Monument sights in Vilnius
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Paneriai Museum
A path leads to the shocking Paneriai Museum. There are two monuments here, one Jewish (marked with the Star of David), the other one Soviet (an obelisk topped with a Soviet star).
From here paths lead to a number of grassed-over pits where, from December 1943, the Nazis lined up 300 to 4000 victims at a time and shot them in the back of the head. After the bodies fell, they were covered with sand to await the next layer of bodies. The Nazis later burnt the exhumed corpses of their victims to hide the evidence of their crimes. One of the deeper pits, according to its sign, was where they kept those who were forced to dig up the corpses and pulverise the bones.
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Memorial
About half the city's Jewish population had already been massacred here by the end of the first three months of the German occupation (June to September 1941) at the hands of Einsatzkommando 9, an SS killing unit of elite Nazi troops. Lithuanian accomplices are accused of doing as much of the killing as their German overseers. The forest entrance is marked by a memorial, the Panerių memorialas.
The text in Russian, dating from the Soviet period, remembers the 100,000 'Soviet citizens' killed here. The memorial plaques in Lithuanian and Hebrew - erected later - honour the 70,000 Jewish victims.
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Bust of Gaon Elijahu
For a more casual glimpse of Jewish life, walk down Žydų gatvė to the memorial Bust of Gaon Elijahu, imagining how life once was. There's a map of the two main Jewish ghettos during WWII at Rūdninkų gatvė 18, which used to be the single gate to the largest ghetto.
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Egg Statue
This oversized egg on a nest of real twigs resided on Užupis' main square until it 'hatched' the Angel of Užupis in 2002 and moved to a grim square west of Old Town.
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Frank Zappa Memorial
The world's first Zappa statue is oddly situated in a grim, graffiti-splashed courtyard west of Old Town. It was erected in 1995 by the local Zappa fan club.
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Angel of Užupis statue
This statue of an angel blowing a trumpet and standing on an egg is the oddball symbol of Vilnius' strangest district.
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Bust of Gaon Elijahu
For a more casual glimpse of Jewish life, walk down Žydų gatvė to the memorial Bust of Gaon Elijahu, imagining how life once was. There's a map of the two main Jewish ghettos during WWII at Rūdninkų gatvė 18, which used to be the single gate to the largest ghetto.
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Angel of Užupis statue
This statue of an angel blowing a trumpet and standing on an egg is the oddball symbol of Vilnius' strangest district.
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