June 22, 1941, was the date the Nazis invaded Lithuania, Belarus and neighboring countries and the Holocaust began. Today the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius will hold a prayer service to remember the beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Unlike in the West, Jewish victims in the East were mainly executed near their homes. Over just a few months in the summer and fall of 1941 the vast majority of the once-populous Jewish community of Lithuania were exterminated.


Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yatom sings a prayer for Jews murdered in the Holocaust.