The Nazis and their local accomplices destroyed the unique community. There are more than 200 sites of the mass murder of Jews in Lithuania. Paneriai, just outside of Vilnius, where approximately 70,000 Jews were shot dead, is one of the most horrifying places in Europe. Tens of thousands of Jews, including children, old people, and women, were brutally murdered at the Kaunas Ninth and other forts, in the Vidzgiris forest near Alytus, in Marijampole, in the Pivonija forest near Ukmerge, etc. Shtetls, whose population was often mostly made up of Jews, have disappeared. For instance, before the war approximately half of the 10,000 residents of Ukmerge were Jews. According to the 1989 census, there were only 12 Jews left in the town and the entire region. A shtetl was a unique place, steeped in Jewish atmosphere and with an on-going rejuvenation of a Jewish way of life - the cradle and fortress of Jewish culture.
Those who survived the terrible Catastrophe looked for psychological refuge and sought to be among their own. Thus they gathered in larger towns, primarily Vilnius, where they created the illusion of the continuity of Jewish life. Unfortunately it was just an illusion. Unlike Hitler, Stalin did not murder Jews (though in fact the "shuls" of Jewish culture - the most celebrated writers, journalists, actors, the entire leadership of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, etc. were killed), but state's policy was to repress Jewish culture and yiddishkait. The fight against the "cosmopolitarians", and the "doctors' case" which should have ended with the deportation of all Jews to Siberia (only the death of Stalin prevented that from happening) - were the most blatant outbursts of official anti-Semitism which was manifest constandy and in all spheres. Stalin's death did little to change that.
There were several millions of Jews in the huge territory of the USSR, but not a single Jewish school, theatre, or museum. Jews were discriminated at work and in universities (some universities wouldn't accept Jews at all). The very word "Jew" was shunned, inscriptions on monuments (where they existed) to the thousands of Nazis' victims spoke about the murdered "Soviet citizens", but not the Jews, and statistical tables of nationalities usually cited Jews as "others". Under such circumstances it was impossible to even dream of a Jewish life. Jews felt themselves like the second-rate citizens. And therefore when the State of Israel was established, they began to agitate for repatriation. Before the end of the 1980s it was exceptionally difficult to leave, but people found the means to overcome great obstacles: in 1959 there were 24,672 Jews living in Lithuania, and 30 years later there were only 12,314. "Perestroika" lifted the Iron Curtain and led the way for mass repatriation. Naturally, most of them were young, working age people. This influenced not only a decrease in the number of Jews in Lithuania, but also changes in the demographic, structure of the Community. According to the last census (1989), 24.7% of the Lithuanian population and 16.02% of Jewish population were younger than working age, while 19.2% of Iithuanians and 32.4% of Jews were pensioners.