Paneriai [Polish: Ponary, Yiddish: Ponar] was the biggest mass killing site in German-occupied Lithuania. The killings took place from July 1941 to July 1944. Of the approximately 50,000 to 70,000 victims, the majority were Jews. According to the latest research, more than 130 Roma were killed in Paneriai.
The Killing Site and the Victims
From 1923 until 1939, when the Vilnius [Polish: Wilno] district was recognised as part of Poland, the Paneriai forest, located twelve kilometres south-west of Vilnius, was a popular recreational area for local residents. During the Soviet occupation in 1940–1941, a liquid fuel depot was set up in Paneriai. When Germany occupied Vilnius on 24 June 1941, the Security Police (SiPo) discovered the unfinished depot in the Paneriai forest, where a dozen pits had been dug. The site was selected for mass killing for practical reasons: a ready-made, secluded location and easy transportation of the victims by truck or on foot.
Most of the victims were Jews from Vilnius and the surrounding region. Among the victims were also members of the Polish intelligentsia, priests, members of the Armia Krajowa resistance movement and soldiers of General Povilas Plechavičius’ (1890–1973) Lithuanian Territorial Defence Force (LVR) [Lietuvos vietinė rinktinė] who refused to follow German orders. Victims also included Soviet prisoners of war, members of the Roma community, and local Russians and Lithuanians deemed disloyal to the Nazi occupation regime.
Perpetrators
The Vilnius Sonderkommando [Special Detachment] was responsible for the shooting of no fewer than 50,000 and possibly more than 70,000 people at Paneriai.1Arad, Ghetto in Flames; Dieckmann, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen; Snyder, Bloodlands; Minczeles, Vilna, Wilno, Vilnius. Soviet statistics put the number of victims at 100,000, but these numbers were exaggerated. It was formed by the German occupation authorities in 1941 and operated until 1944. Also called Ypatingasis būrys [Special Department, German: Sonderabteilung], the unit consisted of Lithuanian policemen, all volunteers, and was established with about 100 members dressed in civilian clothes.2Bubnys, “Vokiečių saugumo policijos” (1995) and Bubnys, “Vokiečių saugumo policijos” (2019). It was initially subordinate to Einsatzkommando 9 and later to the Security Police. It is first mentioned in documents dated 15 July 1941, which refer to the issue of ammunition. The first organisers of the squad were junior lieutenants Petras Jakubka (biographical data unknown) and Mečys Butkus (biographical data unknown). From 23 July 1941, officer Juozas Šidlauskas (1906–unknown) took over the command of the squad. In November 1941, lieutenant Balys Norvaiša (1908–unknown) was given command of the squad, with lieutenant Balys Lukošius (1908–2006) appointed as his deputy.
During this period, the number of members of the squad was reduced to about 40–50. Initially, there were no formal requirements for joining the squad, and only later were members obliged to swear an oath of loyalty and maintain strict secrecy. Breaches of secrecy were punishable by court martial and execution. A few tens of marks and food were paid for the service in the Sonderkommando. At the end of 1943, Norvaiša and Lukošius were transferred to the Lithuanian Self-Defence Battalion, and Warrant Officer Jonas Tumas (biographical data unknown) became the commander of the squad.
At first, the members of the squad did not have a standard uniform; some of them wore Lithuanian army attire. From 1942 onward, its members wore the green uniforms of the Security Service (SD) [Sicherheitsdienst], with a swastika and a skull on the cap. They were also issued SD service certificates. Although the majority of the squad members were Lithuanian, there were also Russians and Poles among them. The Lithuanian Schutzstaffel (SS) men in the Sonderkommando were subordinate only to the German Security Police and followed the instructions of its officers. The longest serving commander of the squad was SS-Hauptscharführer Martin Weiss (also spelled Weiß) (1903–1984). He not only commanded the shooting of people in Paneriai, but also often shot wounded victims with a pistol himself. In 1943, Weiss was assigned to run a women’s camp on Rasų Street in Vilnius, and a man named Fiedler3Bubnys, Vokiečių okupuota Lietuva, 272–274. (biographical data unknown) replaced him.
The Sonderkommando was created specifically to carry out killings and it committed crimes throughout its existence. The largest number of people were shot by this squad in 1941, when shootings took place in Paneriai almost every day. From December 1943, the site was guarded by a special SS unit, and in 1944 the Sonderkommando ceased to be involved in the massacres in Paneriai. The murders were then carried out instead by German police units.
The Killings
Victims were taken to the site of the massacre on foot, by truck and sometimes by train. They were brought from Lukiškės prison, the Vilnius ghetto and other places of detention in eastern Lithuania. Typically, 20 to 30 SS personnel were present during shootings, with some assigned to firing squads, others to guard duty or escorting victims to the pits. The site of the massacre in Paneriai was called ‘the base’ among the members of the Sonderkommando and was guarded to prevent survivors of the shootings from escaping. After the massacres, members of the squad often not only appropriated the clothes of the victims, but also sold them to the locals gathered at the gates of the fenced mass killing site.
Covering up the Traces of the Crimes
In the spring of 1943, the Nazi institutions began efforts to erase the evidence of mass killings.4Angrik, „Aktion 1005,“ 717. Paul Blobel (1894–1951), an SS-Standartenführer and commander of the entire Aktion 1005 [Operation 1005], visited Lithuania periodically, seeking updates on the progress of the operation and addressing specific problems (unsanitary conditions, scavenging animals, grave robbing and the spread of rumours).
From November 1943 until April 1944 the Sonderkommando 1005A, which consisted of 80 mostly Jewish prisoners (among them several women), was detained in Paneriai with the task of exhuming and burning the corpses of the victims.5Šuras, Vilniaus geto kronika, 160; GARF, f. 7021, op. 94, d. 1, Statement of Konstantin Potanin to the State Extraordinary Commission of the Party Central Committee, 13.08.1944, l. 12. Shackled with finger-thick leg cuffs, male prisoners exhumed the corpses and loaded them on to specially prepared pyramid-shaped pyres that would burn for three to seven days. Based on testimonies of members of Sonderkommando 1005A who managed to escape and survived, an estimated 56,000 to 70,000 corpses dug from eight pits were burnt on 10–19 pyres between December 1943 and 15 April 1944.6Latvytė, “Paneriai,” 49.
Investigations after Liberation
The ‘Extraordinary State Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating Crimes Perpetrated by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices and the Damage Inflicted by Them on Citizens, Collective Farms, Social Organisations, State Enterprises and Institutions of the USSR’ was formed by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) on 2 November 1942. The commission tasked to investigate the Paneriai mass killing site was established on 13 July 1944 and conducted its work between 15 and 26 August. It investigated seven pits, three canals and ten incineration sites. The commission’s report recorded 62,500 victims of the pits based on statements and analysed 515 corpses that were still present.7Dieckmann, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen, 1323.
It found that the majority of the victims of the mass and systematic murders were civilians, although soldiers’ corpses were also found. The majority of the victims were Jews while the number of murdered Roma, non-Jewish Russians, Poles, and Lithuanians was significantly smaller. Almost all the victims died of gunshot wounds or injuries. The documents and personal belongings found in the victims’ clothing made it possible to establish that people of different social backgrounds, professions, age and gender were shot at Paneriai.8GARF, fond 7021, op. 94, d. 1, l. 35. Exhumation of the remains of the victims was one of the major achievements of the Extraordinary State Commission at Paneriai.
Roma Victims
Several survivors of the German occupation of Lithuania and of Nazi crimes against Jews have also reported murders of Roma in Paneriai. Abraham Sutzkever (1913–2010), for example, wrote about Martin Weiss: ‘He personally participated in all the executions, and murdered thousands of people with his own hands. Just as a sparrow hawk does not make distinctions among its prey, he did not distinguish among people, especially with death. When Roma were missing from his collection, he organized a raid in the forest to capture them along with their horses and their caravans, and transfer them to his kingdom.’9Sutzkever, From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg, 78.
Recent archival research indicates that at least 134 members of the Roma community (nearly ten per cent of the Lithuanian Roma)10Before World War II, about 1,500 Roma lived in Lithuania, see Lietuvių enciklopedija, 184. were killed at Paneriai. The first four Roma victims at Paneriai were mentioned as early as 1942.11Erslavaitė, Masinės žudynės Lietuvoje, 40. Testimonies from survivors of the Sonderkommando 1005A and Juozas Baltramonaitis (1907–1967), a Lithuanian priest and chaplain of Lukiškės Prison 1942 to 1944, document two more mass shootings of Roma in March–April 1944 at the Paneriai killing site.
Survivor Konstantin Potanin (biographical data unknown) testified to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission on 13 August 1944 that at the end of March 1944, ‘84 Roma and 15 Polish railway workers among whom there were two girls were brought by train to the massacre’. He further states that they ‘were all shot near the campfire one by one. […] A shot and a scream was heard. And again a shot and a scream’.12GARF, f. 7021, op. 94, d. 1, l. 35; Petrauskas, J. “Paneriuose.” Tiesa, 23 August 1944, 3. This statement is corroborated by the fact that, according to local residents, the victims were usually brought to the killing site on foot in columns.13Sakowicz, Panerių dienoraštis. Lietuvos ypatingasis archyvas [Lithuanian Special Archives] (LYA), Vilnius: f. K-1, inv. 58, file 47746/3, Minutes of the court session of the Voivodeship Court in Olsztyn, testimony of witness Viktor Ivanovsky, 17.05.1977, l. 208; Ibid., fond K-1, inv. 46, file 4913, Testimony of witness Sofija Kovalskaja, l. 153. Only twice were the victims transported by train: on 4 April 1943,14Ibid., f. K-1, inv. 58, file 47746/3, l. 206; Ibid., f. K-1, inv. 46, file 4913, l. 153. when 5,000 Jews from the liquidated Vilnius district ghettos were brought to Paneriai, and at the end of March in 1944, when Polish railway workers were transported together with Roma.
Other survivors mention that these Roma victims were shot at the so-called Kaunas pit. According to a drawing of the Paneriai massacre site plan made in 1946 by Zdrojevski (biographical data unknown), a member of the Extraordinary State Commission,15Ibid., file 4911, Plan of the Paneriai camp, where Germans exterminated the civilian population, 31.08.1946, ll. 14–18. pits No. 7 (560 cubic metres) and No. 8 (628 cubic metres) were called the ‘Kaunas pit’ by the members of the exhumation and cremation brigade. On 23 August 1944, a journalist named Petrauskas mentioned the ‘Kaunas pit’ in the local Soviet daily Tiesa [English: Truth] describing ‘dozens of Gypsies and dozens of Lithuanian soldiers’ brought to Paneriai in 1944 and shot there: ‘From these troops, the cremation brigade received 37 brand-new green hats, and as many trousers, uniforms and greatcoats.’16Petrauskas, “Paneriuose,” 3.
The third mass killing of Roma in Paneriai in early April 1944 is referred to in the memoirs of survivor Yuri Farber (biographical data unknown), who testified: ‘At eleven o’clock, a series of machine gun rounds was heard. The next day, we were led outside the gate, to the dead-end of a railway branch line, where 50 Gypsies were lying, probably the whole community, most probably shot right after being brought there. Apparently, they had broken loose in different directions, and the soldiers with the machine guns opened random fire. Some managed to run 60 steps. And one girl, as we discovered, was alive … Women, children … We were told to undress them. The men wear short fur coats. We were told to collect bodies, to put them on a pile of corpses which was already prepared and to set them on fire. All this made a very strong, depressing impression on us. Someone even suggested to me that we should attack the guards, take away the guns, and kill at least one SS man’.17Rozin, Farber, “Yama.”
Survivor Zalman Matzkin (biographical data unknown), interviewed on 26 August 1944, also mentions Roma victims to the Special Soviet Commission: ‘On April 5 [1944], Jews were brought from Estonia, about 450 people. Here they were shot on the spot at a pit where about 40 Gypsies and 15 Poles had been shot’.18LYA, fond K-1, inv. 46, file 4913, Copy of interrogation protocol of Z. Matzkin, l. 153.
Forty-six Roma, likely the same group described by Farber and possibly the same as those mentioned by Matzkin, are also recorded in the diary of the Lithuanian priestJuozas Baltramonaitis. On 12 April 1944, a Wednesday, he noted: ‘On Holy Saturday [8 April 1944], 175 people were taken to Kaunas Prison, and 46 Gypsies [čigonai] and a Russian woman were taken to Entlassung [English: release], which completely ruined the Holy Saturday mood. The Gypsies were taken away with children. Twenty-six Gypsies (all adults) made their confession and received Holy Communion; I baptised three little Gypsies.’19Aliulis, “Kalėjimo kapeliono Juozo Baltramonaičio dienoraštį,” 590.
Based on all testimonies of the survivors and the Lithuanian priest’s diary, it is estimated that at least 134 to 138 Roma were killed at Paneriai.
Memorial Site
The Paneriai site was the first large-scale massacre site discovered by the Soviet authorities when the Red Army entered Vilnius on 13 July 1944. It was also the first location where the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission began exhumations of the victims, interpreting their findings in the light of Soviet ideology.20Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas [Lithuanian Central State Archives] (LCVA), Vilnius: f. K-181, inv. 1, file 10, Letter of 16 March 1946 from the Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of People’s Commissars to the Deputy Chairman of the LSSR Council of People’s Commissars, comrade Gregorauskas, 16.03.1944, I. 39. On 23 August 1944, Holocaust survivors and the Communist Party authorities of the Soviet Lithuania organised a rally, presenting it as the largest massacre site of Soviet citizens and a ‘brotherhood burial ground’.21LYA, f. 17541, inv. 1, file 33, Justas Paleckis: Kelkime aikštėn vokiškųjų fašistų nusikaltimus [Let Us Bring to Light the Crimes of the German Fascists] [Typeprint], ll. 6–7A; Venclova, Antanas. “Žudynių laukai Paneriuose.” 1944. Tiesa 42(103), 25 August 1944, 3;J. Dovydaitis, “Kerštas žmonių žudikams hitlerininkams!“. 1944. Tiesa 41(102), August, 24, 3; photo collection of the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History (VGMJH). Until 1947, the Lithuanian Soviet authorities officially allowed the Holocaust survivors to commemorate Jewish victims, but only upon prior request.22LYA, fond K-1, inv. 46, file 4911/8, Act of the Special Commission, 26.08.1944, I. 21.
In 1948, thanks to efforts and funding provided by the Vilnius Jewish community, one of the first monuments in the Soviet Union dedicated to the memory of the Jews who were killed by the Nazi regime was erected close to the largest pit. However, in the wake of an antisemitic campaign in Moscow between 1948 and 1952, it was pulled down and replaced with an obelisk with a five-pointed star and the standard inscription in Lithuanian and Russian: ‘In memory of the victims of Fascist Terror. 1941–1944’. Along with the monument dedicated to the murdered Jews, the Polish residents of Vilnius built a wooden cross with a medallion depicting a mourning Virgin Mary in memory of their murdered compatriots; this wooden cross, too, was removed by the Soviet authorities after 1952.23Sosnowski, Henryk. “Pomnik Ponarski.” Kurier Wilenski, no. 226 (1990): 3.
In 1960, the Soviet Lithuanian authorities established the Memorial Museum of Victims of Fascist Terror at the site of the mass killings at Paneriai. Initially a branch of the Vilnius Regional Research Museum, it became a subsidiary of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic’s History and Revolution Museum in 1962. In 1977, the memorial park was officially renamed the Paneriai Memorial. The site was redesigned in 1985 according to a project by the local architect Jaunutis Makariūnas (1934–2021), gaining its current shape.
In 1991, after Lithuania regained independence, the museum building and the exhibition were transferred to the Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History; in 2014, the entire memorial site was handed over to the museum as well. This move initiated the comprehensive rearrangement of the entire memorial site. From 2015 to 2017, in cooperation with the Lithuanian Institute of History and other institutions, the museum conducted a three-stage archival and non-invasive archaeological research project. The research uncovered a number of new features of the site, including killing locations, trenches for inmates and places of former buildings. It also revealed that the territory of the site was far bigger than previously assumed, and that it may have covered an area of 72 hectares. In 2018, the Paneriai Memorial Museum was renamed the Paneriai Memorial Visitors Information Centre, and a new exhibition was established. Nowadays, the Paneriai Memorial has a two-fold function in the commemorative culture of Lithuania: it is both a symbol of the Holocaust in Lithuania and a commemoration site for the victims of World War II.
Remembering the Roma Victims
Eleven monuments across the Paneriai Memorial commemorate different groups of victims. The most recent monument is dedicated to the Roma victims. The first marker was placed through a grassroots initiative on 2 August 2015: children of the Vilnius Roma community, supported by the Romų visuomenės centras [Roma Community Centre] and by historians of the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum, laid out a symbolic circle of stones on the occasion of the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma. The symbolic circle was deconstructed in October 2023.
On 2 August 2023, the Roma community, supported by the Lithuanian Ethnic Minorities Department, installed a temporary memorial at the ‘Kaunas pit’, where the majority of Roma victims were killed. The monument consists of a metal construction that includes the symbolic wheel of a caravan and the inscription in Romanes ‘Te javen erte’ [Be Saved]. A panel in Lithuanian, English, Polish and Hebrew notes that ‘nearly 100 Roma may have been killed at Paneriai’.
Each year, Lithuanian and foreign institutions, including non-governmental organisations, hold several major commemorative events in Paneriai, most notably the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma on 2 August.
