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On 22 June 1941, the Germans
launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. Vilnius was
captured on 24 June. Two ghettos were set up in the old town centre for the large Jewish population
– the smaller one of which was "liquidated" by October. The larger
ghetto lasted until 1943, though its population was regularly deported in
roundups known as "Aktionen". A failed ghetto uprising on 1 September 1943 organized by the Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje (the United Partisan Organization, the
first Jewish partisan unit in German-occupied Europe), was followed by the final destruction
of the ghetto. During the Holocaust,
about 95% of the 265,000-strong Jewish population of Lithuania was murdered by
the German units and Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, many of them in Paneriai,
about 10 km west of the old town centre .
