Jewish extermination site. Jewish cemetery

Intersection of S. Dariaus ir S. Girėno and Pietinio kelio streets.
Up until the beginning of World War II, the majority of Šilalė’s residents were Jews. Their arrests began on 23 June 1941 (on charges of collaboration with the Soviet government). More than one hundred men and youth were imprisoned at the Šilalė synagogue. At night, guards started throwing grenades in through the windows and the majority of the Jews inside were killed. Those, who managed to survive, were murdered the next day (8 July). The Jewish cemetery was established in the same location.
Jewish women, children and seniors were imprisoned at Šilalė Manor (forming a ‘temporary ghetto’ just like in the majority of rural areas in Lithuania) and murdered at Tūbinės forest in September. The massacre also included some of the Jews of Pajūris, while the others were killed in Kvėdarna, the location that is now a Jewish cemetery, together with the town’s disabled and seniors (about 14 people). The clothes and other small belongings of the victims were kept at the Šilalė synagogue and later distributed among the residents of the city and volost.
The outcome of the holocaust in Šilalė was catastrophic. The number of victims murdered in Šilalė volost during the Nazi occupation was at least 1300 people (the majority of them were Jews). After the holocaust there were no Jewish communities in Šilalė district and the largest of the Jewish cultural objects were destroyed during the Soviet invasion.
The Jewish extermination site is marked by the graves of the genocide victims and a monument, stating that in this place on 8 July 1941 the Nazis have killed about 135 Jewish men (some witnesses say that it could have been 112).
The memorial territory is 13.5 m long and 9 m wide, surrounded with a metal fence. The territory features gravel paths and a mound in the middle, surrounded with a concrete border. At the end of the mound there is a memorial plate on a concrete pedestal. The text on the plate says that this is an extermination site of Lithuanian citizens.

 Compiled in 2018