On June 22, 1941, the town was captured by Wehrmacht troops. During the Holocaust, all the Jews of Vishtitis were killed, mostly by local collaborators. The exact number of those killed is unknown; estimates hover around 220 (out of a total town population of about 1,000).
On July 14, 1941, the Nazis shot about 70 Jewish men and Soviet activists from the Vishtitis, Paevonis, and Grazhiskes districts on a hill known to locals as the Long Hill, near the sawmill, approximately 1.5 km from the town of Vishtitis, 300 meters from the Vishtitis–Paevonis road, and 700 meters from Lake Vishtitis.
The fact that people were shot at this location was confirmed by local residents Marta Benosenkene and Izidorius Atlashauskas.
On May 23, 1964, the remains of about 150 Jewish women and children, killed by the Nazis on September 9, 1941, in a hollow located 600 meters east of the aforementioned site, were transferred to a communal male mass grave.
A memorial to the victims was later erected by the Soviet Union near a windmill called the Grist Mill, but the memorial plaque did not mention that those buried in the nearby fields were Jews. Later, a "Jewish" tombstone was installed, clearly indicating what had happened.
