Alternate names: Šeduva [Lith], Shadeve [Yid], Shadova [Rus], Szadów [Pol], Schadow [Ger], Shedeva, Sheduva, Šeduvos, Šedova, Šedava, Russian: Шадов. שאַדעווע-Yiddish. 55°46' N, 23°46' E, 23 miles W of Panevėžys (Ponevezh), 21 miles ESE of Šiauliai (Shavl). 1900 Jewish population: 2,513. ShtetLink.  Before WWII, the Jewish population was 200 families (about 800). On the Ponevėžys-Radviliškes highway and railroad. in the 16th century Šeduva was the location of a royal estate and of a town growing alongside a road leading from Central Lithuania to Livonia (Latvia) in the 16th century.  There were 203 houses, including warehouses and stores. In 1654 Šeduva received the Magdeburg charter and a town crest. A lower school was intermittently operative with 96 students in 1828. After the 1863 insurrection, all parish schools were closed and replaced by public Russian schools. In 1871-73 a railroad was laid 2-3 km from the town. Roughly half of the 3,783 inhabitants in 1880 (4,474 in 1897) were Jewish merchants and craftsmen. Grain, flax, and linseed were purchased and shipped to the port of Liepaja. From the middle of the 19th century on, it was the township seat. A junior high school established in 1918 by the Saulė society that became a regular secondary school in 1938.[March 2009]

CEMETERY: JOWBR burial list: Jewish Cemetery. photo. Another burial list.  photo. [March 2009]

MASS GRAVES: The German forces captured Seduva on June 25, but Lithuanian activists (white-bands) began terrorizing the Jews before. By the beginning of July, they forcibly moved the Jews, including those of nearby Pakuteniai village, 5 km beyond Seduva, into a guarded ghetto made up of houses surrounded by barbed wire. The first ten victims, who purportedly were taken to work on the road to Radviliskis, were shot next to lime pits and covered with the still burning lime. In mid-August, the murderers shot another 27 victims including the rabbi past the village of Kaulalishkisi. Then 35 Jews doing farm work were murdered at the "red estate" a few kilometers from Seduva and buried in the fields that afterwards were plowed with a tractor. Three families, one the only doctor in the area and two fire fighters ,were kept alive for 54 weeks before being murdered. One woman, who was not hit by gunfire and fell between the victims' bodies, escaped when the murderers took a break to get drunk and did not cover the bodies in the pit. Only in underwear, she climbed out of the pit and went to the church where she told the priest about the murders. He got her clothes and hid her with local farmers, where she stayed until liberation. When the Siauliai (Shavel) ghetto was eliminated, she helped a man hide with the same farmer. Both survived. Survivors constructed a memorial at all the sites where the Jews of Seduva were murdered including Liaudiskiai forest about 10 km SW of Seduva; 400 meters N of Seduva road; and 900 meters NW of the same road close to a path in the forest on August 25-26 where 664 died, 230 men, 275 women, 159 children. [March 2009]

MASS GRAVE: Forest of Liaudiskiai. 10 km SW of Seduva; (two massacre sites); 144; pic. # 222. Near the village of Pakuteniai, 5 km S of Seduva (two massacre sites); 143; pic. # 218-219 US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad