Relationship	Family/ Pre-Marriage Name	First Name	Father’s Name	Mother’s Name	Occupation or Nickname	Place of birth/ Residence	Age or birth date	Place and date of death
Widower	Kaplanski	Yakov Mordechai			Grocery store. Preacher on Gemora in the synagogue.	Shkud	65	Shkud, July 1941
Son	Kaplanski	Yehuda	Yakov Mordechai	Tova		Shkud	28	Shkud
Daughter	Kaplanski	Chana Rivka	Yakov Mordechai	Tova	Helping in the grocery store	Shkud	22	Alka Hill
The aunt	Zaks	Chana		Sister of Tova	Housewife	Shkud	40	Alka Hill
***

According to Hana Shaf-Brener, Yakov Mordechai Kaplanski, a widower (his wife’s name was Tova), ran a grocery store and taught Gemora in the synagogue. He had a son, Yehuda, and a daughter, Chana Rivka. The children’s aunt, Chana Zaks, Tova’s sister, also lived in Shkud.

According to Jewish Gen’s Lithuania Deaths database, Yakov’s wife Taube died in 1931, age 49, of heart disease. She was the daughter of Abram Zaks and his wife Sore Blokh [whose maiden surname is given as Zaks – did Abram marry a divorced cousin?]. According to the Marriages database, Ester Kaplanski, born Feb 21 1914, the daughter of Jankel and Chane [???], was married to Peisach Shokhet in Skuodas in 1934.

Yad Vashem provides this information on the Kaplanski family of Shkud:

Rabbi Yaakov Kaplanski was born in Skuodas, Lithuania. He was a merchant. Prior to WWII he lived in Skuodas, Lithuania. Rabbi Kaplanski was murdered/perished in 1941 in Skuodas, Lithuania. This information is based on a Page of Testimony submitted by his granddaughter (http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=1124233&language=en)

Rivka Kapelanski was born in Shkod, Lithuania to Yaakov and Tova nee Zaks. Prior to WWII she lived in Shkod, Lithuania. Rivka was murdered/perished in Shkod, Lithuania. This information is based on a Page of Testimony by her niece (http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=5632697&language=en)

Yehuda Kaplanski was born in Shkod, Lithuania to Yaakov and Tova. He was a merchant. Prior to WWII he lived in Shkod, Lithuania. Yehuda was murdered/perished in Shkod, Lithuania. This information is based on a Page of Testimony submitted by his niece (http://db.yadvashem.org/names/nameDetails.html?itemId=987641&language=en)

The document “Jews in the Memory of Skuodas People” lists Yankel Kaplanski as a trader in colonial goods (19; see the link on this page); thus his shop would have sold tea, coffee, sugar, cotton goods, and other merchandise produced in “the colonies.” Kehilat Shkud also provides some detailed information. Rabbi Yakov Kaplanski was “a clever and superlative scholar; for a long time, he served as a preacher in the synagogue in the New Town. He was active on the town’s Jewish Community council. He blew the Shofar, and after the prayer, he used to blow the Shofar for sick people in their homes” (43). He was also a teacher: “the ‘Gemara Society’ would read their daily page with the participation of Bera Zusya Peres and Yaakov Kaplansky” (Kehilat Shkud 55; s.a. p. 27).

Yakov Kaplanski was also a member of the Gemara Society:

Members of Burial Society, 7 Kislev 1936: In memory of the member Reb Moishe Taitz. The Khevre Gemara 
in Shkud says farewell upon his going up [aliya] to our Holy Land. Seated from right to left: Pin, M. Sh.; Chatzkel, N; Taitz, Moshe; Kaplanski, Y; Natanson, Y. H’Rav Dafa; Shnshvaski, A; Melamed, Y; Yoselovich, Ts; Faktor, A; Hupsha, A; Grinker, L. Valert, A; Epstein, A; Piktur, A. D.; Urdang, A. B.; Minks, M.; Yankelovich, Y. (Kehilat Shkud 27)

Yakov Kaplanski also represented his community on the larger political stage. In 1926, [he] greeted Lithuanian President Anantes Smetana on a visit to Shkud. “In the shul, the President was greeted in the name of Jewish Shkud by Rabbi Kaplanski (hy”d) in excellent Lithuanian, who brought forward the inhabitants’ request for improvements in the social conditions in town. (Kehilat Shkud 31).

Yakov and Tova’s son Avraham left Shkud before the beginning of the war and survived the Holocaust. Born in Skuodas in 1919, he moved to Palestine in 1938, where he studied in a trade school. He joined the Haganah, and in 1940 was drafted into the British army, attaining the rank of Sergeant Major. He died in battle in Israel in 1949. For a more detailed description of “Avremele’s” life and exploits, see Kehilat Shkud 41.

Abraham Kaplanski (Photo Kehilat Shkud 41)