Alternate names: Kruonis, Krone, Kroni, Kruonio. 54°46' N 24°14' E, 43.6 miles W of Vilnius. The Jews of Kruonis had a synagogue, 20 houses, 19 cowsheds, 6 barns, and 7 stockyards. All were wooden and of little value. Several Jewish families lived in Kruonis during the inter-war period. 2001 population: 716. [March 2009]
CEMETERY: information [September 2010]
MASS GRAVES: A "partisan" white-band squad of 25 registered in the Kaunus Commander's Office on June 25, 1941. They fired at and arrested small groups of the Red Army soldiers or individual soldiers retreating along the Alytus-Kaunas road and cut the Red Army telegraph, killing the guard. During the first weeks of the Nazi occupation, the terrorized communists and Jews who remained in the town. Nazi occupiers registered 153 Jews and their property at the end of July 1941 as well as 70 non-Jewish communists. Most were sent to Kaunas and later released except six who were shot .on the edge of Kruonis. On June 29, policemen and white-bands forced local Jews to the square of the town, beating and mocking them, making some carry a carriage of firewood around the square and others roll timber from one place to another. That night, the white-bands killed the Jewish families, Chackelis and Pikšteras. Later, the Jews were driven by the white-bands to perform different manual labor and beaten often. Following the August 16 order to arrest the Jews, 87 Jewish men of Kruonis Rural District were driven to the ghetto set up in Darsūniškis village because Kruonis had none. 25 Jewish women were shot in Gojus forest (3 km from Kruonis) at the end of August, probably Kruonis white-bands. The surviving 99 Jews (10 men, 69 women and 20 children) and then paid 8,000 rubles were shot in Darsūniškis between August 28 and September 2. The white-bands took part of the property taken from the victims. [March 2009]