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{{The Holocaust}} |
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The '''Ponary massacre''' (or '''Paneriai massacre''') was the sequence of events that took place between July ] and August ] near the railway station of ] ({{lang-pl|Ponary}}), now a suburb of ] (Wilno), which became the ] site of approximately 100,000 victims, the vast majority of them ] and ] many from nearby metropolis of Vilnius.<ref name="Sak_Ard">], ], ''Ponary Diary, 1941–1943: A Bystander's Account of a Mass Murder'', Yale University Press, 2005, ISBN 0300108532, .</ref><ref name="Piotrowski_168">], ''Poland's Holocaust'', McFarland & Company, 1997, ISBN 0-7864-0371-3, .</ref><ref name="IPN-Ponary">{{pl icon}} (Investigation of mass murders of Poles in the years 1941–1944 in Ponary near Wilno by functionaries of German police and Lithuanian collaborating police). ] documents from 2003 on the ongoing investigation]. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.</ref> The executions were carried out by German units of ] and ] with help from local ],<ref name="IPN-Ponary"/><ref name="WSP-Ponary">{{pl icon}} Czesław Michalski, (Ponary — the Golgoth of Wilno Region). ''Konspekt'' nº 5, Winter 2000–2001, a publication of the ]. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.</ref><ref name="Bubnys">{{lt icon}} {{cite book | author =] | coauthors = | title =Vokiečių ir lietuvių saugumo policija (1941–1944) (German and Lithuanian security police: 1941–1944)| year =2004 | publisher =Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras | location =Vilnius | url =http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/1/arunas1.htm | accessdate =2006-06-09 }}</ref> The victims were usually brought to the edges of huge pits and shot to death with machine gun fire. |
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During the ] the town of Ponary was part of the ], ] (] region). In September 1939 the region was ]. After the annexation of Lithuania by the ], the following year, the Soviet authorities started to build a huge oil warehouse for a nearby military ]. The construction was never finished as in ] the area ] by ]. The Nazis decided to take advantage of the large pits dug for the oil warehouses to dispose of bodies of unwanted locals. The massacres began in July, 1941, when ] 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 '']'', took place throughout the summer and fall<ref name="Bubnys"/>. By the end of the year, more than 40,000 Jews had been killed at Paneriai. |
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The total number of victims by the end of 1944 was between 70,000 and 100,000. According to post-war ] by the forces of ] the majority (50,000–70,000) of the victims were ] and ] from nearby Polish and Lithuanian cities, while the rest were primarily ] (about 20,000) and ] (about 8,000)<ref name="WSP-Ponary"/><ref name="IPN-Ponary"/>. The Polish victims were mostly members of Polish ] (teachers, professors of the ] like ], priests like ]) and members of ] ].<ref name="WSP-Ponary"/><ref name="Piotrowski_168"/> Among the first victims were approximatly 7,500 Soviet ]s shot in ] soon after ] begun.<ref name="Rzecz-Ponary">. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.</ref> At later stages there were also smaller numbers of victims of other nationalities, including local Russians, ] and Lithuanians, particularly communists sympathisers and members of general ] ] who refused to follow German orders<ref name="WSP-Ponary"/>. |
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As Soviet troops advanced in 1943, the German-led units tried to ] the crime. A unit of eighty workers was formed from nearby ] 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.<ref name="WSP-Ponary"/> After six months of this gruesome work, aware that eventually they would be executed themselves,{{fact}} the brigade managed to escape on ], ]. Eleven of them managed to survive the ordeal, and their testimony contributed to revealing the massacre. The information about it begun to spread as early as 1943, due to the activities and works of ], ], ] and others. Nonetheless the Soviet regime, which supported the resettlement of Poles from the ], also found it convenient to deny that Poles were massacred in Panerai; the official line was that Panerai was a site of massacre of Soviet citizens only.{{fact}} It was only a decade after the ] that the new government of independent Lithuania allowed a monument (a cross) to fallen Polish citizens to be built there.<ref name="Rzecz-Ponary"/> |
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The site of the massacre is commemorated by a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust<!--when was it raised and what is it?-->, a memorial to the Polish victims and a small museum (currently closed). The executions at Paneriai, sometimes compared to the ] by Polish press (since it happened in 'the East' and was mostly ignored by the communist government of ]), are currently a matter of an investigation by the ] branch of the Polish ].<ref name="IPN-Ponary"/> |
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==See also== |
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==Notes== |
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<!--See http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the <ref(erences/)> tags--> |
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<div class='references-small'> |
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<references/> |
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</div> |
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==External links== |
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<!-- * 404 as of 10 Feb 2007--> |
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* , US Holocaust Museum article on Vilna |
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* at deathcamps.org |
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* {{pl icon}} (Conference "Poles as victims in Ponary near Wilno 1941–4) — IPN |
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* {{pl icon}} (Crime of Ponary) - reprints of articles from ], Nr 109 (1605) z 12 maja 2003 |
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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). The executions at Paneriai, sometimes compared to the Katyn massacre by Polish press (since it happened in 'the East' and was mostly ignored by the communist government of People's Republic of Poland), are currently a matter of an investigation by the Gdańsk branch of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.
