The following she told Birute Maiksteniene:  

Doctor Shreiberis was a very kind and nice man.  People of Pakruojis loved him very much.  We were very poor and when my father got sick, doctor Shreiberis  cured  him for free. This he did for a lot of poor peple. The doctor’s wife was a dentist. They had two sons. They had been baptized in to the Catholic faith, but this didn’t prevent their  killing at Morkakalnis.

Many people who lived near the church, heard the sreams of doctor Shreiberis on his way to Morkakalnis. I visited the grave. The house in which they lived was used, after the killing, as a kindergarten,  an office for the dentist, as a spot to give first aid.  Later the house was used as a prison for Lithuanians who were exiled by the Soviets to Siberia.
I remember the house of Kolchman ( Kolitzman)  who was a rich businessman. In 1940 the Kolchmans were exiled to Siberia.
Two brothers Dovydas and Shlomas Maizel owned the mill which gave electricity to the town, though many citizens of Pakruojis used kerosene lamps at home.  

There were many Jewish shops in the centre of Pakruojis. The richest owners were:  Epstein, Volko, Kaplan, Lape, Spilgietis. Our family bought herrings at Spilgietis’shop.
At Visinskio 2 there lived a woman called Ruhmilke. She had two sons . One of them was a doctor’s assistant. His brother’s name was Mikel.
Another Jewish family was Taipke and her husband . They were neighbours of Ruhmilke. A young couple and very nice.

Near the river the Kruoja lived  many Jewish families, but I don’t remember their names. One of them I do remember: Nejerkis who was mentally ill.
My parents and grandparents had Jewish neighbours.  My grandmother had a Jewish friend called Feige. They used to go to the river together. My mother (Elzbieta Slanksiniene) worked for the Jewish families. She washed their clothes, carried water in to the houses, she was keeping fire in their houses. She was satisfied with the salary they gave her. She was very upset when she heard about the killings at Morkakalnis. She condemned the killers and asked God to punish them.
I remember nice evenings when young Jewish people used to walk in the streets, wearing holiday clothes. We, children, liked to watch them.
Some Jewish boys were member of the Pakruojis footballclub:

photo from 18 August 1928 with
backrow left: Shenkman, Mordechai Latzman,
middlerow: from l to r: (third) Yisrael Eliason, Beryl Kolitzman

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In the summer of 1941 the Germans occupied Lithuania and drove away the Russians. In Pakruojis there was a detachment of the German army, also and a group of collaborators, the squad of Linkuva. The Jews of Pakruojis had to live in the so called ghetto. They had to move to the small houses in the area around the river the Kruoja.   The Jews had to wear yellow stars.
The guards who watched the place wore white bands.
Our family moved to the house of the Jewish family Lape and he and his family had to move to our family’s small and   impoverished house near the river.
The Jews were not allowed to give their possessions to their non-Jewish neighbours and/or friends. As Janina told, the Jews stayed calm, despite the fact that they didn’t know what would happen. No one believed that they all would be killed.

In July 1941 the Jewish men were taken to Morkakalnis. They were forced to dig a very big and long hole. When they had finished the digging they were shot and thrown in to the hole.
The Jewish women were waiting for their husbands to come home, but they didn’t.  They believed their husbands would come home, once.
In August, two weeks after the killing of the men, the women were told to pack , because they would be taken to their husbands. The women and children were brought to Morkakalnis by drunken men. The women and children went calmly, because they believed they would see their husbands and fathers again, but as soon as they reached the fur tree forest, they realized that something terrible would happen. They threw the packs away, hugged the children and screamed.
The guards broke young tree branches and used them as a stick to beat the women and to force them to go to the fur trees. There was to be seen a long hole and there the Jewish women and children were shot.
They killed innocent people.
For two days the killers were always drunk.
Some days after the killing,  the so called Black Day, the belongings of the Jewish families were taken to the synagogue and divided amongst the killers. Their relatives came and they were not ashamed , as Janina told, to take the valuable things with them  on  horse and wagon carts.   The killers and their families lived then in the  houses belonging to the murdered Jewish families.

We, children, Janina said, used to visit the spot and there we could see children’s shoes, women’s combs.
The people of Pakruojis were very afraid, they might be killed , also. They said there were long lists with names  of people on it  to be shot, but they said the priest didn’t want to sign them.
 

After the war, the synagogue was used as a storehouse,  a centre for sports and a cinema.

Janina ends with: If there is an Eternal Judge, let He judge.  Those who are dead will be alive in the memories of those who knew them.

Janina  Mykolaitiene was born in Pakruojis and worked as a teacher at the school of Rozalimas from 1968 till 2001. She is retired.