VILKAVISKIS
a small town in Southern Lithuania
Where the Jewish Community is no more
Shlomo Yaakov Rapaport  Family Album
This site was created by Ralph Salinger
of Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin. Israel
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Class picture from Vilkaviskis Gynasium 1927
Back of the Postcard
I see that you found on your trip a picture of a graveof Israel Sperling, I know that my great Aunt MerleSperling(originally Rokeach or Kochkovsky) was marriedto a Phineas Sperling and they had two children :Fishel and Hester, The Rumor is that they died in theWarsaw ghetto but that source also says that they diedwith Merle and Phineas and my grandmother wrote in hermemories that she died of an illness and left her twochildren orphaned with her husband.
2 More incredible pictures from Shlomo
A picture of my mother at age two with her family before leaving Vilkaviskis - on the second floor on the porch, They lived at 7 Eimcio Latve - onthe map from before the 2nd world war after a discussion with a 94 year old survivor who lived near them but did not remeber them - as they left in 1926this is very possible - he claims that on the map the brick building in his day would have been the library and Hapoalim Club but on the map that side of the street is even numbers and as you can see on the map my Uncle z"l drew the number was 7 in any case it must have been close because it is just down the street from the market which we remember my grandmother and uncles talking as being very close.
is the High school class of 1924-5. The last year my Berz family was in Vilkaviskis.. He is standing on the top left. His teacher I believe was maybe a man named Varshavsky.
This  is a group picture from 1914-16? with a cut out. My Uncle Phillip Fissia Berz is the child below on the left. In the second row from the top is his mother Braine Berz (Rokeach) and her sister in law Sara Riva Berz is just right of the cut in the pic. The man cut out of the pic was flirting with grandmother and her brotherdecided that they disapproved of him so they snipped out of the pic.
From Vilkaviskis about February-March 1926 just before my mother left Vilkavisikis with her family . She is the little girl standing in the middle . Her Brother Israel is standing on the left and the second from the right standing is her brother Sam Berz(Bercas). We think the others are friends but maybe they are relatives. If any one recognizes them please tell us. We have a possible name for one of the little girls standing on the left- it may have been Sperling?