When Germans occupied Alytus in the Second World War, Jewish people were shot and buried in common graves in the Vidzgiris Forest. On 18 March 1993, after reconstruction, a memorial was unveiled in the Vidzgiris Forest to commemorate the Jewish victims.

The Vidzgiris Forest stretches along the City of Alytus occupying the area of 452 hectares. It is a unique landscape with broad-leaved trees, wash and skew forests, hornbeam groves, oak-woods, rare plants of high botanical value and many breeds of protected animals. In 1960, most of the forest was declared a botanical reserve. There are ecological paths.