The southern town of Prienai is holding a series of events on Thursday to commemorate the massacre of its Jewish community 80 years ago.
The commemoration includes a march along the “Memory Path” towards the killing site and a ceremony, according to the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes.
This is followed by an exhibition and a presentation of a book, by Arūnas Bubnys, one of the members of the commission.
The commemoration in Prienai is part of the series of events called “The Memory Path 1941-2021”. Rolandas Račinskas, executive director of the commission, says the plan is to visit at least most of the Jewish killing sites across Lithuania.
“The goal is to seek natural public understanding that the Holocaust was a great tragedy not only for Jews but for all of us, since Lithuania lost its phenomenal intellectual, cultural, political and economic potential,” Račinskas said.
According to the 1897 census, there were some 1,190 Jewish residents in Prienai, making 48 percent of the town's population. In mid-August, 1941, Jews were brought to Prienai from surrounding towns and then massacred on August 27, 1941.
There are more than 200 places where Jews were killed during the Holocaust across Lithuania.
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