VILNIUS, September 22. /TASS/. The names of 220 000 Jews killed during the Holocaust in Lithuania were being read out in eighteen towns across the country to commemorate the Holocaust victims.
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The somber event marks the 75th anniversary since the beginning of the Nazi occupation, which took the lives of 90% of the Lithuanian Jewish community, making it the largest number of victims percentage-wise in all of Europe.
"The initiative came about 6 years ago in Vilnius, and was picked and spread to many cities where before there tragedy, lived large Jewish communities," said Milda Mildа Jakulyte-Vasil, the coordinator of the Names project.
It will take over 24 hours to read all the names.
#Lithuania marks the National Memorial Day for the Genocide of the#Lithuanian #Jews. #NeverAgain #NeverForget https://t.co/ic5LGNzQHq pic.twitter.com/zOGOs3t8vC
— Lithuania MFA (@LithuaniaMFA) 23 сентября 2016 г.
On the third day of the war, Nazis set up two ghettos in Vilnius, where all the Jews were forced to live. Exceptions were made only for skilled tradesmen. Women, children and the elderly were almost immediately executed. However, in 1943, Nazis decided to eliminate the ghetto and a portion of the people were killed, others sent to concentration camps.