In 1392, the Grand Duke of Lithuania invited Jews and other minorities to trade in Vilnius, but for centuries Christian merchants fought to curtail the rights of Jewish merchants. Anti-Jewish prejudice sometimes erupted into violent attacks such as a 1592 pogrom when the wooden synagogue was burned down.  

Beginning in the mid- to late-1700s, the Jewish community transformed into a regional center of Jewish life and learning. Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman (the Gaon) left a lasting influence of scriptural study. Story holds that in 1812 Napoleon declared the city the “Jerusalem of the North” for its richness of Jewish cultural life.

Vilnius became part of the Russian Empire in 1795 and by 1832 the Jewish population had grown to more than 20,000 (roughly 58 percent of the total). Some Jews prospered, especially in trade and fabric manufacturing, while others struggled to make a living. A surge of Jewish migrants flocked to the city from rural areas and labored long hours under dismal conditions in factories.

Numerous Jewish charities in Vilnius coordinated aid programs to alleviate poverty. Other Jewish organizations included schools and literary groups for the Hebrew and Yiddish (Jewish) languages. However, Jewish emigration abroad increased in the years and decades following an 1881 pogrom and other antisemitic incidents. From 1906 to 1915, Vilnius served as the headquarters of the Russian Zionist Federation, a group that advocated for an independent Jewish state.

During the German invasion of Vilnius during World War I (1914-1918), Jewish store merchandise was confiscated, Jews were charged higher taxes and men were selected for forced labor. After the war, Lithuanian, Polish and Russian (Soviet) forces battled for control of the area. When Polish troops occupied the city April 1919, hundreds of Jews were arrested and dozens labeled “enemies of Poland” were murdered.

As part of Poland, the Jewish population of Vilnius grew from about 46,500 in 1921 to more than 58,000 in 1937 (roughly two-thirds of the total). The community continued to support dozens of synagogues, aid organizations and schools. The renowned YIVO Institute, Library and Archive was founded in 1925. Unfortunately, alongside cultural developments Jewish residents faced escalating antisemitism. In 1931, a Jewish university student was killed during protests and two years later a bomb exploded in a synagogue.

Soviet troops invaded Poland at the beginning of World War II in September 1939 and gave Vilnius to Lithuania. Lithuania then became a Soviet Socialist Republic in June 1940. Jewish businesses and community organizations were closed and influential Jewish community members were labeled “enemies of the people” and deported to Siberia.

A year later, on June 24, 1941, Vilnius fell to German forces. The next month, Nazi killing squads began murdering Jewish residents in the nearby Ponary forest. One by one, individuals were shot into a large pit. Tens of thousands of people were killed there over the next three years.

All Jewish residents of Vilnius were ghettoized in September 1941. Despite the circumstances, the Jewish community continued to organize schools, hospitals, soup kitchens and synagogues. Painter Samuel Bak (whose works are featured at Holocaust Museum Houston) exhibited his earliest works in the Vilnius ghetto when he was nine years old. In April 1943, Nazis resumed mass killings in the Ponary forest and initiated the first deportations from Vilnius to concentration and labor camps.  In the spring of 1944, Nazi officials assigned around 80 Jewish prisoners to burn the bodies at Ponary. The prisoners staged a daring escape and spent months hand-digging an underground tunnel which was discovered with archaeological evidence in the summer of 2016.

Soviet forces liberated Vilnius in July 1944 after three years of Nazi occupation. An estimated 70,000 Jews had been murdered at Ponary, as well as some 30,000 Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. Of a pre-war population of approximately 60,000 Jewish residents, only two or three thousand survived the Holocaust.