Smalininkai Synagogue (Schmalleningken)

This place has some peculiarities for East Prussia and for the Jews*in East Prussia: There was a very high Jewish percentage of the total population here. It is the first place in East Prussia where a Jew, Pincas Isakowitz, received the right to build a house with an inn in 1708. The synagogue was built on the main street even before churches were built in the village.
Schmalleningken, in Lithuanian Smalininkai, was located on the very old southeastern border of East Prussia with Lithuania and from 1795 the Russian Empire. 
Because of the customs revenues and the lively trade, with its hotels, inns and stores, the place had almost an urban appearance in the 19th century. The Memelstrom was the important transport and trade artery for timber and flax imports from the interior of the continent to the Baltic Sea (via the ports of Memel or Königsberg).
The town lost its function as a border town when, as a result of the First World War, the Memelland became part of Lithuania. With the return of the Germans shortly before the Second World War began the process of extinction of Jewish life in this region.