PREFACE 1

Zenonas Gegeckas

	*Zenonas Gegeckas*
He was born in 1930, worked as a pedagogue from 1955 till his pension in 2003. He was also School Inspector and a teacher in history. His mother, Berta Gegeckiene, kept a "restoran" in Pakruojis. The spot where she kept the restoran was rented to her by Frada Katz Shapiro , the mother of Rivka Shapiro. Berta and Frada were good friends and when one of her sons (Zenonas' brother Antanas) was killed by the Germans, the Shapiros went to church for the funeral of Berta's son.
	2007 Monument erected in memory of Zenonas' brother Antanas* and others who were killed by the Germans at the same time.*
Before 1941 Berta moved to new Pakruojis and Kauzuna and Mikalaus took over the restaurant. (They were there at the time of the massacre in 1941.) Berta was an important witness for the prosecution in the process against war criminals , held in Siauliai. Zenonas, one of her children, didn’t witness the killing of the Jewish families of Pakruojis in the summer of 1941. However in August 1941, the morning after the killing of the Jewish women and children, amongst them his Jewish friends, Zenonas went to the killing spot. He was completely devastated, he told us, by what he then saw and he has still nightmares about it. He saw a spot, freshly dug and covered, several shoes, clothes and a lot of blood all over the place, especially on the trees. It was too horrible to see and to talk about.