Butrimonys | |
Settlement Type: | Town |
Pushpin Map: | Lithuania |
Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Lithuania |
Subdivision Type: | Country |
Subdivision Name: | Lithuania |
Subdivision Type2: | County |
Subdivision Name2: | Alytus County |
Subdivision Type3: | Municipality |
Subdivision Name3: | Alytus District Municipality |
Subdivision Type4: | Eldership |
Subdivision Name4: | Butrimonys eldership |
Subdivision Type5: | Capital of |
Subdivision Name5: | Butrimonys eldership |
Population As Of: | 2011 |
Population Total: | 941 |
Coordinates: | 54.5028°N 24.2528°W |
Timezone: | EET |
Utc Offset: | +2 |
Timezone Dst: | EEST |
Utc Offset Dst: | +3 |
Butrimonys is a small town in Alytus County in southern Lithuania. In 2011 it had a population of 941.[1]
On 9 September 1941, shortly after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Jews of Butrimonys were massacred by Einsatzgruppen and Lithuanian collaborators. Rounded up and marched along a road, they were lined up beside a mass grave and machine-gunned. According to the Jäger Report, 740 Jews were murdered in one day: 67 men, 370 women, and 303 children.[2]
What distinguished Butrimonys from hundreds of similar crimes in the Baltic region was the survival of a detailed record left by a local Jew Khone Boyarski. Hiding with his son, Boyarski described the events in a farewell letter to his relatives abroad. Boyarski was later killed by the Nazis; the letter was discovered by accident by a graduate student in the archives of Yad Vashem.[3]