On July 14, 1941, posters were put up all over Utena stating that all Jews of Utena had to leave the city within 12 hours. Failure to comply with the order was punishable by shooting without proper judicial proceedings. The white armbanders from Utena began to drive Jews out of their homes into the Šilinė Forest. About 2,000 Jews were relocated to a ghetto established there. Almost every day, groups of young men (35-40 people each) were taken from the camp into the forest and shot.
The first mass shooting of Jews in Utena took place on July 31, 1941. The rollkommando of SS Obersturmführer Joachim Hamann, who arrived from Kaunas, together with local white armbanders, shot 235 Jewish men and 16 Jewish women.
On August 7, 1941, the second mass shooting of Jews occurred. That day, in the Rašė Forest, the rollkommando together with local white armbanders shot 483 Jewish men and 87 Jewish women.
The Utena ghetto was liquidated, and the remaining Jews of Utena were killed on August 29, 1941. This time, not only men and women but also children, infants, and elderly people were shot. The rollkommando, together with the white armbanders of Utena, shot 3,782 Jews from Utena and Molėtai (Eger reported only one figure in his report). The Soviet commission investigating Nazi crimes in the Rašė Forest discovered in 1944 three large trenches and several smaller pits. According to the commission’s estimates, about 9,000 people died there. It is more likely that the Nazis and local collaborators killed about 4,600 Jews from Utena and the surrounding areas. Among the victims were about 200 Jews from Tauragnai and 300 from Užpaliai and Visuonis.
Sources:
