The Antanas Žmuidzinavičius Museum of Works and Collections in Kaunas (Vlado Putvinskio street No. 64) is hosting an exhibit of original documents from the personal collection of Michailas Duškesas on Jewish life in Lithuania before the Holocaust.

This unique exhibit is being shown for the first time in Kaunas. It is dedicated to the Jews of Lithuania who were murdered in the Holocaust. A wide range of archival material, photographs, original documents and postcards show Jewish life in Kaunas and throughout Lithuania at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. Jewish activity is presented under the principles of mutual aid, sponsorship and welfare. The exhibit features notable personalities, religious organizations, banks, agencies and credit unions.

To help visitors make sense of it, the panels and stands are divided into separate themes: 1) yeshivas, synagogues, rabbis; 2) financial institutions; 3) political and national organizations, welfare, health, social and athletic organizations; 4) educational, cultural and scientific organizations; 5) major business people, production facilities, factories; 6) small business owners, trades and crafts people; 7) attorneys; and 8) doctors, medical personnel. The plan is to continually add new items to the exhibits.

The word Litvak, or Lithuanian Jew, is associated with spiritual, learned and cultured Jews throughout the world. Until World War I, Jews comprised 33 percent of the population within the current borders of Lithuania. During the period between the wars they were 7.8 percent of the population. More than 90 percent were murdered during the Holocaust. Today the active Jewish community is comprised of about 3,500 people.

The documents on display show the fullness of Jewish life in Lithuania before the Holocaust. It is intended for everyone interested in history, but especially for young people and students, since the rich history of the Jews of Lithuania still isn’t included in school curricula and is only known to a narrow circle of people in Lithuania. The exhibition includes rare and unique documents from the time of Tsarist Russia. Among the documents are the blueprints for the Vilnius synagogue and documents connected with doctor and public figure Tsemakh Shabad and the attorney Jacob Robinson, thanks to whom the Holocaust was raised at the Nuremberg trials.

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The exhibit will be on display from October 1, 2015 until March 31, 2016.

Michailas Duškesas collects everything associated with Jewish history up to 1944, including books, newspapers, postcards, letters, photographs, stocks and bonds and various other things.

Duškesas was born in Kaunas in 1948 where he continues to live and work at the present time. He is a scholar, athlete and collector. He was graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from the Kaunas Polytechnic Institute. He is the author of 20 academic papers. He taught physical education at Kaunas Polytechnic from 1988 to 1991. Since 1991 he has been the owner and director of the Eldorado company. He has been a member of the Lithuanian Table Tennis Association and director of the Table Tennish Support Fund since 2008. He has been a member of the Lithuanian national Olympic Committee since 2013.

He continues a family tradition: his uncle Chaimas Duškesas was part of the legendary Lithuanian table tennis team in Cairo in 1939, whose team won fourth place in the world championships. Michailas Duškesas was a winner in the USSR team championships in 1965 and Baltic champion many times over. He won the Lithuanian individual championships in 1973 and 1975. He has been the winner numerous times in many Soviet and Lithuanian championships. In 1989 at the 13th World Maccabiah Games in Israel, when Lithuania was still part of the USSR, he personally was the first to carry the Lithuanian flag through Ramat Gan Stadium.