At the end of June - beginning of July 1941, Jewish residents from various places near Telšiai — including Nevarėnai and Ritavas, Varniai and Žarėnai — were deported to a collection camp on the outskirts of Višvenai. At first, they had to survive there under terrible conditions. Women were used in agriculture, Lithuanian guards constantly treated the men cruelly and forced them to perform “collective dance exercises” under threat of beatings, as a result of which some men died or were shot. A Jewish woman, seeing her husband lying on the ground bleeding, loudly protested: “You are murderers, executioners! Do not think that our innocent blood will remain silent.” The woman was seized, killed her own child, and then was shot.
Approximately 500 to 600 men, women, and children were imprisoned in the Višvenai camp. In mid-July, a truck arrived with armed Lithuanians and several Germans. A group of Jews was forced to dig mass graves, after which all the men near the camp were shot. The day after the men were killed, the women and children were deported to the Geruliai camp. They, along with the women and children held captive there, perished in a mass killing near Geruliai.
Two memorial stones commemorate the Jewish men killed near Višvenai. You can reach the memorial by turning in Višvenai toward Luokė on road No. 4605 and, 200 meters after leaving the town, at the sign (“žydų žudynių vieta ir kapas”), follow the grassy path to the black marker (100 m). If you follow the directions, you will come to two mass graves. The memorial stones there bear the following inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian: “In 1941, the fascists killed 3,000 people of Jewish origin.”
Sources:
https://www.gedenkorte-europa.eu/de_de/viesv-nai.html
https://kvr.kpd.lt/#/static-heritage-detail/1cfa9b93-5121-4c6b-bc54-43f1ed21f5bd
http://holocaustatlas.lt/EN/#a_atlas/search//page/11/item/142/
