Murder story of Kavarskas Jews on the Bank of the Šventoji River in Pumpučiai

As we were digging the pit, we saw that a covered truck had stopped some fifty meters away on the Kavarskas-Ukmergė road, which runs through the fields. After the truck had stopped, we saw that there were people seated inside, surrounded on all sides by men standing inside the truck with rifles and automatic weapons. Upon seeing that, I realized that the armed men had brought arrested Soviet citizens to be shot. After the truck had come to a stop, a man whom I didn't know got out of it and went straight toward us. When he approached us, he first looked over the pit we had dug, and then ordered us to get out of the pit and to go off to one side. Having said that, he returned to the truck. The man wore civilian clothing at the time, but I do not recall whether he held weapons of any kind. As soon as the man had moved away from us, we got out of the pit and withdrew to a distance of about twenty meters from it. Thus, we dug a single pit – which was some 2.5 meters long, two meters wide, and about 160-170 centimeters deep – near the bushes on the bank of the Šventoji River. The aforementioned man went back to the truck, and initially some eight, ten, or twelve prisoners were taken out.… Once the prisoners were out, they were surrounded by the aforementioned armed men, who then marched over to the pit we had dug.… Having been taken to the pit, the prisoners were ordered to strip to their underwear and arrange their clothes in a single pile. Having taken off their shoes and stripped to their underwear, they stood some 1-1.5 meters from the edge of the pit, facing it, with their backs to the Šventoji River. After the prisoners had lined up in this manner, all the armed men, who spoke Lithuanian among themselves, arranged themselves in a single line some four meters behind them. None of them wore a military uniform of any kind, and there were no "white armbanders" from Kavarskas among them. After the armed men had formed a line, with rifles and automatic weapons pointed at the condemned, the command rang out: 'Fire!' […] Upon hearing this command, the executioners standing in line opened fire, with their rifles and automatic weapons, at the doomed Soviet citizens standing across from them, and the latter dropped down, struck by the bullets…. During the shooting, no shouts came from the doomed people. The shooting lasted only a few minutes. When the gunfire ceased, the executioners approached the bodies lying on the edge of the pit. One or two of the condemned had only been gravely wounded, and they were finished off with single rifle shots…. Having made sure that all the prisoners were dead, the executioners threw their bodies into the pit. They then took all of the victims' discarded clothes and shoes, and went back to the truck. They loaded all these things onto the truck, got into it, and drove off along the same country road, toward the Kavarskas-Ukmergė road.