Billboard-monument

The three-part billboard on the south side of the square was erected between 1983 and 1985 near the Paneriai Memorial in the course of implementing the Soviet architectural rearrangement project of the Paneriai Memorial.
Architect Jaunutis Makariūnas designed a composition of two separate plaques with inscriptions in Lithuanian and Russian: “HERE, IN THE PANERIAI FOREST, FROM JULY 1941 TO JULY 1944 THE HITLER OCCUPIERS EXTERMINATED MORE THAN 100,000 SOVIET PEOPLE. AS OF DECEMBER 1943, WITH THE AIM TO HIDE THEIR CRIMES, THE FASCISTS BURNED THE CORPSES OF THE VICTIMS WHO HAD BEEN SHOT.”

In 1989, on the initiative of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, a vertical plaque was inserted between the granite blocks with an inscription in Hebrew, Yiddish, Lithuanian and Russian saying that ‘AMONG THE VICTIMS KILLED IN THE PANERIAI FOREST THERE WERE 70,000 JEWS: MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN’. It was the first alternative inscription on the billboards at the Paneriai Memorial to the official version of Soviet history.

In 2004, black marble plaques were placed on both sides of the block, covering a Soviet inscription saying that ‘Soviet people’ were killed there. The new plaques indicate that one hundred thousand people were killed in Paneriai. The latter number is based on the investigation of the Special Soviet Commission conducted in 1944 and is not accurate. Following the new research, it is estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 people could have been executed in Paneriai, the vast majority of whom were Jews from Vilnius and Vilnius region.