Kaunas museum honours 1941 massacre victims with short film

The Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum has released a short film honouring the 9,200 Jewish residents of the Kaunas Ghetto killed at the fort in one day in 1941, LRT reported. About half of the victims were children.

The killings took place on October 29, 1941, during the operation known as the Great Action. To mark its 85th anniversary, museum staff created a short documentary-art film focused on the victims. The museum has also assembled 9,200 buttons for an exhibition about the massacre. One small child’s button was found by archaeologists at the mass killing site.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas said 4,000 of those killed were children. “They could not work, but they had to be fed. So what, they had to be destroyed?” he said, describing children being torn from their parents.

On October 28, ghetto residents were ordered to gather in Demokratų Square in Vilijampolė. Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum director Marius Pečiulis said a Gestapo officer divided the crowd by pointing people to the right or left. Around 27,000 people were sorted into two groups in a single day, he said.

Preparations for the operation had begun a month earlier. An oat and pea field near the fort was cut down, and Soviet prisoners of war dug trenches there. On October 29, the Jews were taken to the fort. Karl Jäger, one of the main organisers and perpetrators of the Holocaust, kept detailed records of the victims, Pečiulis said.

“Group after group was shot. After people were killed, they were covered with earth, and another group was brought in. The process continued until the end of the day,” he said.

Museum communications coordinator Rytis Pryvalovas said the film uses artistic expression to address the tragedy sensitively, aiming to prompt reflection rather than shock viewers. Žakas said the lesson of the Great Action, still not fully learned, was to respect and love people regardless of their race, nationality or skin colour.