Murder Story of Pilviskiai Jews in Baltruśiai

The first massacre, on Wednesday August 27: The commander Merdin, his assistant Dilba, their Lithuanian accomplices, Ukrainian policemen (that was how the various fascists were referred to), and ordinary hooligans – rounded up 350 men and 30 women and imprisoned them in the synagogue and kept them there until Thursday, the 28th of the month. At dawn they took them, most of them on foot but the old and the sick on two carts, to the village of Baltruśiai, to the field of Jonas Lazaraitis, and ordered them to dig pits.... On Friday at dusk they brought back some of the clothing of those murdered. The second massacre: The second massacre took place on September 15. The murderers collected about 750 women and children; there were only a few men in the group. Among them was Rabbi Green from Vilkaviśkis and Rabbi Reznik from Pilviśkiai. During the first massacre the murderers had pity on the former and left him alive. The latter hid but the second time Rabbi Reznik left his hiding place, saying “I am going with my community.” They [the victims] were told that they were being taken to the ghetto in Kovno, but on the way they saw that they were being taken to pits in a meadow. They threw away in the field all the things that they had with them so that their murderers would not get their hands on them. When the Lithuanian policemen realized what was going on, they beat the Jews severely, then they took them to pits in the village of Baltruśiai and shot them. Towards evening, after the “operation,” the executioners returned singing a nationalist song....

...On that same Monday, the 15th of September, the “partisans” [i.e. Lithuanian nationalists] and policemen drove all the women, children, and old people, the ill, and the few men who remained alive, from Market Square straight to a second pit, which was empty, that was located close to a “full” pit where more than 400 men who had been shot to death were buried. At 4 p.m. they shot all of them and threw their bodies into the second pit. The policemen and the "partisans" shot the women and children without forcing them to undress. The whole tragedy of this terrible murder lasted only one hour....

... Rabbi Eliyahu Green, the rabbi of Vilkaviśkis, along with some other Jews, fled from Vilkaviśkis during the murder of the Jews of the town. The rabbi found a hiding place in the attic of the home of Yekutiel Fridman in Pilviśkiai, but one of the Lithuanian neighbors reported him and he was arrested. He was then transported to the place where the women and children were being held....

... On Friday morning August 29, 1941 they expelled the men to a place one kilometer and a half from the town, near the Viśaki River. They [the victims] were forced to dig two pits, one pit for the men and the second for the women and children.... On the same day, August 29, 1941, they shot the men. They shot a total of 310 men on that day, along with 30 women whom they accused of belonging to the Communist Party….