In the summer of 1941, the Nazis and their local collaborators shot the residents of Molėtai, Tauragnai, Utena and other places (mostly Jews) in this place. On July 14, 1941, notices were posted in Utena ordering that all Jews of Utena must leave the city within 12 hours. Failure to comply with the order was threatened with execution. The Jews of Utena were driven from their homes to a ghetto established in the Šilinė forest (about 2,000 Jews). Almost every day, groups of young people (35-40 each) were taken out of the camp and shot in the Rašė forest. The first mass shooting of the Jews of Utena was carried out on July 31, 1941. Obersturmführer J. Hamann's flying squad, which arrived from Kaunas, together with local white-armed men, shot 235 Jewish men and 16 women in the Rašė forest. In July 1941, On August 7, 1941, the second mass extermination of Jews was carried out. On that day, 483 Jewish men and 87 women were shot in the Rašė forest. The Utena ghetto and the remaining surviving Jews of Utena were killed on August 29, 1941. This time, not only adult men and women were shot, but also children, babies and grandparents. J. Hamann's flying squad, together with the Utena White Ribbon Guards, shot 3,782 Jews of Utena and Molėtai (K. Jäger gives one figure for these two areas).
After the end of World War II, a memorial obelisk was erected at the site of the massacres at the initiative and expense of Utena Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The obelisk states that about 8,000 people were killed here. However, it is more likely that the Nazis and local collaborators killed about 4,600 Jews from Utena and the surrounding area.
To commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, the sculpture "Pain" created by Utena region sculptor Valentinas Šimonėlis was erected here in 1988.
This Holocaust memorial site is included in the Register of Cultural Properties.
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