in 1941 June 24 After the occupation of Vilnius by the Nazi German army, the persecution and killing of the Jews of Vilnius began immediately. In mid-July, the killings became massive. in 1941 September 6 in the old town by the decision of the occupying German authorities and the Lithuanian administration that cooperated with them, the Vilnius ghetto was established, into which about 40 thousand Jews were driven. The place where you are standing - the current Rūdninkai Square - is part of the territory of the former Vilnius Great Ghetto.
in 1943 at the beginning of September, the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto began: men of working age were separated and taken to Nazi concentration camps in Estonia and Germany, and women to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Latvia. Adults and children of non-working age - to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Paneri. The specialists most needed by the Nazis were temporarily left alive and had to work in forced labor camps. September 24 The Vilnius ghetto ceased to exist.
Prisoners of the Vilnius ghetto were driven or transported about 15 kilometers to the place of mass killings (now Agrastų st. 10). This road ran along Savanorių avenue, went up to Paneriai hill and further along the then Gardin highway. We have recreated this route on the map and in the city. It consists of seven stops on the Memory Road to Panerius (according to Akiva Geršateri's photos).
Akiva Geršateris (1888–1972), a Vilnius Esperantist, bibliophile, philatelist, was among those who fell into the Vilnius ghetto. He, like several thousand other Jews of Vilnius, managed to escape. After the Soviets recaptured Vilnius from the Nazis, A. Geršateris, as it is believed, in 1944. at the request of the established Jewish Museum, he walked the ten-kilometer road to Paneri - from the White Pillars, which stood at the beginning of the then Savanorių alley, to Aukšų Paneri, stopping every time and taking pictures of it.
It is an extraordinary path. It was with him in 1941-1944. to the site of the mass killings in Paneriau, Nazi German security police officers, members of the Vilnius Special Squad and Lithuanian policemen drove, took out and shot tens of thousands of Vilnius Jews from the Vilnius ghetto or through the Lukiški prison, as well as from forced labor camps - the 600-year-old Lithuania Jerusalem population. Together with them in 1943 several thousand Jews from other towns in Eastern Lithuania were killed here: Švenčioni, Salai, Ashmena.
If we could go back in time to pre-war Vilnius and ask Vilnius residents what associations they have when they hear the word "Paneriai" (Polish. Mrs), many would have confirmed that they are very bright. As now when we hear the names of Birštonas or Druskininkai. In the warm valleys of the Aukšteių Paneriai hills and by the river, the people of Vilnius liked to have picnics, the city-garden "Jogailaičiai" was created here, and in 1939 Paneri has been granted the status of a resort area.
After the Nazis occupied Vilnius, there was a sudden, dramatic change in the image of Paneriai and the transformation of the place itself. Paneri became the territory of an unseen crime - the Holocaust, before which, according to writer Józef Mackiewicz from Vilnius, "all the crimes of the peacetime paled", and the word that evoked bright thoughts and feelings became one that, upon hearing, "starts to freeze the blood in the veins". For the massacres, the Nazis chose the pits of the unfinished fuel base of the Soviet Paneriai.
Maybe dry numbers are not impressive, but you need to know them - out of 57 thousand. Only a few thousands of Vilnius Jews remained alive. It is estimated that a total of 70 people were shot in Paneriai. Jews.
The massacres in Paneriai were carried out by the Vilnius special unit of the Nazi Security Service (SD), which was infamous at that time in Vilnius (German. Sonderkommando), who since 1941 at the end of July it was led by lieutenant Juozas Šidlauskas, and from November by lieutenant Balys Norvaiša, under the supervision of SS Hauptscharführer Martin Weiss and others.
You can familiarize yourself with the route here.
Author of ideas and texts dr. Zigmas Vitkus (University of Klaipėda)
