[2] The ghetto was established soon after the Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Russia on June 22, 1941.
At the end of September 1941, about 1,000 or 2,000 of Švenčionys Jews were moved to barracks of former military training grounds near Švenčionėliai.
[2] Younger inmates began procuring weapons and establishing contacts with the Soviet partisans active in the region (now eastern Lithuania and western Belarus).
Due to crammed and unsanitary conditions, a typhus epidemic broke out among the inmates.
To minimize resistance, Jewish policemen from Vilnius Ghetto were brought in to facilitate the operation.
[3] About 2,700 able-bodied Jews were transferred to Vilnius Ghetto or work camps in Žiežmariai, Žasliai, or Kena.