Dieveniškės (in Lithuanian literally: Place of gods; Polish: Dziewieniszki; Belarusian: Дзевянішкі Dzevyanishki) is a town in the Vilnius County of Lithuania, about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the Belarusian border in the so-called Dieveniškės appendix. It is surrounded by the Dieveniškės Regional Park.

History

Jewish cemetery of the town.

The estate of Dieveniškės was first mentioned in 1385 as a village of a Lithuanian noble Mykolas Mingaila, possibly the son of Gedgaudas, later ruled by the Goštautai family. Stanislovas Goštautas visited Dieveniškės with his wife Barbara Radziwill (Lithuanian: Barbora Radvilaitė), who used to pray in Dieveniškės church, built in the 16th century. According to the 1897 census, 75% of the village population was Jewish, and the town had two synagogues. The Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust in Lithuania.[1][2]

The people living in the Dieveniškės were ethnically mixed (Lithuanian, Polish, Belarusian), when the region was assigned to Belarus post-1939. Belarus gave the area voluntarily to Lithuania in 1940. As the result, Dieveniškės becomes a 207-square-kilometre Lithuanian salient surrounded by and projecting some 30 kilometres into the Belarusian territory. At its neck, the “Lithuanian appendix” is barely 3 kilometres wide. According to the 1989 census, slightly over 60 percent of residents considered themselves Polish.[3]

References

  1. ^ "DIEVENISKES: Vilnius County, Salcininkai district | Lithuania | International Jewish Cemetery Project".
  2. ^ "Devenishki book; memorial book, Lithuania".
  3. ^ "Lithuanian-Belarusian border: Divided villages, divided lives". 15min.lt. 19 October 2012.