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Paneriai (Template:Lang-pl, Template:Lang-de) is a suburb of Vilnius, situated about 10 kilometres away from the city center. The town is located on low forested hills, on the Vilnius-Warsaw road. Paneriai was the site of a mass killing of as many as 100,000 people (mostly Jews, Poles and Russians), from Wilno and nearby towns and villages during World War II.

History

The village was probably founded some time in the 14th century. In 1390, it was acquired by the Vilnius bishopric and soon became the main supplier of bricks to the nearby city. It shared a common history with Vilnius. After the final Partition of Poland in 1795, it became a part of Imperial Russia. During the November Uprising, on June 19, 1831, the Battle of Ponary took place near the village, in which the forces of Dezydery Chłapowski and Antoni Giełgud were defeated by Russian infantry.

As result of Russia's withdrawal from World War I, and the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the area was acquired by Germany and transferred to Belarusian People's Republic. With Germany's defeat several months later the territory underwent significant political upheaval, but following the Polish-Bolshevik War, and the Polish-Lithuanian War, it eventually became a part of Poland. In 1939, after the Polish Defensive War, the village was captured by the Soviet Union and transferred to Lithuania, only to be reannexed by Soviet the following year. Since 1991, again part of independent Lithuania, it was recently incorporated to the city of Vilnius as one of its districts.

Massacre

After the annexation of Lithuania the Soviet authorities started to build a huge oil warehouse for a nearby military airfield. The construction was never finished as in 1941 the area was occupied by Nazi Germany. Between July 1941, and August 1944, Paneriai became the mass murder site of approximately 100,000 victims, the vast majority of them Jews and Poles many from nearby Wilno. The executions were carried out by German units of SD and SS with help from local Lithuanians Special SD and Security Police Squad Ypatingasis būrys. The victims were usually brought to the edges of huge pits and shot to death with machine gun fire.

The massacres began in July, 1941, when Einsatzkommando 9 rounded up 5,000 Jewish men of Wilno and took them to Paneriai where they were shot. Further mass killings, often aided by Lithuanian police Ypatingasis burys, took place throughout the summer and fall. By the end of the year, more than 40,000 Jews had been killed at Paneriai.

The total number of victims by the end of 1944 was between 70,000 and 100,000. According to post-war exhumation by the forces of 2nd Belorussian Front approximately 70% to 90% (50 000-70 000) of the victims were Polishs and Lithuanian Jews from nearby Polish and Lithuanian cities, while the rest (about 20 000) were primarily Poles. The Polish victims were mostly members of Polish intelligentsia (priests, teachers, professors of the Stefan Batory University, like Kazimierz Pelczar and Mieczysław Gutowski) and Polish soldiers of Armia Krajowa; among the first victims were approximatly 7,500 Polish POWs shot in 1941. At later stages there were also smaller numbers of victims of other nationalities, including local Russians, Roma and Lithuanians, particularly communists sympathisers and members of general Povilas Plechavičius Local Lithuanian Detachment who refused to follow German orders.

The executions at Paneriai are currently a matter of an investigation by the Gdańsk branch of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.

As Soviet troops advanced in 1943, the German-led units tried to cover up the crime. A unit of eighty workers was formed from nearby Stutthof concentration camp prisoners and was forced to dig up the bodies, pile them on wood and burn them. The ashes were then mixed with sand and buried. After six months of this gruesome work, the brigade managed to escape on April 19, 1944. Eleven of them managed to survive the ordeal, and their testimony is largely the basis of the above information.

The site of the massacre is commemorated by a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, a memorial to the Polish victims and a small museum (currently closed).

Notes

1. ^ Template:Pl icon Śledztwo w sprawie masowych zabójstw Polaków w latach 1941 - 1944 w Ponarach koło Wilna dokonanych przez funkcjonariuszy policji niemieckiej i kolaboracyjnej policji litewskiej (Investigation of mass murders of Poles in the years 1941-1944 in Ponary near Wilno by functionaries of German police and Lithuanian collaborating police). Institute of National Remembrance documents from 2003 on the ongoing investigation]. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.
2. ^ Template:Pl icon Czesław Michalski, Ponary - Golgota Wileńszczyzny (Ponary - the Golgoth of Wilno Region). Konspekt no. 5, Winter 2000/2001, a publication of Academy of Pedagogy in Kraków. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.
3. ^ Template:Lt icon Arūnas Bubnys (2004). Vokiečių ir lietuvių saugumo policija (1941–1944) (German and Lithuanian security police: 1941-1944). Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras. Retrieved 2006-06-09. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

See also

• Jozef Mackiewicz

External links

• Ponary Forest
• +article US Holocaust Museum article on Vilna with Ponary timeline (search under Vilna)
• Ponary

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