The Macikai camps are a unique and historically significant site of national and international memory. This is the only place in Lithuania—and one of the few in Eastern and Central Europe—where imprisonment structures of two totalitarian regimes (Nazi and Soviet) overlapped. Thousands of people were held here under brutal conditions, and many perished from torture or inhumane treatment.
Today, the Macikai camp complex includes the camp site, a solitary confinement cell, prisoners’ graves, a bathhouse, and possibly a former barracks building. In 1995, on the initiative of the Šilutė Union of Exiles and Political Prisoners, a museum in the solitary confinement cell was established in Macikai, presenting various historical periods of the camp. The museum, which is a branch of the Šilutė Museum, is located 2 km from Šilutė in the village of Macikai, on the left bank of the Šyša River, in the former manor grounds.