Murder story of Ukmergė Jews in the Pivonija Forest

I remember that the Jews being lined up kept asking the "white armbanders" where they would be taken. The men told them that they would be taken to work. The Jews who had been held at the estate were not beaten while they were being driven into the woods, since the policemen did not want them to know that they were being taken to be shot. When the column had been lined up, we surrounded it from all sides and herded it into the woods. The men took up positions at random around the column, since they had received no specific orders on this score. I stood at the end of the column…. A Jewish man whom I didn't know asked me where they were being taken, and I replied that they were being taken to work; he didn't believe me, and asked if they were being driven into the woods to be killed. I reiterated that they were taking them to work. The Jews spoke to the other "white armbanders," but I didn't hear what was being said. Although we had been instructed to say that they were being taken to work, the Jews realized the truth, and some of them were crying as they walked, especially the women; on the whole, they were restless, sad, and frightened. On the way, the Jews didn't try to escape. Most of them were carrying bundles. We drove them straight into the woods, and soon we saw a clearing where two or three pits had been dug. Each of the pits was about ten meters long and two meters wide, and their depth was roughly equal to a man's height. Upon entering the clearing, the Jews were told to take off their clothes. Crying, they began to undress. I didn't see who gave the order to undress; I only heard this order being spoken at the head of the column. Some of the Jews undressed, leaving only their underwear on, while others were nearly naked. They piled the clothes on the ground. Once the Jews had undressed, the "white armbanders" began to drive then toward the pit, which lay some fifty meters away. The doomed people did not want to go to the pit; they began to shout loudly, crying and screaming, begging [the killers] to spare them, but no one took heed, and they were driven on toward the pit. Some of them jumped inside; others recoiled from the pit, and still others stood there hesitating. However, the "white armbanders" hemmed them in from all sides, pressed them toward the pit, and began to forcefully push them into it. The Jews started dropping into the pit one by one. As a result, there was a pile of people at one end of the pit. It was a horrible sight, as the people falling into the pit crushed and stamped each other, crying and screaming all the while. I saw it myself as I drove them to the pit, together with the other auxiliary policemen, and I remember it well. Once all the doomed people had been driven into the pit, they were told to scatter and lie down inside it. I don't remember who gave the order. The doomed people scattered and lay down. A "white armbander" whom I didn't know gave the order in Lithuanian, and told us to take up positions on the lip of the pit. I and the other men stood on one side of the pit in a close formation, taking up all the available space on that side. I saw the following men from the unit or from Kavarskas standing on the edge: [...]. We held our guns at the ready, prepared to open fire. The Jews were driven into the pit by all the "white armbanders" in the forest, including all the men from Kavarskas. However, not all of these men stood on the lip of the pit, since there was not enough room to accommodate everyone. Those who could not fit at the edge of the pit were standing a short distance away from it. There were no orders specifying which "white armbanders" were to stand at the edge of the pit and shoot the Jews, and which ones were to stand further away. When the order was given, those who wished to, or those who just happened to stand closer to the pit at that moment, got ready to fire, while those unwilling to approach the pit were not forced to do so. As for myself, once I had heard the order to stand at the pit, I went there with the others. There were several Germans in military uniforms standing nearby, but they did not join our line on the lip of the pit.... As soon as the "white armbanders" stopped shooting, a German would order them to open fire, and they would soon resume.... They kept shooting until all the Jews were shot. The execution did not last long, only some five or ten minutes.

[I had to take] four high-ranking officials with plundered [Jewish] property [to Ukmergė]. They shared impressions about the killings. One of them boasted that 'a little girl wanted to play with the sand in the middle of the executions. I came up to her, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her into the pit. Her head hit a stone. I was so close that her blood spattered my pants'.... One of the Lithuanian Gestapo men said: 'Mečys Paškevičius has organized this difficult operation well'.