July 15 was the 79th anniversary of the extermination of the Šiauliai or Shavl ghetto where around 6,000 Jews were then imprisoned from a total population of 14,000 Jews on the eve of war, including refugees from Poland, this remainder having already been murdered by that time.

Members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community gathered at the monument marking the location of a former gate to the ghetto, which consisted of two sections, as had the ghetto in Vilnius. The victims were remembered with flowers, candles and stones.