The so called “stable” period ended in Spring of 1943. On one day at the beginning of April, 5000 Jews residing in the Vilna Ghetto were shot dead in Paneriai, and in June Nazi leaders ordered the liquidation of all of the ghettos in Europe. The final liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto commenced on the 23rd of September. Residents of the Vilna Ghetto – mostly women and children – were taken to the concentration and extermination camps in Auschwitz, Treblinka and elsewhere, and able-bodied Jews were sent to the labour camps. The few hundred older or sick Jews remaining were shot dead in Paneriai.