On 1941 one month after the Germans entered Birzai, Jews were evicted from their homes and forced into a ghetto. A Jewish doctor, renowned for his care of all citizens, rich and poor was the first of the fifteen victims who were shot by German soldiers and together with 30 other first victims buried in the Birzh Jewish old cemetery.
On the eight of August 1941, about 2,400 Jews, 900 children, 780 women and 720 men were brought to Pakamponys and brutally murdered, shot by Gestapo officers and about 80 Lithuanian collaborators.
In Pakamponys forest, is buried the once vibrant, pulsating Jewish community of Birzai, ordinary people, men, women and children, annihilated because they were Jews.
Hundreds of names of victims of the mass murder are not known but we mourn their loss.
NEVER FORGET
קײנמאל ניט פארגעסן