Kaušėnai Holocaust Memorial Memorial site

In the village of Kaušėnai (Plungė district), a memorial to the victims of the Kaušėnai Holocaust has been established at the site of the murder of the Jews. The memorial is dedicated to the Jewish communities of Plungė and the surrounding villages that were destroyed during World War II.
The memorial was established based on the initiative of the last Jew of Plungė, Jakovas Bunka. The first monument to the victims of the Second World War was erected in 1952, and in 1986–1989, a memorial to commemorate the murdered Jews was created from oak monuments. 1,800 bricks of the demolished Plungė Synagogue were used to build the Memorial Wall in 2011, where each brick is dedicated to the memory of someone murdered,
and plaques with the known names of 1,200 (out of 1,800) Jews are affixed to the wall. The Alleyway of the Rescuers is located near the memorial, and the names of those who rescued the condemned Jews in Plungė and its surroundings during the Nazi occupation are inscribed on the posts in the alleyway.
On 12 and 13 July 1941, about 1,800 Jews from the Plungė district were murdered on Kaušėnai Hill, having been held for two weeks in brutal conditions in the Plungė synagogue before that. On the day of the genocide, those who could were made to walk five kilometres to the place of execution, while the rest were transported in separate groups by lorry. The victims were ordered to dig their own graves and then they were shot.
The memorial is one of the ten most impressive memorials in Europe reflecting the tragedy of the Jewish people.