Small Jewish Ghettos and interment camps (1941-1943)
ENOnce the Nazis occupied Lithuania, ghettos began to be established there as well. The establishment of the first large Lithuanian ghetto began in Kaunas in July 1941. In the summer of 1941, ghettos and Jewish internment camps were established in many other Lithuanian cities and towns as well. The ghettos in Vilnius, Kaunas, and Šiauliai were the largest in Lithuania. The other Lithuanian ghettos differed from these in terms of population, internal order, and length of operation. The main difference between the small ghettos and internment camps and the large ghettos was the number of prisoners. Roughly 15,000–20,000 Jews were imprisoned in the ghettos in Vilnius and Kaunas, and about 4,500 Jews were imprisoned in Šiauliai. The population of the small ghettos rarely exceeded 1,000 people (with the exception of the Švenčionys and Žagarė Ghettos). They usually only had a few hundred Jews. The small Lithuanian ghettos and camps had no internal self-government. The large ghettos had a Jewish administration (Jewish Councils (Judenrat), Jewish Ghetto Police, a judicial system, various administrative units (workforce deployment, health, etc.)), whereas the small ghettos (with the exception of the Švenčionys Ghetto) did not have internal administration departments. [p. 251].
