Mass killing pit

The massacre pit with a memorial stone was erected in 1985 with the inscription ‘The corpses dug up from the massacre sites were burnt here’ (in Lithuanian and Russian). The inscription is not accurate because from the end of 1943 onwards, bodies were burnt in areas near the pits. According to the estimates of the Special Soviet Commission, up to 25,000 victims could have been killed in this pit, which was 25m to 30m in diameter and more than 5m deep. The terrain around the pit was destroyed in 1985 as part of the Paneriai memorial architectural arrangement project.