of Russia. However, the town grew rapidly following the Uprising of 1863 and the abolition of serfdom. After a few devastating fires, residents started constructing brick buildings. The town continued to be known for its markets and for its carriages. Eišiškės was part of the Nowogródek Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic during the interwar years. During World War II, the town witnessed some fighting between the Polish Armia Krajowa, Nazi Wehrmacht, and Soviet Red Army. Jewish history According to Jewish sources, there were tombstones dating from as early as 1097 at the former Jewish cemetery, making Eishishok one of the oldest Jewish settlements in Eastern Europe. In the 18th century, the Jewish population accounted for about half of the population, and as the town grew, the proportion of Jewish residents increased, hitting a peak of 80% in 1820. According to the 1921 Polish Census, Jews no longer constituted majority in the town ( Poles 1688 (70,86%), Jews 687 (28,84%), 7 Tatars (0,3%). In the Holocaust, German troops came in Eišiškės on June 23, 1941, and on September 21, 1941, an SS Einsatzgruppen entered the town, accompanied by Lithuanian auxiliaries. More than four thousand Jews from Eishishok and its neighboring towns and villages were first imprisoned in three synagogues and then taken in groups of 250 to the old Jewish cemetery where SS men ordered them to undress and stand at the edge of open pits. There, Lithuanian auxiliary troops shot them. The old cemetery is now a site of remembrance with a memorial stone in three languages. The new cemetery was destroyed in 1953 and turned into the yard of a kindergarten. Some of the private Jewish buildings survive and are protected as part of the urban heritage. One school is now a library, while another was demolished. No Jews are known to live in the town today. The history of Jewish Eyshishok has been documented in the book There Once Was A World by Yaffa Eliach, professor at Brooklyn College. Demographics Today Poles form a majority: they constitute some 80% of the population within the Šalčininkai District Municipality. Eišiškės also has a small community of Romani people, numbering some 34 families. It dates from at least 1780 when King Stanisław August Poniatowski appointed a certain Znamirowski as community's elder. In 2001, in Eišiškės 42 students of Roma descent received financial assistance from an education fund. Religion The first