lietuviškai

Stumbling stones for the Zivai family are installed in Liepų sq. 23, Švėkšna.

Mošė Zivas and his family, who have lived in the city centre of Švėkšna and have had a textile shop, were painfully affected by the Holocaust.

Mošė Zivas was born in 1872 in Šiaudviečiai village and married Rachelė Pešė Kromaitė Zivienė, who was born in 1883. They have had five children – Miriam Zivaitė, Minda Zivaitė, Libė Zivaitė, Naftalis Zivas, and Maksas Zivas. Minda Zivaitė was birn in 1918, Miriam and Libė – in 1915, Naftalis Zivas – in 1924.

On 28 June 1941, Naftalis and Mošė Zivai were taken to a labour camp, Meišlaukiai village. After a few months, Mošė Zivas was taken to Šiaudviečiai village and killed there. On 20 September, Rachelė Zivienė and Minda Zivaitė were massacred in the forest near Inkaliai. During the war, Miriam Zivaitė lived in Vilnius and worked as a teacher. However, she got into the Vilnius ghetto and, during the liquidation of the ghetto, was killed in the Paneriai.

Only Naftalis Zivas and Libė Zivaite have survived.

In 1945, the American army freed prisoners who had stayed alive from the Muhldorf camp; one of them was Naftalis Zivas. In Germany, Naftalis acquired the laboratory assistant specialty and, in 1950, moved to Australia.

After the war, Libė Zivaitė lived in Vilnius, and when the opportunity arose, she moved to Israel, where she created a family and lived for the rest of her life.

The installation of memorial stones for the Ziva family was initiated by the  Hugo Scheu museum in Šilutė.