Holocaust period — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, in October 1939, Soviet Russia invaded Vilnius and handed it over to Lithuania. Jewish refugees from Poland, which included areas of German occupation and areas of Russian occupation, found refuge in Vilnius (Vilna). In June 1940, Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities closed Jewish and Zionist cultural institutions and offices. The entire Yiddish press was replaced by Communist Party press bodies. Many Jews, Zionists, Bundists and "bourgeois", were exiled to Soviet territory, where many of them were held in detention camps.