Murder story of Utena Jews in the Rašė Forest

Early in the morning, the able-bodied men were chased off to work.… Instead of being herded off to work, we were led off to the Utena jail, where they took away our papers, as well as the belts from our trousers. We were left waiting in the jail courtyard. At two o'clock, a Gestapo officer came in and ordered us to stand in rows of four – 100 rows of four. The warden of the jail, a Lithuanian, told us to remove our coats, since we would be working. We were then led out of the jail courtyard. We were lined up behind a group of Jewish women. We were heavily guarded by armed Lithuanians, some of whom were high-school and university students. As we moved along, they beat us harshly, to make us march faster and faster. The women who could not keep up pace were shot on the spot. After running for several miles, the men were ordered to lie face down on the ground, while the women were ordered to go on ahead. We heard screams and the sound of machine gun fire. About fifteen minutes later, the men were ordered forward, and I witnessed the following scene: Several pits had been dug; next to one of the pits stood a German with a machine gun; not far from the pit stood a Lithuanian with a mask over his face and a whip in his hand; he whipped every person who passed, to hurry them up toward the pit. Then, the German would do the "terminating".… My friend Kalman Katz, who was standing next to me, also began to run toward the German. He was immediately shot, and fell, screaming "I'm dying!" I got a bullet in the leg, fainted from the pain, and rolled down into swampy ground. The pits had been dug on a hill above the swamp. I regained consciousness as I was rolling downhill. I crawled through the tall grass, until I fell into a deep puddle surrounded by the tall grass. I lay there, terribly afraid that they would find me and shoot me again. It was a Divine miracle that they never noticed me....