1941July 1941–August 1944 · Paneriai, Vilnius

Paneriai massacres

A memorial to the Jewish victims in the forest at Paneriai, near Vilnius — Photo: Adam Jones. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In a forest of pits dug for Soviet fuel tanks outside Vilnius, German units and Lithuanian collaborators shot around 100,000 people, about 70,000 of them Jews from Vilnius and nearby towns, along with Poles and Soviet prisoners. Vilnius had been a world centre of Jewish learning. In 1943–44 prisoners were forced to dig up and burn the bodies to hide the crime.

Holocaust & Remembrance
Jewish Heritage
Vilnius, Lithuania

Sites

Site 1: Paneriai MemorialForest with the killing pits, memorial stones and a small museum.Map ↗
Site 2: Former ghetto, Vilnius old townStreets of the wartime ghetto, with plaques and a ghetto map.Map ↗