Memorial book: Memorial Book of the Ritavas Community (Rietavas, Lithuania)

This is a reprint of and English translation of the Memorial Book of the destroyed Jewish Community of Riteve, Lithuania, also called by these names: Rietavas [Lithuanian], Riteve [Yiddish], Retovo [Russian], Retów [Polish], Retowo, Rietevas, Riteva, Ritova.

Once a living and thriving place of community, family, education, work, hardship, love, and joy, Ritavas and its people were wiped from the face of the earth during the Holocaust. But with the memories of the survivors, we can all remember what once made this Shtetl a home to so many of the lost.

This book contains memories and first-hand accounts of Shoah survivors and those who left the town before the destruction. Though not great literature, it provides eye-witness accounts of the vitality of the community before the war and also disturbing and factual accounts of the treatment of the Jews of the town during the war. It also provides insight into the lives and environment of the ancestors of people who can trace their lineage back to the town, providing another dimension to our own personal history.

This Yizkor Book serves as a memorial to this now extinct Jewish Community.

A Yizkor book should not just be read - it should be studied: One a day it should be taken off the shelf and kissed. And a chapter read - the way a page of the Gemara of the weekly Portion were once studied.

Haim Liberman, Forward, June 1959