1909, or possibly 1915. Married Shmuel Levinas, a hairdresser, in Kaunas on November 21, 1939. Unlike his photographer wife, Mr. Levinas is recorded as having survived the Holocaust, albeit under circumstances that remain unclear. 

SEREDŽIUS

Srednik סרעדניק

According to the JewishGen website, in 1937 there were a total of 28 Jewish men and women living in Seredžius who were engaged in commercial crafts/trades of one sort or another, including tailors, cobblers, bakers, barbers, butchers (a shochet isn’t mentioned), milliner, tinsmith, ‘stitcher’ and two photographers. Among the expensive Jewish-owned possessions that were taken to Germany by the Nazis after everyone was murdered was an extremely valuable Leica III camera. See The Elephant in the Darkroom (↓) for more.

DAVID GARBARAVIČIUS

Garbaravich, Gerberovich

✡

Born in Marijampolė between about 1912 and 1915. Active in 1934. Murdered in Kaunas. 

ISAAC GARBARAVIČIUS

Itzhak, Garbaravich, Gerberovich

Born in Marijampolė in about 1910. Received permission to move to Palestine with his wife, Basia, in 1937. See also Nauja Fotografija (↓).

NAUJA FOTOGRAFIJA

The handful of surviving photographs with this studio name on the reverse side are all credited to a photographer by the name of J. Garbaravičius, who must surely have been Isaac (↑)?

CHANA ŠERESIENĖ

Seres, Milnerytė

✡

Born Chana Rochel Milner in 1914. Married Zorachas Icikas Šeresas on January 16, 1937. Murdered along with her husband and the couple’s two-year-old daughter in 1941.

ŠIAULIAI

Shavl שאָװל

The first photographers and photography studios in Šiauliai are universally believed to have appeared in about 1863.

BERELIS ABRAMAVIČIUS

Berel Abramowicz, Ber

✡

Born in Kėdainiai in 1892 (also recorded as Baisogala in 1890... and 1882), Berelis Abramavičius is known to have run a photography studio at Tilžės g. 30 between 1911 and 1914, and again between 1918 and 1931. One of a tiny handful of Lithuanian Jewish photographers who are known to have worked as photojournalists before the Second World War (in his case for the local Mūsų Momentas newspaper), and also somehow connected with a photography studio at Vilniaus g. 213, along with his wife, Roza/Rosa (born 1888), and their son, David (born in about 1912), Mr. Abramavičius was issued an international passport on December 28, 1928, although it’s clear that the family never used it to emigrate. Although both the photographer and his son survived the Šiauliai Ghetto, where records suggest Berelis worked in a clerical position for the Judenrat, both perished at Dachau. The fate of Roza/Rosa remains unknown.

JANKELIS GIRŠA ARNSONAS

Iakov Arnson, Jankiel Aronson, Arnson, Arenson, Arenzon

Born at a currently unknown location in about 1851, Mr. Arsonas is recorded as having studied photography in Königsberg before briefly working as a photographer in Jurbarkas and Tauragė sometime around 1880. On October 24, 1884, he was issued with a license/permit (8996) to open the fabulously named Berlin Photographic Workshop (see also Szloma Perelman in Vilnius ↓) in Šiauliai, probably taking over the one that was previously owned by Hirsch Chab (↓) on the corner of today’s Vilniaus g. and Tilžės g. One of the city’s most celebrated studio photographers, he appears to have stopped operating his business in about 1914, i.e. around the time of the beginning of the First World War. It also seems more than likely that Jankelis was the son of Chaim Aronson (see Telšiai). 

M. BAKAS

Recorded as having owned and operated a photography studio at Vilniaus g. 217 between 1933 and 1940. A surviving photograph with a Bakas/Bako stamp also features a Pašto g. address, which may date from an earlier period soon after the end of the First World War when it’s believed Mr. Bakas ran a photography studio in partnership with Mordchelis Chotimlianskis (↓). Due to the spelling, it’s safe to say that M. Bakas was male.

ISER BEINES BANK

Born in about 1892. See also Raseiniai.

BERLIN PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKSHOP

See Jankelis Girša Arnsonas (↑) and Szloma Perelman in Vilnius (↓). No further information is currently available. 

NOKHUM BERMANT

Active in 1911. 

A. BLECHER

Operated a photography studio at Vilniaus g. 4. The same person as Abromas Blecheris in Butrimonys (↑)?

SHIMEN LEYBA BOER

Born in about 1893.

DOROTHY BOHM

See Klaipėda (↑).

BUDUAR

As in boudoir. See Giršas Rivkindas (↓).

HIRSCH CHAB

Giršas Chabasas, Girlicz Chabas

An earlyish pioneer, Hirsch Chab is known to have run a photography studio between 1874 and 1884. It’s thought that his studio was taken over by Jankelis Girša Arnsonas (↑).

RIVA CHAITAITĖ

✡

According to the May 27, 1942 list of prisoners in the Šiauliai Ghetto, Riva Chaitaitė was born in Russian exile in Samara on October 18, 1918. It’s also noted she worked as a photographer in the ‘photography workshop’ in the ghetto. Whatever this means remains something of a mystery to say the least. She was last seen alive at the Stutthof concentration camp when she was admitted on July 19, 1944. Nothing about her photography outside/before the ghetto has yet been found.

MORDCHELIS CHOTIMLIANSKIS

Chatimlianskis

✡

Born in Talachyn/Tolochin in what’s now Belarus in about 1915. Ran a photography studio at Vilniaus g. 166 from 1933 until the German invasion. Also worked with M. Bakas (↑) for some time. Closely related to Šula Chatimlianskienė (see Anykščiai ↑) and Zlata Chatimlianskienė (see Plungė ↑), although the exact connections between them remain unclear.

ABEL EIDELSHTEIN

Abel Girsza Eidelsztein, Girša Chackel

Owned and operated one of the first photography studios in the city, which was in business for a brief period between about 1863, the year the czarist authorities gave him an official licence/permit (number 843), and 1865. Mr. Eidelstein subsequently opened a photography studio in Panevėžys (↑) for an even shorter period in about 1866.

LEIZER ELIJOSIUS

Eliyosh

Born in 1904. Active in 1921. May have emigrated to South Africa?

BENJAMIN FELDMANAS

See Girša Beras Feldmanas (↓).

GIRŠA BERAS FELDMANAS

Hirsch Ber Feldman, Hersz Ber, Berel Girsza

Girša Beras Feldmanas owned a photography studio between 1893 and 1898. Although almost nothing is known about the photographer and his business, it’s recorded that he was issued with an official licence/permit (number 843) on July 20, 1893, which allowed him to photograph in the city and elsewhere. Also known to have taken photographs in Pasvalys and Varėna. Possibly the son or brother of Benjamin Feldmanas (↑), who also appears to have been a photographer.

B. FAIVUŠAS

Almost nothing is currently known, beyond the fact that Mr. Faivušas operated the Progres [sic] photography studio together with Mauša Fligelis (↓) just before the war. Much more interesting is the fact that the Progres photography studio’s address was Vilniaus g. 154, the same address as is written on this photograph dated May 30, 1944 from the photography studio of an obscure Lithuanian photographer named P. Čepulis. How did Mr. Čepulis get hold of the studio?

MAUŠA FLIGELIS

Although many of Mauša Fligelis’ (1910-2007?) original photographs survive to this day, most details about his life and work seem to have completely vanished from history. Known to have collaborated with B. Faivušas (↑) and Geršonas Zilbermanas (↓), a 1930 document in Yiddish also associates him with a photography studio called Menas (on Vilniaus g.). The few people who’ve written about the photographer all suggest that he was born in Šiauliai, despite the fact that there’s no evidence whatsoever to support it. In fact, Mr. Fligelis was born in Zarasai. More information coming soon. 

YANKEL GELIS

Yeckel, Gel

Born In 1911. Active in 1930. See also Žeimelis (↓).

DAVID GERUBER

Born in about 1890. Active in 1910.

GOVŠA GLEZER

Gowsiej, Owsiej, Gowsza

Operated a photography studio between 1865 and 1867, and again between 1872 and 1873. Fined by the Russian authorities for working without a license/permit during thee second period of activity in the city. Also associated with another photography studio in Raseiniai.

MAUSHA GUTMANAS

Yankel

Born in 1902. Owned a photography studio at Tilžės g. 135 between 1931 and 1940.

IZRAIL IOSSET

Born in about 1879.

MASHA JUDELVIČIENĖ

Yudelvich

Born in about 1911. Active in 1935.

JOSEL KAGAN

Joselis Kaganas 

Owned a photography studio between 1897 and 1898.

MORTCHEL KARPES

Karpis

Probably the second person to open a photography studio in the city, Mr. Karpes was issued a permit to work as a professional photographer from the Russian authorities in 1864. His studio is believed to have operated for 10 years, and was taken over by Hirsch Chab in 1874.

MEJER KANAS

Konas, Kon

Born in Berlin on January 13, 1893. Owned a photography studio at Lauko g. 26 during the interwar period. Worked as a photography technician in the Šiauliai Ghetto hospital. Last known to be alive along with his wife, Helena, and their son, Hans, on May 27, 1942.

ICIK KESLER

Icyk

Recorded as having owned a photography studio between 1870 and 1877. Some sources claim that he worked for only a few months, although others record him as still being active in 1886.

TZVI KRAVELISAS

Kravel

Born in about 1910. Active in 1933, the same year he was recorded as having emigrated to Palestine 

URIA KRIGER

Born in about 1887.

BERTHA LIBINIENĖ

Bertha, Libin

✡

Born Berta Novickaitė in Tauragė in about 1897. Married Nochimas Libinas on September 10, 1928. Active in 1929. Murdered at the Stutthof concentration camp sometime in 1944.

ELIJAS LIPŠICAS

Elijošius 

✡

Born in Šiauliai in 1888, Elijas Lipšicas is known to have operated a business at Tilžės g. 151 during the 1930s that at one time combined a photography studio, a photographic supplies shop and a processing and printing service in one. If records are to be believed, he also sold wine. Not only does the building in which the business was located still stand at the same address on the northwest corner of the junction with Vilniaus g., there are at least two surviving photographs of it, thanks to a couple of original Mauša Fligelis (↑) glass plate negatives that are held in the archives at the Šiauliai Photography Museum, which is located inside a building directly opposite.

FAIWUSZ LUNC

Faivuš Moisiejas Luncs

Is believed to have owned and operated three different photography studios in quick succession in Šiauliai, Telšiai and Raseiniai during the 1860s.

MAUŠA ORDMANAS

✡

Not a photographer as such, in about 1930 the local bookshop owner Mauša Ordmanas and his currently anonymous son printed and sold a series of beautiful black and white photographic postcards featuring various street scenes and buildings in Šiauliai. The identity of the original author of the photographs remains a mystery. A surviving Mauša Fligelis (↑) glass plate negative shows a Šiauliai street scene from the 1930s. Painted on the side of one of the buildings is a large sign advertising Mr. Ordmanas’ business in Lithuanian and Yiddish. Mr. Ordmanas and his family were murdered when they were prisoners in the Šiauliai Ghetto in 1942. 

HINDA LEYA PLOTELAITĖ

Plotel, Ginda

Born on September 14, 1910. Issued a visa to visit Palestine in 1932. Records indicate that she married Zisel/Ziselis Zmudski from Merkinė on January 4, 1933.

PROGRES

See B. Faivušas (↑) and Mauša Fligelis (↑).

GIRŠAS RIVKINDAS

Hirsch Rivkind, Harry Rivkind

Born in Šiauliai in 1909. Along with his wife, Liuba Rivkindienė (↓), Mr. Rivkindas appears to have been professionally active between about 1925 and 1941, and is believed to have operated the Buduar photography studio at Vilniaus g. 205, as well as another at Dariaus ir Girėno g. 48, where he was definitely working in 1936. According to one reliable source, the Nazis allowed him to keep working in his studio while he was a prisoner in the Šiauliai Ghetto, a (relatively) privileged situation that undoubtedly helped him survive. Recorded as arriving at Dachau on August 18, 1944, Giršas emigrated to Baltimore, where he features (as Harry Rivkind) in the 1950 United States census as living with Leo Kahn, almost certainly Leiba Kan, Liuba Rivkindienė’s younger brother. No other members of the family are believed to have survived. A small selection of photographs from Giršas and Liuba’s photography studio can be seen here. It’s also very interesting to note that Mr. Rivkindas’ studio was taken over after the war by the Lithuanian photographer Aleksas Brunas. Contnuing to work in the United States, more about Harry the American photographer below shortly (↓).

HARRY

Coming soon.

LIUBA RIVKINDIENĖ

Kan

✡

Born Liuba Kan in Linkuva in 1919, Mrs. Rivkindienė worked with her husband, Giršas (↑), in two photography studios in Šiauliai during the interwar period. Imprisoned in the Šiauliai Ghetto, where it’s understood she continued to work for the Germans, the photographer was last recorded as being alive when she entered the Stutthof concentration camp on July 25, 1944. She died there on a date that appears to have been lost.

ETA RUBINŠTEINAITĖ

✡

Born in Vilna/Vilnius in 1908. Worked with her father, Max Rubinšteinas (↓). Last seen alive on the May 27, 1942 Šiauliai Ghetto census.

MAX RUBINŠTEINAS

Morduchas Jokūbas Rubinšteinas, Maks, Maksas, Max

✡

Born on February 17, 1883. Assisted by his daughter, Eta Rubinšteinaitė (↑). Ran a studio at Rinkos g. 1. Known to have been active between about 1912 and 1941, with a break during the First World War. A sample of some of Mr.Rubinšteinas’ work can be seen here. Last seen alive on the May 27, 1942 Šiauliai Ghetto census.

ABRAM RUSONIK

Recorded as having been working in the city in 1909.

PINCHUSAS ŠERAS

Known to have owned or worked at a photography studio at Vilniaus g. 176 in 1932. A connection between Mr. Šeras and Pinkhus Šer in Kaunas (↑) is suspected.

Š. ŠMUILOVAS

Operated a photography studio somewhere on what’s now Vilniaus g. between 1890 and 1914. Allegedly won gold and silver medals for his work at exhibitions in Moscow and Rostov. Also owned the Fantazija cinema.

R. ŠREIBERIS

Known to have owned or worked at a photography studio at Tilžės g. 119 in 1932.

AUGUSTAS SPENGLERIS

Believed to have been somehow involved with a photography studio at Kauno g. 47.

MENDEL VOLPE

Born in 1878. Active in 1895.

RACHELA WOL

Rochle 

✡

Born in Siauliai in 1888. Active in Riga in 1922, where she was murdered in 1941.

BORUKH ZAKS

Registered for business tax in 1913, Mr. Zaks appears to have sold photographic accessories. 

CHAIM ZAKS 

Chaim Israel Zaks, Chaimas Zaksas, Khaim Izrail Zaks, Kaim Sroel Zaks

The miniscule paper trail left by the studio photographer Chaim Zaks, whose early life and career coincided with the slow collapse of the Russian Empire, is confusing and contradictory to say the least. Born in Joniškis in about 1869, where records suggest he worked as a photographer or photographer’s assistant/apprentice, Mr. Zaks moved south to Šiauliai on an unknown date via a period running his first known photography studio in Raseiniai. Setting up business in the house that he lived in at Pašto g. 7 in about 1901, the photographer is also associated with a photography studio at Turgavietė 7, and of having worked with Berelis Abramavičius (↑). A Zionist of some conviction, Chaim Zaks moved to Palestine in 1932 at around the same time as his daughter, Šošana (↓), where he passed away three years later. 

ŠOŠANA ZAKSAITĖ

Feiga Susana Zaks

Born in Raseiniai in 1906. Almost certainly Šiauliai’s first professional female photographer. The daughter of Chaim Zaks (↑). After graduating from a local Jewish high school, Šošana, whose relationship with her father meant that she was already familiar with photography from an early age, studied photography in Riga before setting up her own photography studio in Šiauliai at Vilniaus g. 166 in about 1930. A year later, she married a man by the name of Abrahams Rabinovičius (born 1903), and the couple emigrated to Palestine soon after, where she later opened a photography studio in Tel Aviv. The Aušros Museum in Šiauliai holds a few of her photographs in their archives, and the Šiauliai Jewish Community has a large collection of digital copies of the photographs that she took in both countries she worked in. Not much else is currently known about her, other than her mother’s name was Zisle née Kotler, and that she passed away in Palestine at a relatively early age in 1959. 

GERŠONAS ZILBERMANAS

Gershon Zilberman, Silbermanas

✡

Born in Kelmė in about 1891. The owner of a combined photography business and opticians at Vilniaus g. 152, which was nationalised by the Soviets on November 19, 1940. The Šiauliai photographer Mauša Fligelis (↑) is known to have worked for him for a while. Fligelis was also the person who recorded Mr. Zilbermanas’ murder at Yad Vashem after the war. Married Frida née Grinbergytė from (and in) Vilkaviškis on February 3, 1926, who was murdered at the Stutthof concentration camp on an unknown date. The couple had two children, Basia, also known as Pnina Pepa, born in 1929, and Daniel, born in 1932. Both were murdered at Auschwitz. The exact circumstances behind the murder of Mr. Zilbermanas himself remain unknown.  

ŠILALĖ

Shilel שילעלx

Interesting background information here.

KHANA BARKANAITĖ

See Gargždai (↑).

SIMNAS

Simne סימנע

Simnas.

ROKHA ENELAVAITĖ

Ennelev

Born in 1912. Known to have been active in 1932.

CH. VILENSKIENĖ

Chaja

Almost certainly born Chaja Enelavaitė/Jenilovaitė in 1905, the elusive Mrs. Vilenskienė is believed to have operated a photography studio at Vytauto Didžiojo g. 18 during the 1930s. There are strong indications that Mrs. Vilenskienė was married to the Lazdijai photographer, Isak Vilenskis (↑), who appears to have been born in Simnas.

ŠIRVINTOS

Shirvint שירווינט

Interesting history.

SHIMON GORDON

✡

Born in 1915.

JUDEL IBEDAS

Born in 1913. May have been one of two photographer brothers. Several photographs with this name survive, although it’s impossible to work out exactly what belongs to whom, and whether there really were two photographers in the first place. Active during the 1930s at least. Also somehow associated with Molėtai (↑).

M. REIZENMANAS

Movsha

Mr. Reizenmanas is known to have taken one of the only known photographs of the Jewish heroine of the Lithuanian Wars of Independence and Holocaust victim, Liba Mednikienė (1880-1941), who was awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis in 1928. It also appears that in 1937 Mr. Reizenmanas was selling decorated canvas for use as photography studio backgrounds.

ISRAEL SMULOWICZ

✡

Born in 1926.

SKAPIŠKIS

Skopishok סקישאָק

Here.

ZUNDELIS SKAISTIS

Zundel Briss

✡

See Skuodas (↓).

SKUODAS

Shkod שקוד 

A bit of background.

SHEINE PRALGOVER

✡

Born in 1917.

ZUNDELIS SKAISTIS

Zundel Briss

✡

Born in Skapiškis (some sources state Vilkomir/Ukmergė) in 1891. Operated a photography studio in Skuodas at Gedimino g. 2, after allegedly learning his craft in the Russian army. Known to have been active during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Took some photographs for ORT during the 1920s. Among what appears to have been several other interesting assignments, Mr. Skaistis photographed the Torah ark inside an unknown synagogue in Skuodas in 1922 for what appears to have been an ethnographic project of the kind that was extremely popular in Lithuania after the First World War. Several of his original prints are known to be held among the collections at the Kretinga Regional Museum and other institutions around Lithuania. Mr. Skaistis was murdered along with his wife, Maryan. and three children, Jacob Lazarus, Menšu and Naomi in 1941. 

SMILGIAI

Smilg

Wikipedia.

SHMUEL FAUGEL

Born in Smilgiai in 1906, and believed to have been working as a photographer during at least the mid-1930s, Shmuel Faugel married 19-year-old Frida Berk from Troškūnai (but born in Vilnius) on March 23, 1934. The couple’s son, Nakhmon, was born on June 12, 1935, and was circumcised five days later. Nothing has so far been discovered in connection with Mr. Faugel’s photography and/or photographic practice.

STAKLIŠKĖS

Stoklishok

A bit of background.

CHAIMAS GOLDBERGAS

Chaim Goldberg

✡

Born in about 1911. Photo enthusiast and seemingly also the town’s unofficial photographer. Displayed three photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933. One of Mr. Goldbergas’ photographs somehow survived by making its way into the archives at the Lithuanian Education History Museum in Kaunas. 

ŠVENČIONYS

Sventzian סווענציאן

Švenčionys Ghetto.

MEJER BRUMBERG

Born in 1877. Studied photography at an unknown location in Vilna/Vilnius between 1896 and 1899. Returned after completing his apprenticeship/studies on August 24, 1899, and worked for an unknown period of time thereafter. It’s also recorded elsewhere that he may have been working right up until 1941. 

KALMAN FRUKT

Active in 1909.

ISAAK GORŠEINAS

✡

See Utena (↓).

CHAIM KOLIŠ

See Vilnius (↓).

KREMER

First name currently unknown. Opened a short-lived photography studio in the town in 1875. Closed by 1878.

R. LEIBOV

Known to have been active in the town between at least 1910 and 1914. Operated the Rafael photography studio (↓).

YANKEL LEVIN

Yankl, Yaakov

Mentioned as the ‘local photographer’ responsible for creating an informal group portrait at a children’s birthday party at the Skirsky family home in March 1937. 

ICIK MULCA

Recorded as having applied for a license/permit to work in the town on May 19, 1895. Known to have been active in 1902. Possibly the photographer of the same name who worked in Anykščiai (↑).

VULF OVCHINSKY

Granted a license/permit on June 8, 1968. Appears to have only worked for a couple of years. A relative of the ‘French’ author Romain Gary, whose mother, Mina Owczyńska , was born in the town in 1879. 

MORDUCH PAPIRN

From Pinsk. Worked for just six months during 1887. Also associated with photography studios in Grodno and elsewhere.

RAFAEL

See R. Leibov (↑).

B. ROZENTAL

Almost nothing known. Two photographic prints survive, one in the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius, and the other in the Lithuanian Education History Museum in Kaunas.

VULF SHEFTEL

See Vilnius (↓).

ZALMAN SKUT

Szkut

It’s not entirely clear whether Mr. Skut was the photographer or the person who owned the building in which the photography studio was situated. What is known is that it was situated somewhere on today’s Vidžių g., and that it was operating some time around the First World War.

TAURAGĖ

Tovrig טאַווריק 

The birthplace of the fascinating photographer Leon Balk (see Klaipėda ↑), Tauragė managed to produce a surprisingly large number of Jewish photographers for such a small town. 

JANKELIS GIRŠA ARNSONAS

See Šiauliai (↑).

LEON BALK

L. Balk

See Klaipėda (↑). 

MEJER BERENSHTEIN

✡

Born in 1910. Associated with an address at Turgaus g. 1. Active in about 1933. Recorded in a document at the Arolsen Archives as having been held prisoner at Dachau on July 25, 1944, where it appears he was murdered on August 14 of the same year. The document also mentions that Mr. Berenshtein (written Berenstein) was married to Beile née Nadel/Nodel (born in 1906), and that the couple had two children, who are recorded in another document as being Motl (born in 1933) and Yakov (born in 1937). Mrs. Berenshtein and her two sons were all murdered at the Stutthof concentration camp sometime in 1944. For reasons that remain unclear, it seems that the whole family were prisoners in the Kovno Ghetto.

MAURICE BLUMENTHAL

Born in about 1887. Known to have been operating a photography studio in Tauragė in 1912. Emigrating to the United States before the First World War with his wife, Rosa, Mr. Blumenthal is recorded as having been working in a dime store in Winston-Salem in the 1940 US census. A couple of the photographer’s original prints are held among the collection at the Tauragė Regional Museum. Maurice Blumenthal’s sister, Mina or Minnie, was the first wife of the fascinating Tauragė-born photographer, Leon Balk (see Klaipėda ↑).

HIRŠA GRINBERGAS

Hiršas, Hirshel, Grinburgo

✡

Born in Raseiniai in about 1890, where he may have also worked at some time. Among the photographer’s surviving images is a street scene taken from the tower of Tauragė’s Holy Trinity Church that was clearly part of a series of postcards aimed at visitors/tourists to the town. Mr. Grinbergas married 29-year-old Alte Stenaitė in Siauliai on September 20, 1929.

A. KATZEF

Aron, Katsev, Orel Bencel Kacevas

Born in about 1881. Active at around the turn of the 20th century. Also somehow associated with Raseiniai and Varniai. 

MARK KONAS

Kohn

See Khava Konienė (↓).

E. KONIENĖ

Several photographs with the stamp E. Konienė on the reverse side survive in museums around Lithuania, some of them indicating that her photography studio was located at Dariaus ir Girėno g. 37. The identity of Mrs. Konienė, who appears to not be Khava Konienė (↓), remains a mystery. A solid portrait photographer who appears to have been especially popular with the local soldiers based in the town during the interwar period, several of Mrs. Konienė’s surviving photographs can be seen here.

KHAVA KONIENĖ

Chawa Kaniene, Šereševskaitė

✡

Born in Tauragė on February 4, 1903 (also written as 1905). Married to the photographer Mark Konas (↑), who’s recorded as having been born in Austria in 1893. Currently a bit of a mystery, Khava is recorded (as Chava) as having been imprisoned with her husband (confusingly recorded as having been born in Tauragė) and the couple’s daughter, Riva, born in Tauragė on February 20, 1931, in the Šiauliai Ghetto on May 27, 1942. It’s also recorded on the Yad Vashem website that Khava perished at the Stutthof concentration camp. No record concerning the fate of the rest of her family has yet been discovered.

TEMA KOPELAITĖ

Kopel, Epšteinienė

Born in a small village near Alytus in 1906. Married Chaim Epštein/Chaimas Epšteinas from Kelmė on March 6, 1934. Probably working in Tauragė at around the same time. 

LEONID LEVENBERG

Born on September 1, 1871. Active in 1897.

KHAIM MEJEROVICH

Chaimas Mejerovičius

Born in Tytuvėnai in about 1893. Recorded as having been active in 1931.

ABRAHAM REIF

Reich, Raif

Active between 1877 and 1890.

E. ŠEREŠEVSKAITĖ

Either this was Eugenija Šereševskaitė, Khava Konienė’s (↑) younger sister, who was born on May 30, 1908, or it was Khava Konienė herself. Whoever it was, the photographer was responsible for making these two studio images.  

MOVSHA SOFER

Born in about 1866. Active in 1913. A small selection of his surviving studio prints can be seen here.

SORE SOLOVEYCHIK

Born Sore Ziv on June 22, 1862. Known to have been active in 1899.

ABRAM TSEMAKH VOLF

Abraham Cemach Wolf

Born in Eržvilkas on July 16, 1855 (also listed in one source as 1864), Mr. Volf is recorded as having been working as a photographer in Tauragė in 1891. His name is also somehow connected with the Jewish community in Kelmė, as well as with photographs that were taken in Raseiniai, Šiauliai, Tauragė and Žemaičių Naumiestis. 

H. VYMERIS

Photo enthusiast. Displayed seven photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933.

S. ZOLINAS

Known to have been active at Dariaus ir Girėno al. 36 in 1938, despite the fact that his photography studio was reported in the local press as having gone up in flames the previous year, a conflagration that’s said to have taken no less than 28 firefighters over two hours to extinguish. A small selection of Mr. Zolinas’ surviving prints, including a couple of multiple portraits he produced in collaboration with the Lithuanian artist Vytautas Varanka (1904-1990), can be seen here.

TELŠIAI

Telzh טעלז

Birthplace of the Kaplansky dynasty of photographers (↓).

CHAIM ARHONSON

Arenson, Aronson

Although widely celebrated and remembered as having opened the first photography studio on ul. Plungyanskaya (today’s Plungės g.) in 1860, some basic research strongly suggests that Mr. Aronson was considerably more than just a studio photographer.

FIŠELIS BORUCHOVIČIUS

Fishel

✡

Fišelis Boruchovičius was somehow connected with an unspecified photography studio at Didžioji g. 36 in 1931. He also worked with another photographer, S. Braudaitė (↓), at a studio by the name of Menas (↓) that’s believed to have been operating at Turgaus g. 26 in 1938. Mr. Boruchovičius is also known to have shown two photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933, and was somehow connected with the small town of Varniai, 30 kilometres away to the south. Several photographs bearing the Menas studio stamp survive among the collection at the Alka Museum of Samogitian History in Telšiai.

BERTHA BRAUDAITĖ

Born on December 20, 1897. Recorded in a document dated July 14, 1920 as being a photographer. A copy of Bertha's internal passport, issued in the same year and recording her as a student photographer, can be seen here.

S. BRAUDAITĖ

See Fišelis Boruchovičius (↑).

DAILĖ

See Hirša Leibovičius (↓).

FOTO-ELEKTRO-SALONAS

See Volfas Šabselbanas (↓).

SLOMO GLIKMAN

Haim Shloime Glikmanas

✡

Born in Luokė in 1913. Active in 1929. Murdered in 1941.

HIRSZ KAC

Katz

Originally from somewhere in East Prussia, Mr. Kac is recorded as having worked for Chaim Kaplansky (↓) in 1896.

FEITSKA KAPLANSKAITĖ-TAICIENĖ 

Faina, Fania, Fani, Kaplansky

✡

Feitska Kaplanskaitė-Taicienė’s achievements as Telšiai’s first female photographer have been completely overshadowed by those of her more famous father, Chaim Kaplansky, whose business she inherited after his death in about 1935. A total of 427 original glass plate negatives from the family’s photography studio survive in the city’s Alka Museum of Samogitian History, having been ‘rescued’ at the end of June 1941 by the museum’s then director, Pranas Genys. Feitska was murdered on an unrecorded date between June 22 and December 31, 1941. See the Rachel box (↓) for more.

Rachel

Rachel Taicaitė, also known by several other names, including Rašel, Rasil and (much later) Taicaitė-Zinger, was born in Telšiai on July 9, 1926. The daughter of Telšiai’s first known female photographer, Feitska Kaplanskaitė-Taicienė (↑), and her somewhat distracted husband, Itsik Taicas (↓), Rachel was the eldest of three children, the other two being her sister, Chaja (?-1941), and her brother, Izraelis (?-1941). It’s believed that towards the end of December 1941, probably on December 23 or 24, Rachel escaped the Telšiai Ghetto during its final liquidation, and, as such, was the only member of the family to survive. She was initially hidden by Domicėlė Pagojutė, who worked for the Kaplansky family as a nanny for several years, where she initially hid in the cellar, and where she got frostbite, contracted gangrene, and lost some of her toes. As well as staying with Domicėlė, Rachel also spent time hiding with other rescuers during the more than two-and-a-half years left until the end of the war. Somehow ending up in hospital in Munich in the second half of 1945, she eventually emigrated to Palestine where two of her uncles, the photographers Faivel/Faivush Kaplansky (↓), and Moshe Kaplansky (↓) had been living and working in Tel Aviv and Haifa since about 1920. Domicėlė Pagojutė was posthumously recognised as Righteous Among the Nations on January 4, 2006. And the story doesn’t end there. Documents held by the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius state quite clearly that the surviving 427 Kaplansky glass plate negatives that are in the possession of the Alka Museum in Telšiai were only given to the institution temporarily for safekeeping. Technically they belong to Rachel’s children and/or grandchildren. We haven't found them yet, but the search for them continues.

CHAIM KAPLANSKY

Chaimas Kaplanskis

Arguably the most famous of the thousands of mostly forgotten Jewish photographers who lived and worked in Lithuania before the Second World War, Chaim Kaplansky’s (c.1860-1935) celebrity status lies in the fact that, thanks to the efforts of the Lithuanian poet and cultural figure Pranas Genys, more than 400 of his studio’s photographic glass plate negatives survive to this day. Mr. Kaplanski' s oldest surviving photograph is dated 1878. Known to have been operating out of a studio at Didžioji g. 13 in 1931. 

FAIVEL KAPLANSKY

Faivush

Born on January 3, 1892. Son of Chaim Kaplansky (↑). Brother of Feitska Kaplanskaitė-Taicienė (↑). Emigrated to Palestine, where he continued to work as a photographer. See Mohse Kaplansky below (↓).

MOSHE KAPLANSKY

Mošė

The eldest son of Chaim Kaplansky (↑). Brother of Feitska Kaplanskaitė-Taicienė (↑). Date of birth unknown. It’s understood that he studied photography in Berlin, and, like his brother Faivel (↑), emigrated to Palestine and worked as a photographer. A small collection of information in Hebrew about Mr. Kaplansky and his brother Faivel’s life and work (↑) in the Holy Land can be found here.

MENAKHEM MANES KATZ

✡

Born in 1917.

M. K. KUŠELIUKAS

Active for a brief period of time during the late 1860s. 

LEIBA MEIER LEBENSZTEJN

Lobensztejn, Lowenstein, Leiba Mejeris Lebenšteinas

Active in 1865. It’s said that he moved to Raseiniai (↑) the following year, and that he had a few ‘issues’ with his license/permit. Another report notes that he was also briefly active in Kaišiadorys and Radviliškis. 

HIRŠA LEIBOVIČIUS 

Herškė 

Although more than one source states that Mr. Leibovičius owned and operated the Dailė photography studio at Didžioji g. 73 between about 1925 and 1941, a surviving print shows that in about 1938 he was running a photography studio at Smetonos g. 78 (today’s Respublikos g.). Quite possibly related to Khana Libovitz (↓).

KHANA LIBOVITZ

Chone, Leibovičiūtė

✡

Born in about 1910. Murdered in 1941. Possibly related to Hirša Leibovičius (↑).

KLARA LICHAITĖ

Likht

Born in Varniai (↓) on June 7, 1900. Active in 1920. A copy of her internal passport is here.

FAIWUSZ LUNC

See Šiauliai (↑).

MENAS

See Fišelis Boruchovičius (↑).

F. MILEVIČIUS

Amateur photographer. Displayed four photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933. Records strongly suggest that Mr. Milevičius owned a bookshop on Smetonos g. in 1939.

NATHAN ŠAPSELBONAS

Nosanas

Worked here in the 1920s. Almost certainly related to Volfas Šapselbonas (↓). See also Klaipėda (↑).

VOLFAS ŠABSELBANAS

Šapzelbonas, Sabselbanas, Sabselban, Vulfas

Born in 1896 and originally from Žagarė (↓), Volfas Šabselbanas moved to Telšiai sometime after 1920, where he’s known to have owned and worked in the Foto-Elektro-Salonas photography studio (↑) at Kęstučio g. 32 in 1931. Married Cerne Segal (born 1901) on March 16, 1933. A document dated November 28, 1939 records a man from Telšiai with this name being granted permission to emigrate to Palestine, which may explain why none of Mr. Šabselbanas’ surviving prints are dated any later than that year. His work is known to survive among the collections at the Alka Museum of Samogitian History in Telšiai and the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius. 

MOTEL ŠER

Born in 1906. Active on March 5, 1924. Evidence shows that Motel and his parents, Ben and Aida, survived the Holocaust when all three were evacuated to the Yaroslav region of Russia a few days before the Germans arrived. He’s last heard of in the Altai in 1957, when he’s finally released from captivity. No surviving photographs found so far.

ITSIK TAICAS

✡

Born in Lygumai in about 1894. Married to Feitska Kaplanskaitė-Taicienė (↑). It’s recorded in several sources that Itsik was extremely religious, and consequently had little time for the photography business he was supposed to be running in partnership with his wife after the death of his father-in-law. His 1926 internal passport lists his profession as ‘proficient in Talmud’.

MOŠĖ TEREŠIŠKINAS

Tereshishkin

Born in Telšiai in 1916. Active in 1934. A copy of his internal passport from the same year can be seen here. His birth certificate also survives, here. No sign of any of his work, so far.

E. TREIMANAS

Photo enthusiast. Exhibited five photographs at an exhibition organised by the so-called Putpelės Draugija in Šiauliai in 1933.

KHAYA ZLOTKINAITĖ

Zlotkin

Born in about 1912. Active in 1929.

TRAKAI

Trok טראָק

Some interesting background information here.

EFRAIM CHEMINSKY

Čeminskas

Born in Vilna/Wilno/Vilnius on May 2, 1886. Recorded as being a photographer when he was given permission to stay in Lithuania on July 31, 1933.

SYMON KOBECKI

Kubiecki

Born in about 1881. Known to have been active on December 19, 1921. Possibly Karaim/Karaite?

TROŠKŪNAI

Trashkon טראַשקון

ABRAM NOVOZENETS

Born in 1896, and believed to have been working as a photographer in 1926. It’s currently unclear whether Mr. Novozenets was active in Troškūnai or Panevėžys.

MIKHEL RUTENBERGAS

Rutenberg

Born in 1903. Active in 1921.

TRYŠKIAI 

Trishik טרישיק

Some background.

K. ALMANAS

Quite possibly the same K. Almanas who worked in neighbouring Viekšniai (↓).

UKMERGĖ

Vilkomir װילקאָמיר

Background.

SHIMON & MAX BAYER

Business partners with Mauša Levi for a short period before the First World War, after Mauša married a Bayer sister and joined the company. Soon the brothers had moved to Kaunas (↑), and eventually Max emigrated to Palestine, and Shimon struck out on his own (↓).

SHIMEL EPSTEINAS

Epshtein

Born in 1912. 

M. FRAIDMANAS

The name M. Fraidmanas is listed in a number of different places in connection with the Rekord photography studio (↓) at Ukmergės pl. 54. 

YOSEL GLAZ

Joselis Glazas

✡

Born in Inkūnai in 1906 (some records state 1902). Murdered in August 1941.

JOSELIS GOLDAS

See Vilnius (↓).

JACOB GOR

Jokūbas Goras

Several prints from the photographer’s studio are held in the archives at the Ninth Fort Museum in Kaunas for no reason that’s immediately apparent. It’s possible that Mr. Gor was the same person as Yankel Gor who worked in Panevėžys.

MORDUCHAS KHAZANAS

Mordukh Khazan

Recorded as having been a photographer at the tender age of 17 in 1922. 

MAUŠA LEVI

Levis, Moišė Levinas, Moishe Levin, Moses Levi

✡

Born in Panevėžys in 1886, his parents moved to Ukmergė/Vilkomir in about 1901. Trained as a dentist in Kazan in Tatarstan before the First World War, and became a photographer when he came back and married Feige Bajaer in 1918. Feige was from a small dynasty of photographers, and soon Mauša was also working within the family. Initially a partner in the family business (his brother-in-laws were Shimon Bajer, who later set up business in Kaunas (↑), and Max Bajer, who emigrated to Palestine via Kaunas in 1925), the studio became just M. Levi, and Mausha struck out on his own, working from a studio at Kauno g. 15 (today’s Kauno g. 22). As well as the standard day work he churned out, he was employed by several top level clients including president Antanas Smetona (who had a summer retreat a few kilometres northwest of Ukmergė), the local branch of ORT and the Jewish press abroad. Murdered with Feige and their daughter, Rivka, soon after the Nazis arrived. There’s a stolpersteine in his memory close to where his studio was.

ROKHA MORDUCHESAITĖ

Morukh, Moruchesaitė

Born in 1913. Active in 1930. Hirsh Morduchovičius’ (↓) sister?

HIRSH MORDUCHOVIČIUS

Yekhel Hirsh Mordukhovich

✡

Born in 1914, and apparently working as a professional photographer in 1933. Nothing else is currently known about Mr. Morduchovičius, other than he was imprisoned by the NKVD, that he served in the (in)famous 16th Division of the Red Army, and that he lost his life fighting the Germans at Alekseyevka in 1943. Rokha Morduchesaitė’s (↑) brother?

AFROIM GERTS PAZOL

Efroim Herc Pasol

Born in Želva on November 20, 1873, Mr. Pazol married Ester née Kruskal from Tartu in Estonia on a currently unknown date. The couple are known to have had at least two children, before emigrating to Brazil in about 1933, where the photographer passed away in São Paulo on December 22, 1950. 

G. V. PAZOL

Currently much confusion concerning this person. More to follow.

PERECAS PERKAS

Born in about 1868. Operated a photography studio at Vytauto g. 30 in 1931.

REKORD

See M. Fraidmanas (↑).

MIKHAIL ROMANOVSKY

Michailas Romanauskas

Mr. Romanovsky opened his photography studio in 1895. The few known surviving examples of his studio portraits and street scenes are both fascinating and exquisite. A small selection of them can be seen here.

ABRAHAM ŠIMKOVIČIUS

Born in 1905. Active in 1922. Despite being 15 years younger, Abraham was almost certainly the brother of the photographer Vulf Šimkovičius (see Kaišiadorys ↑). 

WULF SHIMKOVICH

✡

See Kaunas (↑).

SZMUIT MICHEL TARAPANIJ

Born in 1839. Brother of a rabbi. Owned and operated a photography studio from 1877 until 1885 at the latest.

HENOKH VAINERAS

Vainer

Born in 1913. Active in 1931.

ZELMAN VAPNIKAS

Zalman Wapnik

✡

Born in 1912. 

SIMAS VAS(?)

Active in 1919. Lived at ul. Kovienskaya 32.

ELIYASH VOLKAS

Volk

Born on April 23, 1899. Applied for an internal passport on May 10, 1920.

UTENA

Utiyan אוטיאַן

Not much.

S. CHORAS

Š. Chor

Operated a photography studio at some point during the interwar period at Kauno g. 33. First name may have been Simenas/Šimenas. Possibly born in Taujėnai in 1906. Some of his studio stamps are marked Š. Chor. The few surviving prints that he made can be found in the archives at the Utena Regional Museum and one or two other institutions in Lithuania.

L. DEMBAS

Known to have been active in 1939.

ISAAK GORŠEINAS

Isak, Gorshein, Gorsheinas, Gorchein

✡

Born in Švenčionys on March 16, 1896. Lived in Utena between 1918 and 1924 before moving to Kaunas A surviving photograph from Utena includes a studio mark on the back, which indicates that it was probably taken between about 1918 and 1924. A second surviving photograph, dated June 21, 1923, can be seen here. At some point in his life, the photographer moved to Paris. It’s currently not known what he did there until he was imprisoned at the infamous Drancy internment camp on August 20, 1941. Transported to Auschwitz on March 27, 1942, he was subsequently murdered a few weeks later on May 9. Research strongly suggests that Mr. Goršeinas was the brother of the Švenčionys-born artist Sarah Gorchein. 

FEVELIS MILAS

Tevelis Milis

Recorded as having owned a photography studio at Kauno g. 40 in 1931. 

MOTEL SHARFSHTEIN

Born in 1908. Active in 1936.

Š. SREBERKA

Shneyer Sreberk. Shneyer Naftel Sreberko

Known to have been active in 1908, when he was recorded as being 26 years old, and again in 1912. Worked in Utena, Tauragnai and other locations in the area.

UŽPALIAI

Ushpol אוושפּאָל 

The last Jews of Užpaliai.

CH. HALBERŠTATAS

Golberstatas

Known to have been active as a studio photographer in 1937. First name possibly Chatskel/Khatskel.

CH. KURAS

Working in the mid-1920s. One very damaged print is known to survive among the collection at the Rokiškis Regional Museum. First name unknown.

VANDŽIOGALA

Vendzigole ווענדזיגאָלע

Here.

MORTKHEL KADYSON

Born in about 1854. Issued a Russian passport on October 20, 1875. Described as being 157 cm tall, with brown eyes and fair hair.

IOSIF LAPIN

Osip

Born in about 1841. Active between at least 1871 and 1873.

GDALIE GETSEL VOLPERT

Gdal

Born in about 1846. Active between at least 1871 and 1873.

VARĖNA

Aran אַראַן

Some interesting information here.

BENTSEL CHATZKELEVITZ

Boris, Borys

Born in about 1850. Operated a studio at an unknown location in Varėna for a very short period in 1886 (license/permit number 2935). From an obviously colourful and enterprising family of photographers. See the Joseph Chatzkelevitz entry in Vilnius for information about his brother.

DAVIDAS GORDONAS

David Gordon

As well as producing a series of exquisitely detailed composite postcards for tourists and local businesses, Mr. Gordonas also made several formal and informal portraits outdoors that have somehow managed to survive for almost a century, many of them now held among the collection at the Trakai History Museum. Along with his wife, Ida, and their two children, Hinda Leya and Hana Dvora, the photographer is recorded as having emigrated to Palestine in 1934. Several of his surviving pictures can be seen here.

VARNIAI

Vorne וואָרנ

Lots of information.

EVGENY AUZA

Although Evgeny Auza is recorded as having been a photographer in Varniai on February 1, 1899, it’s not at all clear whether his business was based here, or 30 kilometres away to the north in Telšiai (↑)?

ITSIK IZRAILIOVICH  

I. Izrailevičius

Recorded as being a photographer in Varniai on March 11, 1903. It’s not clear exactly where and when he was actually working. Other possible locations include Skuodas and Tauragė. A surviving studio print that’s held in the archives at the Aušros museum in Šiauliai and that dates from the last decade of the 19th century bears a studio mark on the reverse side that suggests Mr. Izrailiovich may have also had a studio in Kaunas/Kovno at some time. 

A. KATZEF

See Tauragė (↑).

KLARA LICHTAITĖ

See Telšiai (↑).

VEGERIAI 

Veger וועגער

F. GIRŠAITĖ

Possibly the same F. Giršaitė who was recorded as working in Viekšniai (↓).

VIEKŠNIAI 

Vekshne וועקשנע 

Interesting page here.

K. ALMANAS

Some of the photographer’s surviving prints are reportedly held in the archives at the Mažeikiai Museum. Possibly the same K. Almanas who worked in neighbouring Tryškiai (↑).

F. GIRŠAITĖ

Possibly the same F. Giršaitė who was recorded as working in Vegeriai (↑). Some of her surviving prints are reportedly held among the collection at the Mažeikiai Museum. 

VIEŠINTOS 

Vishinte ווישינטע

Here.

FAIVEL CHAITAS

S. Chaitas, S. Chaito

Born in 1913. Ran a studio called Progres [sic] on Vilniaus g. somewhere. Was active during the mid-1930s. Along with his mother, Tauba Chaitienė (born in 1881), the photographer managed to escape to Russia after Nazi Germany invaded Lithuania in June 1941. The Aušros Museum in Šiauliai has some of his original photographic prints among its collection. 

PROGRES

See Faivel Chaitas (↑).

VIEVIS

Vevie וועוויע

Interesting page here.

LIUBA BERKOVSKIENĖ

Mrs. Berkovskienė was registered here for a short while in around 1930. See the photographer’s Kaunas entry (↑) for more information.

KUSHEL TAINAVICH

K. Tainavičius, Kušelis Fainavičius

Born in Semeliškės in about 1903, Kushel Tainavich is believed to have been working in Vievis between at least 1932 and 1940. 

VILKAVIŠKIS

Vilkovishk װילקאָװישק

See Ralph Salinger’s excellent site here.

DAILĖ

See Chaimas Nicevičius (↓).

BENJAMINAS FREIMAN

Born in 1894, Benjaminas Freiman and his wife, Tauba (↓), are recorded as having run a photography studio together at Aukštoji g. 10 in 1922. On an unknown date during the Second World War, Benjaminas filled in a registration card for Jewish refugees in Tashkent. Tauba appears to not have been with him. 

TAUBA FREIMAN

See Benjaminas Freiman (↑).

CHAIM GUTERMAN

Chaimas Gutermanas

✡

Born in Kalvarija in about 1893. Recorded as having operated a photography studio at Kęstučio g. 21 in Vilkaviškis in 1931. The last known record of Mr. Guterman dates from an August 29, 1941 Lithuanian police report, in which he was listed as living at Vilkaujos g. 3. 

ITSIK LANG

Langas

Born in 1911. Active in 1938. May have also worked in Kaunas.

CHAIMAS NICEVIČIUS

Nicevič

✡

Recorded as having been operating the Dailė photography studio (↑) at Kudirkos g. 1 in 1931. Several of Mr. Nicevičius’ photographs are held in the archives at the Ninth Fort Museum in Kaunas. Exactly how they got there remains a mystery. 

CHASA RUBINSTEINIENĖ

✡

Born in the small Polish town of Wiżajny in about 1913. Murdered in September 1941. The last known record of Mrs. Rubinsteinienė dates from an August 29, 1941 Lithuanian police report, in which she was listed as living at Vilkaujos g. 6. 

BEREL SAMUOL

Samuolis

Born in 1906. Listed his occupation as photographer when he married Liuba Shilman from Panemunė in 1935.

VILKIAUTINIS

Vilkyutin ווילקיטין

Just this.

LEIZER KAPLANAS

Kaplan

Registered as having been a photographer in a document dated May 20, 1935 in connection with his presumed emigration to Palestine. See the Emigrated to Palestine box (↑) for more information.

VILKIJA

Vilki ווילקי 

What must have been a beautiful location in its time is now another slightly run down Lithuanian town. Visit the (signposted) Jewish cemetery up on the hill and deep in the forest if you can.

J. KATAVUŠNIKAS

Joselis, Katavushnik, Katovushnik

Credited with a single photograph that was taken sometime during the 1920s or 1930s. The image, featuring a Mr. Avižienis (the Vilkija chief of police) and what are assumed to be members of his family, looks very much like a classic studio portrait. On closer inspection however, the photographer appears to have taken the picture outside. The solitary print is held among the archives at the Kaunas District Museum in Raudondvaris. 

VOLF VINNISKY

Born in the Polish town of Sejny in about 1870, Mr. Vinnisky appears to have been working in about 1907. 

VILNIUS

Vilne ווילנע

Historically the world’s first centre of traditional Talmudic study, Vilnius/Vilna/Vilne/Wilno was also home to an increasingly large and diverse secular community before the National Socialists occupied the city during the last week of June 1941. Helped along by the arrival of the Haskalah the previous century, a tiny handful of not-long-ago enlightened Jewish men and women from the city were among the first individuals in the Russian Empire to recognise photography’s propensity for making beautiful images and large amounts of money. Jewish photography in the city and the rest of the country was all but wiped out during the Holocaust.

DAVID ALIBER

Born in St. Petersburg in 1898. Known to have been working in Wilno/Vilnius in 1931, where he was registered as living at ul. Kijowska 18 (today’s Kauno g.). There’s some evidence to suggest that, along with his wife, Sara, and their three children, Isaac, Leya and Rebecca, the photographer emigrated to Paraguay in about 1934.

JACOB AJZENSZTAT

Aizenshtat

Born in 1909. Active in 1928.

ARON ALTSZULER

Altsuleris

See Kaunas (↑).

HERSZ ANTOWIL

Hirsz

Opened a photography studio in 1899 that was still operating in 1903. Learned photography in Borisov/Barysaw.

HIRSZ ARONOWSKY

Born on April 15, 1905. Recorded as being a photographer in March 1928.

BASIA ARONSZTAM

See Michel Aronsztam (↓). 

MICHAEL ARONSZTAM

Originally from Gazenpot/Aizpute in what’s now the southwestern part of Latvia, Michel Aronsztam operated two studios at different times at ul. Wielka (today’s Didžioji g.) and ul. Świętojańska (today’s Šv. Jono g.), where he produced a wide range of photographic prints using a number of different techniques, including ambrotypes/collodion positive and tintype/ferrotype. The business was taken over by his wife, Basia (↑), after Mr. Aronsztam passed away on January 25, 1889.

EFRAIM BAK

Operated a photography studio on ul. Stefańska between about 1899 and 1903.

FAIWUSZ MEJER BASIN

Was somehow involved in the attempted production of ferrotypes/tintypes in about 1898. 

BERLIN PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKSHOP

See Szloma Perelman (↓), and Jankelis Girša Arnsonas in Siauliai (↑). 

E. BINKOVICH

Eliasz, Elias

Born in 1852, and originally operating a photography studio in Grodno, Mr. Binkovich moved to Vilna and ran an upmarket photography studio at ul. Vilenskaya 32 (today’s Vilniaus g.) between about 1902 and the First World War. 

GEORGE BIRMAN

See Gargždai (↑).

CHAIMAS BLUMENTALIS

Chaim Blumental

Born on July 4, 1907. Known to have been active on August 14, 1940, the day he married Sone Sandleraitė, a 26-year-old owner of a beauty parlour from Radviliškis.

IZRAEL BLUMOWICZ

Appears to have tried and failed to open a photography studio on ul. Wielka (today’s Didžioji g.) in about 1871.

ISRAEL BODIN

Born on May 7, 1902. Travelled (emigrated?) to South Africa in 1927 or 1928.

H. BOLBER

Hirsz, Bulber

Born in 1886. Appears to have operated out of an address at ul. Zawalna 24-17 (today’s Pylimo g.). Believed to have been active between at least 1921 and 1940. Several of Mr. Bolber’s original prints are held in the archives at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius.

FRÈRES BOUTKOVSKY 

Fragments of archival material on the subject of the brothers Leon and Miron Boutovsky/Butkoovsky suggest that they were already working in the photography business before they came together and opened their famous studio on ul. Konna (today’s Bazilijonų g.), which they referred to as ‘Rue Konnaja’, in about 1896. The French affectation (France being where photography was technically invented in 1839) was a popular ruse in the world of studio photography at the time, and, in the case of the Frères Boutkovsky, extended to their unsubstantiated claim that the pair were the official court photographers to the Shah of Persia.

PETER BRAUNSTEN

Born in Königsberg in 1911. Parents born in Lithuania. Recorded as having been a photographer in Berlin in 1930. Unclear exactly where he worked in Lithuania. 

SAMUEL BROCHES

Born in about 1878. Lived and possibly worked in the city for a brief period between 1919 and 1921. Also recorded as working in 1930, when he lived at Mickiewicza 33 (today’s Gedimino g.).

BORUCH BRUDNER

Barakh

✡

Born in about 1892, it’s understood that Boruch Brudner operated a photography studio at ul. Wielka Pohulanka 6-21 (today’s Basanavičiaus g.). Deported from the Vilna Ghetto to a concentration camp in Estonia on an unknown date in 1943, the photographer is believed to have perished soon after. An unspecified reference to Mr. Brudner is allegedly included in a book (title currently unknown) by the Yiddish poet and writer (and Vilna Ghetto survivor), Shmerke Kaczerginski. Several of his studio portraits can be found in various Lithuanian museums. Mr. Brudner’s work was at times outstanding, such as this wonderful portrait of Olynka Mirski.

MORDUKH BRUDNER

Known to have been working in 1924.

N. BRUDNO

A single print featuring four male members of staff at an unknown shoemakers that bears the stamp ‘Fotograf, N. Brudo, Wilno’ was discovered among the ruins of the Vilna or Kovno ghetto after they were liquidated in 1943 and 1944. The image is one of more than 200 that were found under similar circumstances that are now held in the archives at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius.

RUBINAS BUNIMOVIČIUS

Ruvin Bunimovicz

Born in 1909. Active in 1927. 

HIRSH BURAKISZKI

Born in Baranavichy in what’s now Belarus in 1909. Had plans in the late 1920s to emigrate to Argentina or the United States.

MIRON BUTKIEWSKI

Recorded in the 1930 taxpayer list.

Mugshots

There’s thousands of pre-Second World War photographs in the archives in Lithuania that, for one reason or another, tend to get overlooked by people looking for images as part of their research. One such example is the extraordinary (and extraordinarily beautiful) collection of what appears to be thousands of mugshots from the interwar period that originally belonged to the State Security Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania. Chaotic and not studied yet, the mugshots, of which there are three different shots of each ‘suspect’, feature a wide range of Jews and non-Jews alike who’ve all been taken in and interrogated/photographed because they were, or were suspected of, being communists (just like today, the Communist Party of Lithuania was banned in the country between 1920 and 1940). Each negative measures 130 mm x 180 mm and is made of glass. They’ve all been scanned, but there doesn’t appear to be a sensible way of viewing them together online yet. More than just a fascinating visual record of the time, the Central State Archives in Vilnius where they’re stored also has a wealth of written material associated with the images, which just to make everything confusing is kept in a different department. The name of the original photographer/s appears to have been lost.

CEJTLIN

E. Cejtlin

A water-damaged photographic print featuring a smiling woman in a fur coat with the embossed words ‘Fot., Cejtlin, Wilno’ underneath is held in the archives at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius. The image was found among the ruins and remains of either the Vilna or the Kovno ghetto in 1943 or 1944. Almost certainly E. Cejtin. 

JOSEPH CHATZKELEVITZ

Josil, Josek, Josif, Joselis Chackelevičius

Originally arriving from St. Petersburg in 1879, along with what appears to have been his equally unorthodox brother, Bentsel (see Varėna ↓), Joseph Chatzkelevitz’s professional life often seemed to be in conflict with the Russian authorities. His short-lived studio in Vilna/Vilnius (where he seems to have made some wonderful portraits) operated for a brief period until his death in 1899, after which it was taken over by his widow, Rebeka (born in 1870), and none other than the aforementioned Bentsel, who also appears to have been briefly entangled in a series of possibly scandalous episodes in Birštonas, Kaunas and Švenčionys.

ABRAHAM YUDEL CHIRUG

Khirug

Retoucher. Studio(s) unknown. Born on January 7, 1912. Active in 1933.

ITZIK CHONOVITZ

Isaac Chonowicz/Khonovich, Icik Chonovič

Born in 1842. Learnt his trade in the photography studio of Szachno Priwalski (↓). Operated several photography studios in the city, the first opening in about 1871. Known to have been active in 1924. Also known to have been awarded gold medals at exhibitions in Antwerp in 1905 and 1906. One source also refers to Mr. Chonovitz’s (unnamed) son, who is believed to have worked in the family business. 

AIZIK CINOWIEC

A. Cynowiec, Cinovec

Born in Pinsk in about 1869, Mr. Cinowiec’s first photography studio was established in 1896, and was one of the most popular and expensive in the city. Records show that his business operated until 1940, the same year that he married his second wife, Sonia, who at 38 was almost half his age. Also mentioned as being a musician in a military band.

PEREC CUNZER

Peretz Tzunzer

✡

Born on December 29, 1900 (or possibly 1896). Listed as having been a photographer in the Vilna Ghetto census, dated May 27, 1942. Worked for Fraje Shriftn and Vilner Tog. Murdered in Estonia in 1944.

CHAJM DOLGINOWER

Born in 1895. Probably in Ashmyany/Oshmyany. Passed through the city with his wife, Leja, in about 1930.

ZELMAN DWORECKI

Born in 1901. Probably in Yekaterinoslav/Dnipro. Known to have been living (and possibly working) in the city in the mid-1920s.

AIZIK ELCHONES

Isaac Elchones

Born in an unspecified location in about 1870. Moved from St. Petersburg (where he probably studied photography) in 1897, the same year that he opened his first photography studio in Vilna. It’s recorded that he operated photography studios somewhere on ul. Wielka (today’s Didžioji g.), at Świętojańska 17 (today’s Šv. Jono g.) and at ul. Kalwaryjska 60 (today’s Kalvarijų g.). Planned to move to Palestine with his wife, Rokha, and daughter, Sara, in 1925...

DOVYD ENGELŠTERN

Engelsztern

Briefly mentioned as having been active in 1905 and 1908.

RACHIL EPSZTEJN

Born in about 1893. Possibly in Dzisna. Briefly in Vilna/Wilno in about 1924.

SZMUL MORDUCH EPSZTEIN

Active between about 1868 and 1873.

YOSEL ETINGOF

Josel, Josef Etingow

Born in Orsha in today’s Belarus in 1880 or 1884. Active at ul. Wileńska 25 (today’s Vilniaus g.) in 1929.

RUVIN FAJNBERG

Ruwein Feinberg

✡

Born in 1908. Known to have been working as a photographer in 1924. Deported from the Vilna Ghetto in 1943. Murdered at the Ereda work camp in northern Estonia on an unknown date.

LEJBA FAJNSZTEJN

Born in an unknown location somewhere near Grodno in 1887. Appears to have possibly been actively working as a photographer in Wilno/Vilnius between 1919 and 1927.

MOZES FEJGENBERG

Born in 1894. Recorded as living at Szopena 4-5 (today’s Šopeno g.) between June 1919 and October 1922. It’s interesting to note that the photographer Chana Kac (↓) appears to have been living in the apartment next door during the same period.

TEIBEL FEIGIN

Taibl

✡

Born in 1915. Murdered at Ponar/Paneriai in about 1942. No information about her life or work so far discovered.

BER FIJALKOW

Fiyalk

Born in 1903. Active in 1928.

LION FRUMIN

Leiba, Leon

Studied photography in Vilna between 1899 and 1902. 

MIKHEL GERB

Born in 1898. Active in 1924.

AKIVA GERSHATER

Born on December 17, 1886. Circumcised a few days later. Passed away in Israel in 1972. Member of the paper brigade (↓). Survived the Vilna Ghetto. Spent two years in Paris after the war before moving to the Holy Land.

The Paper Brigade

Extraordinary story. See the Glossary (↓) for more.

LEON GINZBURG

Wandering photographer who worked with daguerreotypes, and who arrived from Berlin in about 1843. Associated with another photographer from Berlin called Ziegler, who may also have been Jewish.

JOSELIS GOLDAS 

Josel Gold

Possibly associated with a photography studio in Biržai at some point, and recorded as having opened his first photography business in Vilkomir/Ukmergė in 1873, Mr. Goldas seems to have spent another part of his professional career working in Vilna/Vilnius/Wilno.

J. GOŁUB

Known to have been active at ul. Niemiecka 19-17 (today’s Vokiečių g.) during the interwar period.

RAKHMIEL GORDON

Born in 1911. Listed as being both a photographer and a farmer in 1930. Travelled to Brazil at around the same time.

AARON GOLDSZMIDT

Goldszmidt

✡

Born in Telšiai in about 1891. Active in 1924.

MORITZ GROSSMAN 

Moryc, Maryc, Morisas Grosmanas

✡

Born in Vilna on April 1, 1885, Moritz Grossman is recorded as having owned and operated a photography studio at ul. Bolshaya 73 (today’s Didžioji g.) in about 1910. Surviving photographs include a slightly puzzling image of Lithuanian national hero Jonas Basanavičius’ empty office, and a series of pictures that were taken inside the ORT Technicum building in Wilno/Vilna/Vilnius during the 1930s. Mr. Grossman was murdered along with his wife, Rokha née Nelkin/Nelkina (born April 8, 1884), and their two sons at Ponar/Paneriai, almost certainly in 1941.

GITA GRYNSZTEJN

Grinshtein, Gilda Miller

Born in 1894. Registered as living at ul. Zawalna 55-17 (today’s Pylimo g.) on September 14, 1925. Emigrated to the United States from Antwerp on the SS Belgenland a few weeks later. Married Abraham Miller in Los Angeles on June 7, 1933. Gave birth to Herman Harry Miller on October 18, 1934. Passed away on June 2, 1954. Resting alongside her husband in the Beit Kvarot Beit Shalom Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles. In 1956, Gita’s only child, Herman, married 20-year-old Marianne Lange, a refugee from Nazi Germany. The couple divorced without having any children. No surviving photographs have yet been found. A photograph of Gita when she was about 30 is kept among the documents related to her emigration at the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius.

HENOKH GURWICZ

Born in 1905. Active in 1931. Lived at ul. Wiłkomirska 24-9 (today's Ukmergės g.). Appears to have travelled/emigrated to New Zealand, possibly in 1932.

IZRAEL HELDA

Born in 1884 in Drohobych/Drohobycz in today’s western Ukraine.

PESIA ICCHOKIN

Pesza, Jechokin

✡

Pesia and Shymon (↓) Icchokin are listed as having been photographers in the Vilna Ghetto census, dated May 27, 1942. A Wilno/Vilnius house register dated September 15, 1932 lists the couple as living at ul. Zawalna 15-2 (today’s Pylimo g.). Mrs. Icchokin’s maiden name was Rakowicki. Three surviving photographs by S. G. Icchokin (presumably Shymon), two of them portraits of the same German soldier and one a group portrait of German soldiers, all taken during the First World War, are held in the archives at the Aušros Museum in Šiauliai. The studio stamp is marked with the addresses Kalwaria str. 8 (today’s Kalvarijų g.) and Antokol str. 70 (today’s Antakalnio g.). As if the information isn’t fragmented enough, Pesia is recorded in different sources as having been born in 1879 and 1887.

SHYMON ICCHOKIN

Jechokin

✡

Born in 1885 or 1878. See Pesia Icchokin (↑).

ETEL JANOW

Ethel Janov, Ettel, Janoff, Yanoff, Yan, Janowa

✡

Born Etel Gruszman in Akkerman, the old Ottoman Turkish name for today’s Ukrainian city of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, on January 1, 1884. In June 1922, Etel was recorded as living at ul. Teatralna 5-5 (today’s Teatro g.) in Wilno/Vilnius, along with her second husband, Joseph Janoff, who she married in Munich on May 19, 1908. In a 1924 document, her profession is listed as having been a dyer, a word that’s associated with other photographers from the period. She also appears in other records as an actress. Her final appearance is when she’s recorded as having been a photographer in the Vilna Ghetto census, dated May 27, 1942. Etel and Joseph had a son, Moisey, who was born in February 1912. This may well be the same person who rests here in the Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.

MEILAKH JARCHO

Born in Slutsk in what’s now Belarus on July 25, 1908, Mr. Jarcho is known to have been working as a photographer in 1927. A record in the Lithuanian Central State Archives indicates that he may have emigrated to Buenos Aires at around the same time.

CHANA KAC

Born in 1897 in Minsk (unclear whether it's the city or the gubernia). Registered as living at ul. Szopena 4-6 (today’s Šopeno g.) in 1921, the same year that she appears to have moved to Warsaw.

JAKUB KAC

Born on July 3, 1912. Not very clear at all, but appears to have been living and working in the city throughout the 1930s. Possibly from Vitebsk.

BERL KACHERGINSKY

Beras Kačerginskis

✡

Born in about 1905. A member of the Vilna Ghetto police. Murdered in Königsberg on January 27, 1945. Some sources state that he was a photographer before the war, and that he may have also been the person responsible for producing the small handful of photographs that are known to have been secretly taken inside the ghetto. 

ALTER KACZYNE

✡

The writer, poet and photographer Alter Kacyzne was one of the most important Jewish cultural figures in interwar Poland. Born into a working-class family in Vilna/Vilnius/Wilno in 1885, Mr. Kacyzne was beaten to death by Ukrainian nationalists on July 7, 1941. Most of his work was destroyed during the war. Almost everything that survives, including a few hundred photographs, is stored in the archives at YIVO in New York. His short but fascinating biography on the online version of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe is here. 

J. KACZYŃSKI 

Is known to have been working out of ul. Ostrobramska 10 (today’s Aušros Vartų g) during the interwar period, at least between 1934 and 1937. 

ISAAC KAGAN

Born on March 15, 1900. Known to have been active in 1924.

JOSEF KAMUSZER

Born in 1901. Registered as living at ul. Węglowa 14-7 (today’s Šaltinių g.) in 1919. It’s also recorded that Mr. Kamuszer departed for ‘the countryside’ on September 24 of the same year.

GERSHON KASRIELS

Kasrels

Born in 1862. Active in 1927.

KHAIM KELISH

Worked at and/or owned a photography supplies warehouse in 1915, at ul. Blagoveshchenskaya 22/13-19 (today Dominikonų g.). 

AWRUM KLURFAJN

Born on September 14, 1915. Thought to have been working in the city during the 1930s.

CHAIM KOLIŠ

Haim, Kolish, Kołysz

Born in 1871. Originally from Švenčionys. Active before 1914. Hinda’s (↓) husband. Solomea’s (↓) father. In 1928, the Koliš family was registered as living at ul. Garbarska 1-28 (today’s Odminių g.).

HINDA KOLIŠ

Ginda, Kolish, Kołysz

Born in 1896. Listed as having been a photography technician in the Vilna Ghetto census, dated May 27, 1942. Chaim’s (↑) wife. Salomea’s (↓) mother.

SALOMEA KOLIŠ

Kolish, Kołysz

Born on August 20, 1920. Listed as having been a photography technician in the Vilna Ghetto census, dated May 27, 1942. Chaim (↓) and Hinda’s (↑) daughter. 

CHAIM KONIK

See Josil Konik (↓).

JOSIL KONIK

Josiel

Born on March 8, 1877. Registered at ul. Nikodema 2-7 (today’s Lapų g.) in 1919. In about 1902, Mr. Konik worked with his brother, Chaim (born in 1875 ↑).

SIMON KOPERIS

Simon Koperis, a worker at the wartime Giesler labour (sub)camp in Pabradė who was born in Brest-Litovsk on April 12, 1906, is listed as having been a photographer in the Vilna Ghetto census, dated May 27, 1942.

NOCHIM KOWARSKI

Naum

Active during a currently unknown period before emigrating to the United States, where he opened a photography studio in New York in about 1903.

FAYVL KRASNYL

Fayvel

✡

A photographer who was also the manager at the Meficei Haskala Jewish public library at Strašūno g. 6 (today’s Žemaitijos g. 4), Mr. Krasnyl was murdered at Ponar in 1941.

JOSEF KROJNOWICZ

Born in about 1906.

RUBIN LEJBINSZTERN

Born in 1914. Recorded as having been a photographer in July 1939.

HERTZ LEVIN

Active in 1925, when the records suggest he was barely 15. Almost certainly Mausha’s (↓) younger brother.

CHONONAS LEVINAS

See Jurbarkas (↑).

GDALA LEWIN

Born in 1909. Operated a studio somewhere on ul. Wilenska (today’s Vilniaus g.) during the 1930s. 

ZELIK LEWIN

✡

Born in 1918.

MAUSHA LEWIN

Levin

Active in 1927. Almost certainly Hertz’s (↑) older brother.

M. LITWAK

M. Litwak took a photograph of a huge group of students and teachers at the Vilna Jewish Real Gymnasium on September 23, 1938. The print is in the archives at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius. Nothing else is currently known.

ALEKSANDER MACHNOWIECKI-GORENSZTEJN

Born in 1908. Possibly in Białystok. Known to have been living in Vilna/Wilno for six months in 1936.

MENDEL MASKIN

Born in Moscow in 1886. Several of Mr. Maskin’s photographs survive, including this 1930 studio portrait of a young Chaim Shapiro (1925-1943) that’s held among the collection at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in the United States.

GRISHA MATZ

Hirsch, Matz, Mac

✡

Born in Vilna in about 1899, Grisha Matz was a publisher, travel writer, active member of the city’s Yiddish theatre community, a founding member of the Vilna/Wilno branch of TOZ, of which he became director in 1935, and a keen amateur photographer. An acquaintance of Marc Chagall, and never seen in public without his trademark bow tie, Grisha was very much attached to his beloved Leica camera. Murdered during the first few days of the German occupation, neither his photographic equipment nor any of his photographs appear to have survived. Mr. Matz was married to Nadia née Vinisky, a member of the paper brigade among other things, who was murdered in Majdanek soon after the Vilna Ghetto was liquidated in September 1943. Mr. Matz was also the brother of the Lithuanian Jewish musician and childcare worker Annushka Varšavskienė (see About ↓, and Annushka Varšavskienė ↑).

JOSEL SZMUEL MELCER

Born in about 1898 in what’s today the Belarusian town of Novogrudok, Mr. Melcer is known to have been active during the late 1920s.

MAUSHA MINDLIN

Born in 1901. Active in 1928.

MIRIAM

See Miriam Rapoport (↓).

NOTEL MIRSKI

Born in 1904 in Pabradė/Podbrodz (↑). Mentioned briefly in documents dating from 1921.

LEIZER MIZEREC

Mizeretz

Born in 1891. Active in 1926. Brother of Shimel (↓)?

SHIMEL MIZEREC

Mizerets

Born in 1888. Possibly travelled to South Africa in about 1929. Brother of Leizer (↑)?

MODERN

A studio at Georgievsky pr. 4 in 1915. No other information.

AARON OGUZ

Born in 1877. Active in 1927. Address recorded as ul. Jagiellonska (today’s Jogailos g.). Married on March 31, 1907, to Khaya (↓). 

KHAYA OGUZ

Khaya Perla Oguz née Bienkowicz/Benkovich was born in Grodno in 1883. Active in 1927. Address recorded as ul. Jagiellonska (today’s Jogailos g.). Married on March 31, 1907 to Aaron (↑). 

ALBERT OZINSKAS

Ozinsky

Born in 1908. Nothing is currently known about Mr. Ozinskas other than he’s believed to have worked as a photographer for the NKVD, and that he served in the (in)famous 16th Division of the Red Army.

SZLOMA PERELMAN

Shliom Perelman

Studied photography in Berlin. Owned the Berlin Photographic Workshop (see also Jankelis Girša Arnsonas in Šiauliai ↑) on ul. Niemiecka (today’s Vokiečių g., or German street) between 1882 and 1887.

ARNOLD S. PERELMANN

Ran an upmarket photography studio in Vilna around the turn of the 20th century.

N. PINSKIS

Neakh Pinsky, Pinski, Pinskis, Pinsko, Pinskoj

Born in Dvinsk/Daugavpils in 1887, and known to have operated a photography studio in Vilna/Wilno/Vilnius somewhere on today’s Didžioji g. between at least 1924 and 1939, Mr. Pinskis’ entire professional working career seems to be represented by just two surviving photographic prints, one held in the archives at the Rokiškis Regional Museum, and the other in the collection at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius.

ABRAMAS PLASKOVAS

Was running a studio at Didžioji g. 52 in March 1940. A single print is known to survive in the archives at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius.

ELIYASH PLASKOW

Plasky

Born in 1882. Active in 1927.

PINHAS PLIS

Pinchas Falis

✡

Confusingly recorded as having been born in both 1907 and 1920?

RACHEL PLISKIN

Born in 1917. Student photographer visiting from Glubokoye (today’s Hlybokaye in Belarus) between about June 1935 and March 1936. 

IZAAK PODOROSKI

Born in 1904. Recorded as being a photographer in 1931. Apparently left for Germany soon after.

SZACHNO PRIWALSKI

Šachno Privalskis, Sachno, Chaim, Priwalsky

Active between about 1862 until his death in 1878. Known to have owned and operated at least three photography studios in the city. 

RABBINER & PILOWSKI

A single print bearing the name of these two individuals can be found among the photographs that survived the looting of YIVO by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg in 1942 that are now held among the collections at the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius. Curiously, the name of the person depicted in the photograph itself is recorded as being B. Pilovsky. 

EUGENIA PUPKIEWITZ

Pupkvich

Retoucher. Studio(s) unknown. Born in Vilnius on March 3, 1900. Active in 1922.

D. RABINAVIČIUS

Recorded as owning a ‘photographic warehouse’ at Didžioji g. 8 in September 1940, suggesting he may have been an importer of cameras and related goods.

ISAAC RABINOWICZ

Born in 1906. Active in 1927. May have emigrated to South Africa.

JOZEF RABINIWOICZ

Mr. Rabinowicz was possibly born in 1900, although this seems unlikely, as his photography studio was almost certainly working in 1914.

MIRIAM RAPOPORT

Opened the Miriam photography studio at ul. Vilenskaya/Wileńska 32 (today’s Vilniaus g.) in 1899, which she sold to E. Binkovich (↑) in 1902. 

AVRAHAM REDENSKI

Abram Rejdanski

✡

No information currently available.

ELIASZ ROZENSON

Eliash

Wandering daguerreotypist, and first photographer in Lithuania. Worked in Vilna during most summers between 1845 and 1863. It seems that his photography studio at ul. Wielka (today’s Didžioji g.) was taken over by his daughter, Liba Wol (↓). See also The First Native Photographer (↓).

The First Native Photographer

It will probably come as no great surprise to discover that the first native photographer in Lithuania was Jewish. So far alomst no information has been uncovered about Elaisz Rozenson (↑). We keep looking.       

HIRSZ ROZEWICKI

Hirsh Ruzewicki, Ruzhevitsky

Born in 1908. Active in 1922.

MAX RUBINSTEIN

A damaged print featuring an anonymous boy sitting on a table with the name Max Rubinstein stamped on the back suggests that the photographer Morduchas Jokūbas Rubinšteinas (see Šiauliai ↑) may have started his career in Vilna/Vilnius. The accompanying address in German, Schloss Str. 20 (today’s Pilies g.), dates the image to between about 1915 and 1918. 

HIRSCH RUDASZEWSKI

Born in Nemenčinė/Niemenczyn in 1909. Active in 1928.

YAKOV SACHNOWITZ

Sakhnovich

Born in Brest in 1892. Travelled to Palestine to visit relatives in 1925.

SALY

A Polish Jewish photographer named only as Saly is mentioned in Lucy S. Dawidowicz’s memoir, From that Place and Time, as having arrived in Vilna/Wilno/Vilnius as a refugee from Nazi Germany with his partner, Gerda, in November 1938, where he took several photographs of the city that are now held among the collection at YIVO. Saly is almost certainly a familiar form of Solomon. His eventual fate remains unknown.

OSCHER SCHATZ

Osher, Szac, Shats 

✡

Born on May 30, 1905. It seems there's a negative of Oscher himself held at the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius, although none of his own photographs are known to have (yet) been found. Family originally from near Kaišiadorys. Recorded in the May 27, 1942 Vilna Ghetto census. Murdered at the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia in 1943 or 1944. 

D. SCHNEIDEROWICZ

Active before 1914.

ICIK SEREBRIN

Icikas Serebrinas, Icyk

Originally from Vitebsk, Mr. Serebrin owned and operated a photography studio in the city centre between 1893 and 1904, after which it was run by his widow, Sofia Serebrina (born in 1870). Other names associated with the business, which was forced to close ahead of the German invasion in 1915, included Borys Zawielew and M. Zak.

MORDUCH JOJNA SKLUT

Born in 1910. Recorded as being a photographer in 1934. May have been passing through.

WULF SLAWIN

Born 1903. Possibly active during the 1920s. 

ICYK MEJER SMORGOŃSKI

After working under Joselis Goldas (↑) for a couple of years during the late 1880s, Mr. Smorgoński (born in 1864) set up his own photography studio in a wooden house in about 1891 that burned to the ground about six years later. Last known to have been active sometime between 1903 and 1908.

YAKUV SACHNOWICZ

Yakov, Sochnowicki 

Born in Brest in what’s now Belarus on April 12, 1892. Active in 1930. 

VULF SHEFTEL

Born in 1865. Somehow connected with Butrimonys. Active between at least 1921 and 1924. Also appears to have been connected with the photographer Meyer Blumberg, with whom he may have briefly shared a photography studio in Švenčionys (↑) between 1899 and 1901. Married Menukha Kassel from Vilkomir/Ukmergė in 1899.

SELEM SHNITZER

✡

Born in 1924. 

SOWIEN

Zowin, Sowen

Arriving from an unknown location in 1860, the mysterious Sowien (first name unknown) is recorded as having operated a photography studio somewhere on ul. Trocka (today’s Trakų g.) between 1863 and 1868.

ABRAHAM STAMLER

Worked in an unknown capacity at Itzik Chonovitz’s (↑) photography studio between about 1885 and 1889.

ALEKSANDER STRAUS

Mr. Straus was active during the second half of the 19th century, meaning that his photography studio address, Rue Grande, was written in the French style that was favoured at the time. Rue Grande would have been ul. Wielka (today’s Didžioji g., or Great Street in English). Like his contemporary in Kovno/Kaunas, E. Lawdański (↑), Aleksander Straus also employed the so-called crayon photo technique when necessary. The only known surviving print from the studio, a portrait of a soldier with a comically large moustache, can be found among the collection at the Trakai Historical Museum. Mr. Strauss moved his business to Kovno/Kaunas in the 1860s.

ABRAM STRELEC

Originally from Grodno. Involved in an unexplained legal matter during 1939 and 1940. Unclear whether he was actually working in the city.

ALBERT SWIEYKOWSKI

Probably born in Toruń in about 1829. Arrived in Vilna in 1860, where he operated a photography studio somewhere on ul. Niemiecka (today’s Vokiečių g.) using what’s believed to have been the dry collodion method. Left the city in about 1866.

BEREL SZER

Šer

Appears to have been responsible for taking a photograph of a small group of Jewish high school students in Wilno/Vilnius in 1932, of which a print is held among the collection at the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius. His address seems to have been at ul. Trocka 5d (today's Trakų g.).

YUDEL SZULMAN

Born in 1903. Active in 1927.

JOSIEL SZUSTERMAN

Jozef

Born in Rēzekne in what’s now independent Latvia in about 1905. Lived (and presumably worked) in Wilno/Vilnius for about three years between 1919 and 1922.

YAKOV SZWARCBERG

Born in 1889. Known to have been working in 1924.

LEJBA SZYSTER

Leibel Shuster, Shister

Born on October 5, 1919. Recorded as being a photographer in May 1938.

NOSON TEJTELBAUM

Born in 1911. Active during the 1930s.

LEIBA TURGEL

Turgelis

Having had his application to open a photography studio turned down by the Russian authorities in 1883, Mr. Turgel is understood to have gone into business with a silent partner by the name of J. Ergon (also recorded as Juljan Ehorn) the following year. In June 1887, Leiba Turgel fled the city, burdened with some bad debts or possibly some other challenges that he couldn’t bear to face. One surviving studio print is known to survive among the collection at the Samogitian Art Museum in Plungė. 

ANNUSHKA VARŠAVSKIENĖ

Born Sara Matz, but generally known in photography circles as Annushka Varšavskienė. Known briefly as Isakova around the time of the First World War. See Kaunas (↑).

CYNA WAGSZAL

Born in Nowy Sącz in southeastern Poland/Galicia in 1890. Spent some time in Wilno/Vilnius in the 1920s.

ROSE WAJSBORD

Vaisbord

Born in 1898 in Radomyshl near Kyiv. Active in 1927. Married to the photographer Szolom Wajsbord (↓).

SZOLOM WAJSBORD

Š. Vaisbordas, Sholom Vaisbord

Recorded as having been born in Vilna/Vilnius in both 1891 and 1894. Believed to have operated a photography studio at ul. Wielka Pohulanka 7 (today’s Baasanavičiaus g.) before the First World War. Definitely working from that address in 1927. Married to the photographer Rose Wajsbord (↑).

LIBA WOL

Liba Rasha Wol, Wal, Liba Risa Rozenson, Vol

Born Liba Risa Rozenson in about 1835. Became Liba Wol/Vol when she married 25-year-old Osher Vol, a senior teacher at an as yet unidentified Vilna rabbinical school, on June 17, 1860. Acquired her father Eliash Rozenson’s (↑) photography studio on ul. Wielka (today’s Didžioji g.) in 1863, which seems to have been in business until just 1869. Liba's father was the first native photographer in Lithuania.

VULF ZAC

Zats

Retoucher. Studio(s) unknown. Born in Kovel, Ukraine, in 1909. Active in 1930. 

JOSEF ZEGER

✡

Born in 1920 or 1921.

VIRBALIS 

Virbaln װירבאלן

Birthplace of a third of the artists who ended up very successful school/classroom photographers in Glasgow (via Klaipėda ↑)

JAKOBAS BARONAS

Mr. Baronas is believed to have been operating a photography studio at Prekyvietės 8 in 1922.

CHACKELIS EVENSTEINAS

Yehezkel Evenshtein

Born in about 1910. Recorded as having made Aliyah on January 1, 1935. It’s also noted that Mr. Evensteinas was a member of the HaOved movement, a Zionist organisation that helped Jewish traders settle in Palestine, meaning that he might have continued working as a photographer after he left Lithuania.

MINA MIRBACHIENĖ

Kune

Born in about 1867, Mrs. Mirbachienė (née Vinter/Vinteraitė) is known to have been running a photography studio at Vaistinės g. 26 in 1922. Records suggest that at some point she moved to Kaunas (↑), where she passed away on November 20, 1933 at the age of 66.

JECHIEL STERNSTEIN

See Klaipėda (↑).

ŽAGARĖ 

Zhager זאַגער

Another once busy town with almost no history left. 

H. ALMAN

Almana, Almanas

Was known to have been running a photography studio in a red brick building on the southwestern side of the former marketplace during the 1920s at what’s now Miesto a. 27. Remnants of the large white sign that advertised his business on the front of the building are still clearly visible today.

SORE ELKAITĖ

Sara Elkonytė

Known to have been working at an unspecified address somewhere on Turgavietė in 1936. 

MEJER MOELLER

Moler, Meller

Born in Žagarė on June 4, 1903. Active in Riga in 1922.

VOLFAS SABSELBANIS

Volfas Šabselbanas, Wolf Sabselban, Vulfas

Is known to have run a photography studio at Turgavietė 17 between about 1903 and 1928. The Aušros Museum in Šiauliai, the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History in Vilnius and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem hold some of his original prints among their collections. See also Volfas Šabselbanas in Telšiai (↑).

SHMUEL SHUPAK

Szymel Szczupak, Shmuel Shchupak, Shupaka

Ran a studio between about 1890 (some sources say 1895) and 1914. Also sold books and ran a private printing house. Listed in the New Žagarė Box Taxpayers list of October 27, 1904 as living in a house with three other adults, and being of average wealth. One surviving print includes a studio advertisement on its reverse side (presumably printed at the photographer’s own printing house) that’s written in German, strongly suggesting that Mr. Ščiupakas was still in business and wasn’t deported during the First World War after the German occupation began in 1915. The Aušros Museum in Šiauliai holds a handful of his surviving photographs among its collection dating from the end of the 19th century onwards.

GESEL SHUR

Born in about 1906. Active in 1922.

H. ZAUBERBLATIENĖ

Zoberblatienė, Hene

Mrs. Zauberblatienė’s studio at Pakalnės g. 4 was allegedly working in about 1936. A small wooden house at this address still exists, although no maps from the period are available to confirm that it’s the same building. No further information is currently available.

ZARASAI

Ezhereni עזערעני

The birthplace of Mauša Fligelis (↓), and the adopted home of Moisiejus Botvinikas (↓), two exceptional photographers who both survived the Holocaust—Fligelis because he escaped east ahead of the German invasion (his equipment wasn't so lucky, see Šiauliai ↑), and Botvinikas because he and his family were handed a prison sentence and associated punishments in the unoccupied east by the Soviet authorities barely a week before the Germans arrived.

MOISIEJUS BOTVINIKAS

Moisey Botvinik, Moise Botwin

Born in Kaunas in 1901. Fought against the Bolsheviks during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence, for which he was decorated. Moved to Zarasai in the early 1920s, where he ran a photography studio and owned a shop selling radios and miscellaneous electrical goods. The latter was nationalised during the 1940-1941 Soviet occupation, and, because of his position as the chairman of the Jews for Lithuanian Independence movement, he was also deported to Siberia along with his wife, Zelda, and their two daughters in June 1941, a fate that ironically saved their lives. Spent 15 years living in exile, where he married for a second time, returning to Zarasai in 1955, where he again worked as a photographer. Mr. Botvinikas emigrated to Israel in 1972, where he passed away in 1984. Many of his photographs are held by the Zarasai Regional Museum, where it’s alleged some of his original glass plate negatives survive. A file in the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Vilnius inaccurately records Mr. Botvinikas and his family emigrating to Palestine in December 1933. 

MAUŠA FLIGELIS

✡

See Šiauliai (↑).

LEIBA LEVIN

Believed to have opened the first photography studio in Zarasai in 1897, when the town was known as Nowo-Aleksandrovsk.

YANKEL REFAS

Ref

Born in about 1893. Recorded as being a photographer after returning from forced exile in Yaroslavl on December 5, 1921. 

ŽĄSLIAI

Zhosle זאָסלע

Birthplace of the outstanding pianist and composer, Leopold Godowsky, whose America-born son, also called Leopold, was not only first violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he also co-developed Kodachrome in the 1920s and 1930s, a colossal landmark in the history of colour photography.

ARON GUTNER

See Panevėžys (↑).

AHRON KHASID

Chasidas

✡

Born in about 1920.

RIVA TURECAITĖ

Born in 1913? Thanks to a simple typesetting error, Riva’s entry in the 1931 Visa Lietuva directory lists her as Riva Tuvecaitė. J. Turecas’ (↓) sister or daughter?

J. TURECAS

A photograph with Mr Turecas’ name on it survives among the collection at the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius. Riva Turecaitė’s (↑) brother or father?

ŽEIMELIS

Zheimel זײמל

Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) worked here before in 1921 becoming the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine later on in his often transient life. He was also the rabbi of the Spitalfields Great Synagogue in the East End of London during the First World War before his most famous appointment.

ISRAEL CHAJESAS

Khayesh, Kheies

✡

Born in about 1913. A collection of documents, including his 1931 internal passport, can be seen here.

HENĖ DUBOVIČAITĖ

Dubovich

Born in 1910. Active in 1927. A document dated from the same year suggests that Miss Dubovičaitė may have acquired a foreign passport, which might explain why she doesn’t appear anywhere else in the records. 

YANKEL GELIS

Yeckel, Yeckelis, Gel

Born In 1911. Known to have been working as a photographer’s assistant in March 1927. Two collection of documents, including a foreign passport and an internal passport are here and here. Also, have a look at this. See also Šiauliai (↑).

T. GER

Two of the photographer’s portraits are known to survive, both of them taken in what appears to be an improvised photography studio during the first decade of the 20th century. 

SIMON GRINAS

Shimon Grin, Simonas, Abraham

Born in 1900. Active on May 18, 1920. A small pack of documents, including a copy of his internal passport, is here.

GOLDA SOCHEN

Golde, Sokhen, Sochen, Sohenaitė

Born in 1900. Active on July 30, 1920. A copy of her 1921 internal passport, plus other documents, can be seen here.

ŽEMAIČIŲ NAUMIESTIS 

Neishtat Sugind נײַשטאָט־טאַווריק

Officially called Žemaičių Naumiestis since the 1930s, and briefly known as Tauragės Naumiestis before that, for most of recorded history this small market town in western Lithuanian was known as Naumiestis, Nowe Miasto or some other version that translates into English as New Town. To make things even more complicated than usual, the local Jews had another name for the place (Neishtat Sugint), that wasn’t just a translation from the official name into Yiddish, and that nobody else used in any variety.

ABROMAS BENJAMINAVIČIUS

Aronas

✡

See Preide Blumbergas (↓).

PREIDE BLUMBERGAS

Preyden, Praide, Fred Blumberg

Born in about 1911, the extraordinarily versatile photographer Preide Blumbergas was active for a few years during the interwar period. Despite being recorded as having been murdered on the Yad Vashem website, it’s a known fact that he emigrated to South Africa, and that he never returned to Europe. Sometimes associated with another photographer by the name of Abromas/Aronas Benjaminavičius (↑), a number of the photographer’s original prints are known to survive among the collections of several museums in Lithuania. According to the photographer’s son, a South Africa-born resident of Israel, his father left Lithuania in 1933, whereafter the business was run by his younger brother, Shlomo (↓), in partnership with the aforementioned Mr. Benjaminavičius. 

SHLOMO BLUMBERGAS

Shliom

✡

Born in about 1913. See Preide Blumbergas (↑). 

AARON ITZHAK GUTMAN

Gutmanas

On December 2, 1934, aged 20, Mr. Gutman emigrated to Palestine. 

ŽIEŽMARIAI 

Zhezhmer זשעזשמער 

Today a half-deserted backwater, Žiežmariai was once a thriving and relatively important market town on the road between Vilna/Vilnius and Kovno/Kaunas. Home to a renovated former wooden synagogue and little else to attract potential contemporary visitors at the moment, information about the Lithuanian Jewish photographers who lived and worked in the town before the Second World War seems to be close to non-existent.

ZINA BLUMENTALIENĖ

Born in Žiežmariai. See Kaunas for more (↑).

ABRAM LEIBA CYGAS

See Biržai (↑). 

ANA CYGAN

See Biržai (↑). 

GALPERAS

Galperis 

The names Izaokas Galperas and Mausha Galperis have both been named as photographers from the town, although no concrete evidence about either currently exists.

LEIBA ŠADEVIČIUS