VASILISKI: Vasilishki, Vasilishok, Lida uezd [Wasiliszki, Vasilishak, Vasilishok, Vasilishki]. Wawiorka, Vaverka, Vavryka, Wawiorka]

Alternate names: Vasilishki [Rus], Vasilishok [Yid], Wasiliszki [Pol], Vasiliški [Bel], Vasilishak, Vasilishuk, Russian: Василишки. Belarusian: Васілішкі. וואסילישוק - Yiddish. 53°47' N, 24°51' E, 20 miles WSW of Lida, 42 miles E of Grodno, 111.0 miles W of Minsk in Lida District, Vilna Guberniya, Lithuania; Lida District, Grodno Guberniya, Russia; and Lida District, Nowogrodek woj., Poland between WWI and WWII 1900 Jewish population: 2,081.

Vasilishki today a small village with a few thousand inhabitants. Vasilishki in the first half of the 15th century, 1486, was a small town (mestechko) of Lida povet. At the beginning of the 18th century, Vasilishki was a residence of the Polish king and Lithuanian duke Stanislau Liashchynski. During the second part of the 18th century, famous Vilna aristocrat, Michal Aginski, was a starosta (count) of Vasilishki. After Russian occupation, Vasilishki became the center of Lida povet volost in 1795, but Jews lived there since since 16th or 17th century. 1847 Jewish population was 719 and in 1897 census, 2,081 out of 2780 were Jews. In 1909  a men`s Jewish school opened. A synagogue existed.

Wawiorka/Vaverka/Vavryka at 53º50 24º58 and the dependent villages of Meyry at 5348 2502, Myto/Myta at 5350 2507, Nacha at 5405 2450?, Szemiakowszczyzna and the estates and hamlets of Baranowce, Bohdanowszczyzna, Dejnowo, Ekselmanowszczyzna, Gierdziowce, Jozefowo, Kasperowo, Kazimierzowo, Kowale, Krupowszczyzna, Lebiodka, Lozowka, Mislewicze, Papernia at 5347 2459, Rawilnowicz, Rulewicze 5352 2502, Szalew, Szymanow, Zieniewicze also used the cemetery. In 1928, Wawiorka was designated as a miasteczko (small town) & gmina (town) in the Second Uchastok, Lida powiat, Nowogrodskie voevodstvo of Poland. The Justice of the Peace was in Wasilizki and the Justice Court in Wilno. The 1928 miasteczko population was 174. The railway was sixteen kilometers away in Bialohruda. The post office and telephone were in Wawiorka and the telegraph located in Wasiliszki.

• Tahat shilton ha-germani ba-shanim 1941-1945 (Tel Aviv, [1986/87])
• Sefer zikaron le-kehilot Szczuczyn, Wasiliszki, Ostryna, Nowy-Dwor, Rozanka (Tel Aviv, 1966)..
• yizkor information
• ShtetLink.
• Lida Area survivor testimonies - JewishGen
• Vasilishki war criminals - JewishGen

MASS GRAVE:

• May 10th, 1944: The Nazis started a two-day massacre of 2,159 Jews here in the largest village in the area. It must have been about that time that they took over 500 Poles to Germany for slave labor. [May 2013]
• Details of the Holocaust in Vasilishki [Aug 2015]

CEMETERY:

The cemetery is located along one of the main streets and is fenced. At one side is a path that leads to a Holocaust memorial that was originally placed by the Soviets but updated more recently to indicate that the victims murdered here were Jews. The open field of the cemetery is used to graze cattle and has an extremely uneven surface, with periodic mounds and depressions indicating graves.Close inspection of the land reveals a number of tombstones, just at or below the surface. The Hebrew letters are quite evident, but not enough of any one inscription was sufficiently legible for us to record. This cemetery visited by Dan Kirschner & Davida Sky (with guide This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. & driver Dina Kopilevich) in August 1994. Contact person: Dan Kirschner, Newton, MA 02161email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ';document.getElementById('cloakd037e28e7f71e8f9cd6e390d91eb524c').innerHTML += ''+addy_textd037e28e7f71e8f9cd6e390d91eb524c+'<\/a>'; .

photos. [February 2010]

For photos of the gates for the Vasilishok/Warshilishker Burial Society in Mount Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, New York  go to that page on this site [Sept 2023]

[UPDATE] Execution site investigated by Yahad-in-Unum [August 2017]