Zidikai (Zhidik in Yiddish) is in the northwest part of
Lithuania in the Zamut (Zemaitija) region, about 20 km. west of
the district administrative center of Mazheik (Mazeikiai). Most
of its houses were built on a hill. The Zidikai village and an
estate granted by the king to the noble Hudkevitz are listed in
legal documents dating back to the sixteenth century. In the
middle of the nineteenth century Zhidik became a county
administrative center. Until 1795 Zhidik was part of the Polish-
Lithuanian Kingdom. According to the third division of Poland in
the same year by the three superpowers of those times, Russia,
Prussia and Austria, Lithuania was divided between Russia and
Prussia. As most of Lithuania, Zhidik became a part of the
Russian Empire, first in the Vilna province (Gubernia) and from
1843 in the Kovno Gubernia. According to the all Russian census
of 1897, there were 1,243 residents in town, 914 being Jews
(73%). That year the town had three leather-processing shops and
twenty stores and conducted re