Murder story of Kiemieliszki Jews in the Kiemeliszki Forest

On October 24, 1942 a Security Police detachment arrived in Kiemieliszki from Vilna, accompanied by a Lithuanian collaborationist unit. According to some accounts, some of the Lithuanians were sent to dig mass graves for the victims; the rest of the Lithuanians, with the help of the local police, combed nearby villages and hamlets for Jews who were in hiding there. The Germans assembled the ghetto Jews at the market square, formed them into a column, tied the hands of the stronger men (to prevent resistance), and took the victims under guard to the murder site – a forest one kilometer west of the village. At the site the SS shot about 350 Jews of Kiemieliszki and from nearby villages, including Worniany. According to witness accounts, at the site the perpetrators took the victims to pits in groups of a few dozen people. The victims were forced to strip to their underwear and enter the pits. Then they were shot with machine-guns, and the next group was ordered to lie down on top of those already dead. The shooting lasted about two hours. After the war the Soviet State Extraordinary Commission (ChGK) estimated the size of the common grave as 20 meters long, 4 meters wide, and 3 meters deep. It concluded that the murder of the people was carried out by shots in the head with explosive bullets.