Kelmė

Town in Samogitia Region, Lithuania

City in Samogitia, Lithuania

Flag

Coat of arms

55°38′0″N 22°56′0″E / 55.63333°N 22.93333°E / 55.63333; 22.93333Country

LithuaniaEthnographic regionSamogitiaCountyŠiauliai County Municipality Kelmė district municipalityEldershipKelmė eldershipCapital ofKelmė district municipality
Kelmė eldershipFirst mentioned1484Granted city rights1947Government

• MayorVaclovas AndrulisArea

• Total7.85 km² (3.03 sq mi)Elevation

128 m (420 ft)Population

(2021)

• Total7,544 • Density960/km² (2,500/sq mi)Time zoneUTC+2 (EET) • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)Websitekelme.lt

Kelmė (pronunciation^ⓘ; Polish: Kielmy) is a city in northwestern Lithuania, a historical region of Samogitia. It has a population of 8,206 and is the administrative center of the Kelmė District Municipality.

Name

Kelmė's name is likely derived from the Lithuanian word kelmynės, literally: the stubby place, because of the forests that were there at the time of its founding.^[1]^[2] The Yiddish name is Kelm, as in Kelm Talmud Torah.

History

Kelmė was first mentioned in 1416, the year that Kelmė's first church was built.^[2] It was located in the Duchy of Samogitia in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Prior to World War II, Kelmė (Yiddish: Kelm) was home to a famous Rabbinical College, the Kelm Talmud Torah. According to an 1897 census, 2,710 of Kelme's 3,914 inhabitants were members of the town's Jewish population, the vast majority of whom were merchants and traders and lived in the town. Most of the Jews in Kelmė rural district were murdered during a mass execution on 29 July 1941. On August 22 a second mass execution occurred. On 2 October 1941, some Kelmė and Vaiguva Jews were murdered in Žagarė. The executions were committed by the Germans soldiers, auxiliary police and Lithuanian collaborators.^[3] In total, the number of victims is 1,250-1,300 people.

Gallery

Kelmė Manor, dates to the 15th century
Kelmė Manor gates and church in the distance
Evangelical Reformed Church, built in 1615
Roman Catholic Church
Kelmė Jonas Graičiūnas Gymnasium
Municipality building

People

Aryeh Leib Frumkin (1845–1916), Rabbi
Bronius Laucevičius-Vargšas (1884–1916), writer
Antanas Mackevičius (1828–1863),^[2] Roman Catholic priest involved in Uprising of 1863
Icchokas Meras (1934–2014), writer
Zvi Yaakov Oppenheim (1883–1926), Rabbi
Simcha Zissel Ziv (1824–1898), the Alter of Kelm

References

^ "Lietuvos miestų pavadinimų kilmė – tik upės ir pavardės?" [The origin of Lithuanian city names - only rivers and surnames?]. Delfi (in Lithuanian). 28 January 2012. Retrieved 29 September 2023.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Kelmė". Kelmė. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
^ "Holocaust Atlas of Lithuania".