Šeduva was an agricultural town dealing in cereals, flax and linseed, pigs and geese and horses, at the site of a royal estate and beside a road from Kaunas to Riga.

1792 Stanislaw II August Poniatowski, the last royal proprietor of Šeduva, concluded an agreement with the town's citizens, giving them rights to be excused from labour on the estate for a fee.

In the same year a Russian Orthodox Church, designed by the architect Ustinas Golinevicius, was built and in 1866 a wooden Synagogue was added near the central market square.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia in August 1939 and the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty a month later placed Lithuania under Soviet control.

By June 1940 the Soviets had set up a pro-Soviet government and stationed many Red Army troops in Lithuania as part of the Mutual Assistance Pact between the countries.

At the end of August 1941, on orders issued by the Germans, 664 Jews were executed over two days in Liaudiškės forest by Šeduva policemen and local Hiwis.

Its aim is to tell the history of the Jews of Šeduva before the Second World War and to present the traditions, businesses and cultural phenomena that are characteristic of other Lithuanian shtetls of that time.

[5] With the estimated floor space of 2.7 thousand square meters, the museum's building is designed by Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamäki[6] while the interior of permanent exhibition is overseen by the Ralph Appelbaum Associates.