Which 1942 massacre of Jews took place in the Lithuanian village of Ponary, near Vilnius?

The Ponary massacre was the 1942 massacre of Jews at the Ponary killing site near Vilnius.

Ponary, known as Paneriai in Lithuanian and Ponary in Polish, was a wooded area outside Vilnius where the Germans and their Lithuanian auxiliaries carried out mass shootings during the Holocaust. Victims included Jews from the Vilna Ghetto, as well as Polish and Soviet prisoners. Large pits originally excavated for fuel storage were used as killing and burial sites.

The first major shootings began in 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and continued through 1944. Approximately 70,000 people were murdered at Ponary, including about 50,000 to 60,000 Jews; estimates differ because surviving records are incomplete.

Ponary is sometimes confused with the Rumbula massacre near Riga, where approximately 25,000 Jews were murdered in late 1941. Ponary’s victims were killed primarily by shooting rather than in an extermination camp’s gas chambers.