Ruth Leiserowitz, an historian from Germany, has researched the dramatic forced migration out of Klaipėda, also known as Memel, before World War II. She will present her newest book on the subject called “Žydai Klaipėdoje (Mėmelyje)” [Jews in Klaipėda (Memel)] at the Ieva Simonaitytė Public Library in Klaipėda at 5:00 P.M. on April 29.

The publication is intended to coincide with the 770th birthday of the port city.

Leiserowitz’s father came from Memel and she worked at Klaipėda University after Lithuanian independence, and helped organize the Thomas Mann festival in Nida, Lithuania. She got interested in her research topic because of her Jewish father-in-law who was born in Šilutė, then known as Heydekrug. In 1923 his family left Memelland when it was annexed by Lithuania. She decided to look into the fate of Jewish families forced to leave the region. She says her research is often something like a detective novel.

She notes there are many surviving buildings and sites where residents of Memel lived and worked but were forced to quit because of historical circumstances. Some managed to make a life elsewhere, but others failed.

The book is rich with illustrations and contains many photographs never seen before.

“It’s not easy to write about Jews who lived in Memel before World War II because the Memel Jewish community library and archives didn’t survive,” she writes in the book’s introduction. She said she made use of surviving photo-albums from Jewish families from the area, many of them with roots going back into the distant past.