Wednesday evening the 80th anniversary of the Kinder Aktion in the Kaunas ghetto was marked in the Slobodka neighborhood of Kaunas where the ghetto gates once stood. Around 1,700 children and elderly were rounded up and murdered.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said the records for prisoners in the Kaunas ghetto had been lost and it wasn’t known exactly how many people were imprisoned there and murdered.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas recalled some children were smuggled out of the ghetto in bags of potatoes.

Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein said: “Eighty years have passed, but the pain and mourning for those who lost their lives here are still vivid.” She compared the atrocities to those committed by Hamas in Israel.

German ambassador to Lithuania Cornelius Zimmermann also spoke at the event.

The Kaunas Jewish Community held a concert at Vytautas Magnus University following the remembrance ceremony dedicated to those who had been denied the opportunity to grow up, and those who were not allowed to spend their waning days in peace.