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Murder story of Užpaliai Jews in the Kaimynai Forest
Murder Site
Kaimynai Area
Lithuania
According to eyewitness accounts, on one of the last days of June 1941 the anti-Soviet Lithuanian partisans (the so-called "white armbanders") rounded up the "richest Jews" of Užpaliai, as many as ten men. On the pretext of sending them to work in Svėdasai, west of Užpaliai, the partisans took them to the village of Butiškiai, two kilometers northwest of Užpaliai, and shot them all at the edge of the Kaimynai Forest.
Related Resources
Written Accounts
Yankl-Leyb Kopelansky related:
...Several days later [after June 27, 1941], they rounded up the second group, the richest Jews in the town. They loaded them onto horse-drawn carts and took them away. They [the Jews] were told that they were going to work in Svėdasai, and they were permitted to take along small packs.… They took the Jews to the village of Butiškiai, where they ordered them to step down from the carts and take a rest. A light machine gun had been placed in advance near a small forest in the area. The bandit Juškas – his rolled-up sleeves marked with a swastika, an iron helmet on his head – shot them all and threw the bodies into potato pits....
Yankl-Leyb Kopelansky "It Used to Be and… Does not Exist Anymore", Israel, 1998, pp.141-142 (in Yiddish)
Kaimynai Area
forest
Murder Site
Lithuania
55.639;25.524