April 16, 2015, is Yom haShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the traditional March of the Living will take place in Lithuania, marking the route to Ponar where 70,000 Lithuanian Jews were murdered. This year 600 young people from Vilnius will take part along with the Jewish community. The march will have a unique start this year, with the 600 young people forming a human Star of David at 11:00 A.M. on the square outside the Old Town Hall in Vilnius on April 16.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chair Faina Kukliansky said Holocaust Remembrance Day marked by the March of the Living is an extraordinary event summoning many people to the Ponar memorial where they may travel the same path those condemned to death followed when they were brought in by train and forced to march their final march to the pits.

“The March of the Living is a public event to which all are invited who wish to honor the dead and to feel what the Jews felt when they were sent to their deaths just for being born Jews. They walked together with their parents, children, grandparents, in families, with newborns in their arms. The clothes of the murdered were taken from them immediately and sold, and the murderers used the money the next day to get drunk. So say the witnesses. These testimonies include that of the journalist Sakowicz, who lived in Ponar. Neighbors immediately took over the homes and apartments left vacant by the Jews, along with all their things. So I say we have a lot to think about,” Faina Kukliansky said.

“Each year the children of Holocaust survivors arrive from different countries, mainly Israel, for the March of the Living. Their parents, former residents of Vilnius and the Vilnius region, are no longer with us. In order to do them honor, the children take vacation time and travel at their own expense to distant lands in order to march again with March of Living participants to Ponar. They look upon the young Lithuanians marching together with them with gratitude. There is an ever-increasing number of people who want to look deeper into the history of the Holocaust, they are not satisfied by history lessons in school about the Holocaust, nor are they satisfied by what is taught about the entire history of the Jews of Lithuania, which was supposed to end with the Holocaust, but did not. We are still here.

That history began much earlier, and the Holocaust is only one horrible passage in that story. One must know a great deal more than is now being taught in order to make sense of the murder of one’s Jewish fellow citizens and to be able to tell one’s children about it. Soon a Government working group set up on the initiative of the Lithuanian Jewish Community will begin work on educational reforms and on how to teach young and old about the real history of the Jews and what happened in Lithuania when the Nazis and Lithuanians perpetrated the Holocaust. I respect honest Lithuanian historians who are able to defend history and talk about what really happened, and, based on facts and arguments, make conclusions and present them to the public. The historian must be brave and is not supposed to distort history.

The Germans have come to terms with the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis. I hope to live to see the time when Lithuania will be able to speak openly. I am waiting for the time when the rescuers will be duly honored. April the 16th is dedicated to the memory of murdered Jews and the second half of the day is dedicated to honoring the rescuers. I would like to find a place in Vilnius where I could bring flowers and set them before a monument to pay respect to the rescuers. Where is that place? I have been asking that question for many years. Why do we only honor the memory of the Jews when we gather in the Ponar forest? There is no place where one can go and find out about the tragedy that befell the Jews. It should be noted that even in the smaller towns interest in the history of the Jews is on the rise. Thanks to all our efforts and those of the Lithuanian state, there is now a ‘good tone’ set for taking an interest in what happened during World War II. The Lithuanian Jewish Community appreciates this tangible thaw and attention given Jews,” Kukliansky stated.