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1941September 1941–September 1943 · Vilnius Old Town

Vilna Ghetto

The arched façade of the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius, the only synagogue in the city to survive the war
Photo: Zairon. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Vilnius, known as the Jerusalem of Lithuania for centuries of Jewish learning, had one of Europe's great Jewish communities. In September 1941 the German occupiers crowded the survivors of the first massacres into two ghettos in the old Jewish quarter. Inside, people kept schools, a library and a theatre going, and the FPO underground organised armed resistance before the ghetto was liquidated in September 1943.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Site of the Great SynagogueExcavated remains near where the Vilna Gaon lived and studied.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: Ghetto gate, Rūdninkų StreetMemorial plaque and map at the main gate of the ghetto.Map ↗
  3. Site 3: Choral SynagogueThe only Vilnius synagogue to survive the war.Map ↗

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More from the Second World War

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