This monument commemorates the Roma killed in Paneriai. It was dedicated in 2023 at the initiative of the Roma community to commemorate the Day of Remembrance of the Roma Genocide. The memorial is located at the so-called Kaunas Massacre Pit, currently urmarked, which likely got its name from the alleged transfer of Jews from Eastern Lithuania and areas currently located in present-day Belarus to the Kaunas Ghetto. There may have been approximately 8,000 victims in this pit. Some of them were Roma. Nearly 100 Roma may have been killed at Paneriai. The monument is inscribed with the words "Be Saved" in Romani.

Cornelia Fuchs

July 16, 2025

Architect Jaunutis Makariūnas designed the monument as two blocks bearing inscriptions in Lithuanian and Russian that "more than 100,000 Soviet people were shot in Paneriai". In 1989, on the initiative of the re-established Lithuanian Jewish community, a vertical black granite stone was inserted between the granite blocks, stating in Hebrew, Yiddish, Lithuanian, and Russian that "Among those killed in the Paneriai Forest were 70,000 Jews - men, women, and children." In 2004, identical marble plaques were placed on both blocks, covering the inscription referring to "Soviet Citizens". The new plaques state that "one hundred thousand people" were killed at Paneriai.

Cornelia Fuchs

July 16, 2025

In 1990, at the initiative of Helena Pasierbska (1921-2010), a former member of the Polish underground in Vilnius, and with the support of the Lithuanian Union of Poles, a wooden cross and a tomb-altar were dedicated at Paneriai in memory of the Poles who were killed there. A monument (by architect Jaunutis Makariūnas) was designed on the same site and unveiled in 2000. According to Dr. Monika Tomkiewicz, between 1,500 and 2,000 Poles were killed at Paneriai, while Prof. Piotr Niwiński and Helena Pasierbska argue that between 2,000 and 20,000 Poles could have been killed.

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Elevation 180 m

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Friday 16 January

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Location: Vilnius County, Lithuania

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