
Today’s Vytautas Didižiojo Street is the area of the historical Jewish quarter – the shtetl, where markets were held and shops were located. There were also many specialized shops here: iron, clothing, shoes, etc. It was possible to buy both domestically produced and imported goods. Today the street is unique in its surviving Jewish heritage, and this red brick house is one of the remaining heritage buildings. The old architecture of the town is characterized by a brick house. For several decades now, an inscription in Lithuanian “Pakruojis Printing House” has attracted the gaze of passers-by. In the interwar period, the businessmen of Pakruojis brothers Dov and Shlome Maizeliai lived in this house. They contributed significantly to the modernization of Pakruojis by building a mill from which the town was supplied with electricity. The brothers were not only active businessmen but also promoters of culture and established the first printing house. They wanted to set up a library for Jewish literature here and were already collecting books for it. But like the entire Jewish community of Pakruojis, the brothers were killed during the tragedy of the Holocaust.
During the Soviet era, from 1950, a printing house started operating here, together with the editorial office of the district newspaper “Star”. in 1951-1953, the newspapers of the Machine and Tractor Station (an infrastructural state agricultural company operating in Lithuania during the Soviet occupation) were also printed: “For leading collective farms”, and “Speedy”. In 1995 the Pakruojo printing house became a private company and printed brochures, forms, labels, and other small prints for several years. Currently, the building of the printing house is being renovated. After the reconstruction, the building will be used for the needs of the Pakruojis municipality community.