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{{Short description|1941–1944 Nazi murders in Vilnius, Lithuania}}
{{Infobox holocaust event
| name          = Ponary massacre
| image         = File:Ponary massacre July 1941.jpg
| image_size    = 300px
| caption       = One of six Ponary murder pits in which victims were shot (July 1941). Note the ramp leading down and the group of men forced to wear hoods. 
| AKA           = {{langx|pl|zbrodnia w Ponarach}}
| location      = [[Paneriai]] (Ponary), [[Vilnius]] (Wilno), [[Reichskommissariat Ostland]]
| coordinates   = {{coord|54.6264|N|25.1612|E|region:LT-VL_type:event_source:GNS-enwiki|display=title,inline}}
| date          = July 1941 – August 1944 
| incident_type = Shootings by [[Automatic firearm|automatic]] and [[Semi-automatic firearm|semi-automatic]] weapons,
[[genocide]]
| perpetrators  = [[SS]] [[Einsatzgruppe]] <br /> [[Ypatingasis būrys|Lithuanian collaborators]]
| ghetto        = [[Vilnius Ghetto]]
| victims       = ~100,000 in total ([[Jews]]: 70,000; <br />  Poles: From 1,000{{sfn|Piotrowski|1998|p=167}} to 2,000{{sfn|Tomkiewicz|2008|p=216}}<br /> Soviets/Russians: 8,000) 
| documentation = [[Nuremberg Trials]]
}}
{{Campaingbox Polish-Lithuanian ethnic Conflict}}
{{Jewish Lithuanian history |expanded=The Holocaust}}

The '''Ponary massacre''' ({{langx|pl|zbrodnia w Ponarach}}), or the '''Paneriai massacre''' ({{langx|lt|Panerių žudynės}}), was the [[mass murder]] of up to 100,000 people, mostly Jews, Poles, and Russians, by [[Nazi Germany|German]] ''[[Sicherheitsdienst|SD]]'' and ''[[Schutzstaffel|SS]]'' and the Lithuanian ''[[Ypatingasis būrys]]'' killing squads,<ref name="Sak_Ard"/><ref name="IPN-Ponary">
{{cite journal 
|url=http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=pl&dzial=194&id=3327 
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017215515/http://www.ipn.gov.pl/portal.php?serwis=pl&dzial=194&id=3327 
|url-status=dead 
|archive-date=2007-10-17 
|title=Śledztwo w sprawie masowych zabójstw Polaków w latach 1941–1944 w Ponarach koło Wilna dokonanych przez funkcjonariuszy policji niemieckiej i kolaboracyjnej policji litewskiej 
|trans-title=Investigation of the mass murder of Poles in 1941–1944 at Ponary near Wilno by functionaries of German police and the Lithuanian collaborationist forces |author=KŚZpNP 
|publisher=[[Institute of National Remembrance]] 
|journal=Documents of the Ongoing Investigation 
|via=Internet Archive, 17 October 2007 
|language=pl |year=2003
}}</ref><ref>{{cite book 
|author-link=Arūnas Bubnys 
|trans-title=Vokiečių ir lietuvių saugumo policija 
|title=German and Lithuanian Security Police, 1941–44 
|year=2004 
|publisher=[[Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras]] |location=Vilnius 
|url=http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/1/arunas1.htm 
|access-date=9 June 2006 
|language=lt 
|first=Arūnas 
|last=Bubnys
}}</ref> during [[World War II]] and [[the Holocaust]] in the ''[[Generalbezirk Litauen]]'' of ''[[Reichskommissariat Ostland]]''. The murders took place between July 1941 and August 1944 near the railway station at Ponary (now [[Paneriai]]), a suburb of today's [[Vilnius]], Lithuania. 70,000 Jews were murdered at Ponary,{{efn|Unlike the Jews of sovereign Lithuania before 1939 (or the ''[[Generalbezirk Litauen]]'' after [[Operation Barbarossa]]), who had their own complex identity and could be described retroactively as either [[Polish Jews|Polish]], [[Lithuanian Jews|Lithuanian]] or [[Russian Jews|Russian]],<ref name="Jews">
{{cite book 
|first=Ezra 
|last=Mendelsohn 
|title=On Modern Jewish Politics 
|publisher=Oxford University Press 
|year=1993 
|isbn=0-19-508319-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g72diKsztnQC&pg=RA1-PA8 |page=8
}} ''Also in:'' 
{{cite book |author-link=Mark Abley |first=Mark 
|last=Abley 
|title=Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Books 
|year=2003 
|isbn=0-618-23649-X 
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oyyyybR6RmwC&pg=PT277 
|pages=205, 277–279
}}</ref> the Jews of the Wilno region were citizens of the [[Second Polish Republic]] before the German-Soviet invasion of September 1939; and thousands of refugees from German-occupied Poland kept arriving.<ref name="Balkelis248">{{harvp|Balkelis|2013|p=248|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Xam0fUlrXfkC&dq=newcomers&pg=PA248  'Red Cross'.]}}</ref> In October 1939 [[Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty|the city was ceded over to Lithuania]]. On the eve of its Soviet annexation in June 1940, Vilna was home to around 100,000 newcomers, including 85,000 Poles, 10,000 Jews, and 5,000 Belorussians and Russians.<ref name=TB246>
{{cite book 
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xam0fUlrXfkC&pg=PA246 
|editor1=[[Omer Bartov]] 
|editor2=Eric D. Weitz 
|title=Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands
|chapter=Nationalizing the Borderlands
|first=Tomas 
|last=Balkelis 
|pages=246–252 
|isbn=978-0253006318 
|year=2013 
|publisher=Indiana University Press 
}}</ref> Ethnic Lithuanians represented less than 0.7 percent of the inhabitants of the city.<ref name="Niwinski">
{{cite book 
|title=Ponary: the Place of "Human Slaughter" 
|last=Niwiński 
|first=Piotr 
|year=2011 
|publisher=Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu; [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Poland)|Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej]], Departament Współpracy z Polonią 
|location=Warsaw 
|pages=25–26 
|url=http://www.msz.gov.pl/resource/65eb5501-876b-4915-a8dd-48ec00882c54 
|language=pl, en, lt
}}</ref><sup>[p.&nbsp;4]</sup>}} along with up to 2,000 Poles,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tomkiewicz |first=Monika |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i8arPgAACAAJ |title=Zbrodnia w Ponarach 1941-1944 |date=2008 |publisher=Instytut Pamięci Narodowej--Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu |isbn=978-83-60464-91-5 |page=216 |language=pl}}</ref> 8,000 Soviet POWs, most of them from nearby Vilnius, and its newly formed [[Vilna Ghetto]].<ref name="Sak_Ard">
[[Kazimierz Sakowicz]], [[Yitzhak Arad]], ''Ponary Diary, 1941–1943: A Bystander's Account of a Mass Murder'', Yale University Press, 2005, {{ISBN|0-300-10853-2}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZNI79jJnsOoC&pg=PP4 Google Print].
</ref><ref name="Piotrowski_168">
{{cite book 
|author-link=Tadeusz Piotrowski (sociologist) 
|first=Tadeusz 
|last=Piotrowski 
|title=Poland's Holocaust 
|publisher=McFarland & Company 
|year=1998 |isbn=0-7864-0371-3 
|url=https://archive.org/details/polandsholocaust00piot 
|url-access=registration 
|page=[https://archive.org/details/polandsholocaust00piot/page/168 168]
}}</ref> 

Lithuania became one of the first locations outside [[occupied Poland]] in World War&nbsp;II where the Nazis mass-murdered Jews as part of the [[Final Solution]].{{efn|According to Miller-Korpi (1998), one of the areas to first experience the totality of Hitler’s "Final Solution" for the Jews were the Baltic countries.<ref name="Korpi">
{{cite book 
|first=Katy 
|last=Miller-Korpi 
|year=1998 
|title=The Holocaust in the Baltics 
|publisher=University of Washington, Department papers online |url=http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/holocaust.html 
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307033256/http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/holocaust.html 
|url-status=dead 
|archive-date=2008-03-07 
|id=Internet Archive, March 7, 2008
}}</ref> Her opinion nevertheless was challenged by Dr. Samuel Drix (''Witness to Annihilation''), and Jochaim Schoenfeld (''Holocaust Memoirs'') who argued that the Final Solution began in ''[[Distrikt Galizien]]''.}} According to [[Timothy Snyder]], out of 70,000 Jews living in Vilna, only about 7,000 survived the war.<ref name="Snyder">
{{cite book 
|author-link=Timothy Snyder 
|title=The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 |publisher=Yale University Press 
|isbn=0-300-10586-X |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xSpEynLxJ1MC&q=Ypatingas+Burys&pg=PA84 
|via=Google Books, preview 
|pages=84–89 
|first=Timothy 
|last=Snyder
|year=2003 }}</ref> The number of dwellers, estimated by Steven P. Sedlis, as of June 1941 was 80,000 Jews, or one-half of the city's population.<ref name="Grodin">
{{cite book 
|chapter=Jewish Medical Resistance in the Holocaust 
|first2=Michael A. 
|last2=Grodin 
|publisher=Berghahn Books 
|year=2014 
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VyEfAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA148 
|page=148 
|title=The Establishment of a Public Health Service in the Vilna Ghetto 
|first1=Steven P. 
|last1=Sedlis 
|isbn=978-1782384182
}}</ref> More than two-thirds of them, or at least 50,000 Jews, had been killed before the end of 1941.<ref name="Laqueur">
{{cite book 
|page=254 
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nPbr0XzlTzcC&pg=PA254 
|title=The Holocaust Encyclopedia 
|last1=Baumel 
|first1=Judith Tydor 
|last2=Laqueur 
|first2=Walter 
|publisher=Yale University Press 
|year=2001 
|isbn=0300138113}} ''Also in:'' {{cite book |title=Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust Through Diaries and Other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts 
|first=Robert Moses 
|last=Shapiro 
|publisher=KTAV Publishing House 
|year=1999 |isbn=0881256307 
|page=[https://archive.org/details/holocaustchronic00robe/page/162 162] |url=https://archive.org/details/holocaustchronic00robe|url-access=registration }}</ref><ref name="Woolfson">
{{cite book 
|title=Holocaust Legacy in Post-Soviet Lithuania: People, Places and Objects |first=Shivaun 
|last=Woolfson 
|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing 
|year=2014 |isbn=978-1472522955 
|page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DowIBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3
}}</ref>

==Background==
Following [[Żeligowski's Mutiny]] and the creation of the short-lived [[Republic of Central Lithuania|Central Lithuania]], in accordance with international agreements ratified in 1923 by the [[League of Nations]],<ref name=miniotaite>
{{cite web 
|first=Grazina 
|last=Miniotaite 
|title=The Security Policy of Lithuania and the 'Integration Dilemma' 
|publisher=NATO Academic Forum 
|date=1999 
|url=http://www.nato.int/acad/fellow/97-99/miniotaite.pdf 
|page=21
}}</ref> the town of Ponary became part of the [[Wilno Voivodeship (1926–1939)|Wilno Voivodship]] ([[Kresy]] region) of the [[Second Polish Republic]]. The predominant languages in the area were [[Polish language|Polish]] and [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]].<ref name="muller">
{{cite book 
|chapter=Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past |publisher=Cambridge University Press 
|editor-last=Müller 
|editor-first=Jan-Werner 
|year=2002 
|page=47 
|isbn=9780521000703 
|title=Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, 1939–1999 
|first=Timothy 
|last=Snyder 
|author-link=Timothy Snyder 
|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wOsSG0K8hCYC&pg=PA46
}}</ref> After the Nazi-Soviet [[invasion of Poland]] in September 1939, the region was [[Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union|annexed by the Soviets]] and after about a month, on October 10, transferred to Lithuania under the [[Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty|Soviet–Lithuanian Treaty]].

Following the [[Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940)|Soviet annexation]] of Lithuania and the Baltic states in June 1940, construction of an oil storage facility began near Ponary for a future Soviet military airfield. That project was never completed, and in June 1941 the area was taken by the [[Wehrmacht]] in [[Operation Barbarossa]]. The Nazi killing squads used the six large pits excavated for the oil storage tanks to hide the bodies of the locals killed there.<ref name="media">Vilnius Yiddish Institute (2009), {{YouTube|3ymAxQjLKmM|The Tour of Ponar, part 1 (3:22 min.)|link=no}}. As well as {{YouTube|VnL0gQZa0tQ|The Tour of Ponar, part 2 (6:47 min.)|link=no}}.</ref>{{rs?|date=December 2023}}

==Massacres==
[[File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG|thumb|upright=1.2|Ponary massacre site on the map of [[the Holocaust in Poland]] (top right corner, near [[Wilno]]), marked with a white skull]]

The [[massacre]]s began as soon as SS ''[[Einsatzkommando 9]]'' arrived in Vilna on 2 July 1941.<ref name="Snyder"/> Most of the actual killings were carried out by the [[Ypatingasis burys]] (Lithuanian volunteers) 80 men strong.<ref name="Woolfson"/> On 9 August 1941, [[Einsatzkommando|EK]] 9 was replaced by EK 3.<ref name="KDR38">
{{cite book 
|first1=Ernst 
|last1=Klee 
|first2=Willi 
|last2=Dressen 
|first3= Volker 
|last3=Riess 
|title=The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders |publisher=Free Press 
|year=1991 
|isbn=1568521332 
|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780029174258 
|url-access=registration 
|pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780029174258/page/38 38]–58 
|chapter=Soldiers from a motorized column watch a massacre in Paneriai, Lithuania}}</ref> In September, the [[Vilna Ghetto]] was established.<ref name="Snyder"/> In the same month 3,700 Jews were shot in one operation, and 6,000 in another; rounded up in the city and walked to Paneriai. Most victims were stripped before being shot. Further mass killings by Ypatingasis burys<ref name="Snyder"/> took place throughout the summer and autumn. 

By the end of the year, about 50,000–60,000 Vilna Jews—men, women, and children—had been killed.<ref name="Laqueur"/> According to Snyder 21,700 of them were shot at Ponary,<ref name="Snyder"/> but there are serious discrepancies in the death toll for this period. [[Yitzhak Arad]] supplied information in his book ''Ghetto in Flames'' based on original Jewish documentation augmented by the [[Einsatzgruppen reports]], ration cards and work permits.

According to his estimates, until the end of December, 33,500 Jews of Vilna were murdered in Ponary, 3,500 fled east, and 20,000 remained in the ghetto.<ref name="Arad">
{{cite book 
|first=Yitzhak 
|last=Arad 
|author-link=Yitzhak Arad 
|year=1980 
|title=Ghetto in Flames 
|chapter=Chapter 13: The Toll of the Extermination Operations (July–December 1941) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y1rIidjdSVcC&pg=PA211 
|publisher=KTAV Publishing House 
|pages=209–217
}}</ref>{{rp|215}} The reason for such a wide range of estimated deaths was the presence of war refugees arriving from German-occupied western Poland, whose residence rights were denied by the new Lithuanian administration. On the eve of the Soviet annexation of Lithuania in June 1940, Vilna was home to around 100,000 newcomers, including 85,000 Poles, and 10,000 Jews according to Lithuanian Red Cross.<ref name="Balkelis248"/>

The pace of killings slowed in 1942, as ghettoised Jewish slave-workers were appropriated by the Wehrmacht.<ref name="Snyder"/> As Soviet troops advanced in 1943, the Nazi units tried to cover up the crime under the [[Aktion 1005]] directive. Eighty inmates from the [[Stutthof concentration camp]] were formed into ''Leichenkommando'' ("corpse units"). The workers were forced to dig up bodies, pile them on wood and burn them. The ashes were then ground up, mixed with sand and buried. After months of this work, the brigade managed to escape on 19 April 1944 through a tunnel dug with spoons. Eleven of the eighty who escaped survived the war; their testimony contributed to revealing the massacre.<ref>[http://jhist.org/shoa/grossman001.htm Testimony of Y. Farber], a witness and participant of the event, as recorded by [[Vasily Grossman]] and [[Ilya Ehrenburg]] in ''The Black Book: The Ruthless Murder of Jews by German-Fascist Invaders Throughout the Temporarily-Occupied Regions of the Soviet Union and in the Death Camps of Poland during the War 1941–1945'' {{in lang|ru|en}} . {{ISBN|0-89604-031-3}}.</ref><ref>Nicholas St. Fleur (June 29, 2016). [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/science/holocaust-ponar-tunnel-lithuania.html "Escape Tunnel Dug by Hand Is Found at Holocaust Massacre Site"]. ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref>

==Victims==

The total number of victims by the end of 1944 was between 70,000 and 100,000. According to post-war [[exhumation]] by the forces of Soviet [[2nd Belorussian Front]] the majority (50,000–70,000) of the victims were [[Polish Jews]] and [[Lithuanian Jews]] from nearby Polish and Lithuanian cities, while the rest were primarily Poles (about 20,000) and Russians (about 8,000). According to Monika Tomkiewicz, author of a 2008 book on the Ponary massacre, 80,000 people were killed, including 72,000 Jews, 5,000 Soviet prisoners, between 1,500 and 2,000 Poles, 1,000 people described as Communists or Soviet activists, and 40 [[Romani people]].<ref name="Zbrodnia ponarska w świetle dokumentów">Andrzej Kaczyński, [http://wyborcza.pl/1,75968,6725805,Zbrodnia_ponarska_w_swietle_dokumentow.html Zbrodnia ponarska w świetle dokumentów] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223091011/http://wyborcza.pl/1,75968,6725805,Zbrodnia_ponarska_w_swietle_dokumentow.html 
|date=February 23, 2014 }}, wyborcza.pl, 17 June 2009; accessed 8 December 2014.</ref>

The Polish victims were mostly members of the Polish [[intelligentsia]]—academics, educators such as [[Kazimierz Pelczar]], a professor at [[Stefan Batory University]], priests such as Father Romuald Świrkowski, and members of the [[Armia Krajowa]] [[resistance movement]].<ref name="Piotrowski_168"/> Among the first victims were approximately 7,500 Soviet [[P.O.W.]]s shot in 1941 soon after [[Operation Barbarossa]] began.<ref name="Rzecz-Ponary">[http://rzecz-pospolita.com/ponary.php3 Ponary]. Last accessed on 10 February 2007.</ref> At later stages there were also smaller numbers of victims of other nationalities, including local Russians, Romani and Lithuanians, particularly Communist sympathizers ([[Liudas Adomauskas]], Valerijonas Knyva, [[Andrius Bulota]], and Aleksandra Bulotienė) and over 90 soldiers of General [[Povilas Plechavičius]]' [[Local Lithuanian Detachment]] who refused to follow German orders.

==Commemoration==
Information about the massacre began to spread as early as 1943, due to the activities and works of [[Helena Pasierbska]], [[Józef Mackiewicz]], [[Kazimierz Sakowicz]] and others. Nonetheless the Soviet regime, which supported the resettlement of Poles from the [[Kresy]], found it convenient to deny that Poles or Jews were singled out for massacre in Paneriai; the official line was that Paneriai was a site of massacre of Soviet citizens only.<ref name="Rzecz-Ponary"/><ref name="chgs">[http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Visual___Artistic_Resources/Public_Holocaust_Memorials/Memorial_to_the_Murdered_Jews_/memorial_to_the_murdered_jews_.html Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Lithuania at Ponary] (with photo gallery); accessed 15 March 2007.</ref> 

On 22 October 2000, a decade after the [[fall of communism]], an effort by several Polish organizations raised a cross to fallen Polish citizens, in an official ceremony attended by [[Bronisław Komorowski]], [[Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Poland|Polish Minister of Defence]], and his Lithuanian counterpart, as well as several [[NGO]]s.<ref name="WSP-Ponary">{{cite journal |last=Michalski |first=Czesław |date=Winter 2000–2001 |title=Ponary — the Golgotha of Wilno |trans-title=Ponary – Golgota Wileńszczyzny |url=http://www.wsp.krakow.pl/konspekt/konspekt5/ponary.html |url-status=dead |journal=Konspekt |language=pl |publisher=[[Academy of Pedagogy in Kraków]] |volume=5 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081224124407/http://www.wsp.krakow.pl/konspekt/konspekt5/ponary.html |archive-date=2008-12-24 |via=Internet Archive, 24 December 2008}}</ref><ref name="Rzecz-Ponary"/><ref name="adw">{{cite journal |first=Stanisław
|last=Mikke 
|url=http://www.adwokatura.pl/aktualnosci_sprawozdania_1112.htm 
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225130054/http://www.adwokatura.pl/aktualnosci_sprawozdania_1112.htm 
|url-status=dead 
|archive-date=2008-02-25 
|title=In Ponary 
|trans-title=W Ponarach 
|via=Internet Archive, 2008-02-25 
|journal=Adwokatura.pl}}. Message from the Polish-Lithuanian Memorial Ceremony in Panerai, 2000. On the pages of Polish Bar Association.</ref>

On the site of the massacre is a monument to the victims of the Holocaust erected in 1991, a memorial to Polish victims erected in 1990, reconstructed in 2000, a monument to soldiers of Lithuanian Local Squad killed by Nazis in May 1944, erected in 2004, and  a memorial stone to Soviet war prisoners, starved to death and shot here in 1941, erected in 1996, as well as a small museum. The first monument on the site was built by Vilnius Jews in 1948 but was replaced by the Soviet regime with a conventional obelisk dedicated to "Victims of Fascism".<ref>Zigmas Vitkus, "Paneriai: senojo žydų atminimo paminklo byla (1948–1952)", ''Naujasis Židinys-Aidai'', 2019, nr. 2, p. 27–35.</ref>

The murders at Paneriai are currently{{when|date=December 2023}} being investigated by the [[Gdańsk]] branch of the Polish [[Institute of National Remembrance]]<ref name="IPN-Ponary"/> and by the Genocide and [http://genocid.lt/centras/en/ Resistance Research Center of Lithuania].<ref>Arūnas Bubnys, ''Vokiečių saugumo policijos ir SD Vilniaus ypatingasis būrys 1941–1944'', Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimų centras, 2019.</ref> The basic facts about memorial signs in the Paneriai memorial and the objects of the former mass murder site  (killing pits, tranches, gates, paths, etc.) are now presented in the [https://www.paneriumemorialas.lt/en/ webpage] created by the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum.

The massacre was recorded by Polish journalist [[Kazimierz Sakowicz]] (1899-1944) in a series of journal entries written in hiding at his farm house in Wilno, Lithuania. After Sakowicz's death in 1944, the collection of entries were located and found on various scrap pieces of paper, soda bottles and a calendar from 1941 by holocaust-survivor and author [[Rachel Margolis|Rahel Margolis]]. Margolis, who had lost family members in the Ponary massacre, later published the collection in 1999 in Polish. The diary became important to tracing the timeline of the massacre, and in many instances gave closure to surviving family members on what happened to their loved ones. Written in detail, the diary is a testimonial written from a first-person witness account of the atrocities.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ponary Diary, 1941-1943 {{!}} Yale University Press|url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300108538/ponary-diary-1941-1943|access-date=2022-02-16|website=yalebooks.yale.edu}}</ref>

===Memorial at the site===
<gallery class="center" mode="packed">
File:Jamroski paneriai.jpg| Pit used to burn corpses that were exhumed to destroy evidence of mass murders.
File:Paneriai monument 3.jpg|Memorial for Jewish victims.
File:Lithuania Ponary Monument.jpg|Memorial for Polish victims.
File:Paneriai monument 2b.jpg|Memorial for Soviet victims.
File:Paneriai Pit.jpg|An excavated pit used to cremate corpses
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[List of massacres in Lithuania]]
*[[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany]]
*[[History of Vilnius]]

==References==
===Footnotes===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|2}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | vauthors=((Cassedy, E.)) | date=2012 | title=We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HX-6OQJ_WB8C | publisher=University of Nebraska Press | edition=Illustrated | isbn=978-0-8032-4022-3 }}
* {{cite book | vauthors=((Gordon, H.)) | date=2000 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Bpe0ElkSMwC | title=The Shadow of Death: The Holocaust in Lithuania | publisher=University Press of Kentucky| isbn=978-0-8131-4360-6 }}
* {{cite book | vauthors=((Greenbaum, M.)) | date=2018 | title=The Jews of Lithuania: A History of a Remarkable Community 1316-1945 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E2_ag8xGWMQC | publisher=Gefen Publishing House | isbn=978-965-229-132-5 }}
* {{cite book | vauthors=((Heath, Chris))| date=2024 | title=No Road Leading Back: An Improbable Escape from the Nazis and the Tangled Way We Tell the Story of the Holocaust | url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/No_Road_Leading_Back/Qd_UEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=No+Road+Leading+Back:+An+Improbable+Escape+from+the+Nazis&printsec=frontcover | publisher=The Bridge Street Press | isbn=9780349136288 }} It was selected by the [[American Library Association]] as a Notable Book in 2025.<ref>[https://rusaupdate.org/awards/notable-books-list/ Notable Books List] American Library Association.2025.
</ref>
* {{cite book | vauthors=((Sarcevičius, S.)), ((Stasiulis, S.)), ((Dobrotin, N.)), ((Latvytė-Gustaitienė, N.)) et al  | date=2021 | title=The Traces of Crimes Do Not Disappear. Mass Killings in the Paneriai Forest, 1941-1944 | url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Traces_of_Crimes_Do_Not_Disappear/Mng8zwEACAAJ?hl=en | publisher=Lietuvos istorijos institutas| isbn=9786098314014 }}
* {{cite book | vauthors=((Vanagaitė, R.)), ((Zuroff, E.)) | date=2020 | title=Our People: Discovering Lithuania's Hidden Holocaust | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MslmxwEACAAJ | publisher=Rowman & Littlefield | isbn=978-1-5381-3303-3 }}
* {{cite book | vauthors=((Weeks, T. R.)) | date=2015 | title=Vilnius between Nations, 1795–2000 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bq68DwAAQBAJ |publisher=Northern Illinois University Press | isbn=978-1-60909-191-0 }}

==External links==
* [http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/vilna/during/ponary.asp?WT.mc_id=wiki  Vilna During the Holocaust]; [[Yad Vashem]].
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420212303/http://www.noarfamily.com/PONARYFOREST.html |date=April 20, 2006 |title=Ponary Forest }}
* [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005173 US Holocaust Museum article on death of Vilna's Jews]; Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070106095202/http://www.rtrfoundation.org/map12a.html Vilna: 1941-1943]; RTR Foundation.
* [http://www.holocaustresearchproject.net/einsatz/ponary.html Ponary - The Vilna Killing Site: Prototype for the Permanent Death Camps in Poland], Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team.
* [http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/jul/25/neglecting-lithuanian-holocaust/ Neglecting the Lithuanian Holocaust], Timothy Snyder, ''The New York Review'', July 25, 2011.
* [https://ipn.gov.pl/pl/publikacje/ksiazki/12515,Zbrodnia-w-Ponarach-19411944.html The crime in Ponary 1941–1944]; Institute Of National Remembrance
* [https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb4373041d UC San Diego, Holocaust Living History Collection: Past is Prologue: A Journey of Discovery – with Barbara Michelman]

===Film and images===
* {{YouTube|PEWPx5dfj8w|Yad Vashem interview about Ponar}}.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20181030015519/http://www.vilnaghetto.com/ Chronicles of the Vilna Ghetto: wartime photographs & documents]; vilnaghetto.com
*{{YouTube|Y8vIMepPHlM|Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project Interview with Ponary survivor William Good (Volfke Zev Gdud)}}.
* {{Commons category-inline|Ponary massacre}}

{{Holocaust Lithuania}}
{{Jews and Judaism in Lithuania}}
{{Massacres of Poles}}
{{Einsatzgruppen}}
{{The Holocaust}}
{{Massacres of Jews}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Vilnius in World War II]]
[[Category:Paneriai]]
[[Category:1941 in Lithuania]]
[[Category:1942 in Lithuania]]
[[Category:1943 in Lithuania]]
[[Category:1944 in Lithuania]]
[[Category:Einsatzgruppen]]
[[Category:Holocaust massacres and pogroms in Lithuania]]
[[Category:Nazi massacres of Poles in World War II]]
[[Category:World War II prisoner of war massacres by Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Jewish Lithuanian history]]
[[Category:Jewish Polish history]]
[[Category:Lithuania–Poland relations]]
[[Category:Lithuanian collaboration with Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Massacres in 1941]]
[[Category:Massacres in 1942]]
[[Category:Massacres in 1943]]
[[Category:Massacres in 1944]]