October 11, 2015. The Švenčionys Jewish Community commemorated Holocaust victims at the Menorah statue. Švenčionys city leaders, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Vilnius Religious Jewish Community chairman Simas Levinas, deputy Israeli ambassador Yehuda Gidron, Dr. Dovid Katz and local residents all attended the sad ceremony. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moisiejus Šapiro thanked everyone for coming despite the cold weather to remember those who were murdered. Kaunas ghetto inmate Moisiejus Preisas and Vilnius ghetto prisoner Fania Brancovskaja laid flowers next to the statue. A representative from the local Nalšia regional history museum spoke about the history of the city of Švenčionys, contributions made by Jews to the growth of the city and the tragedy of the Holocaust.

The ceremony to commemorate the dead continued at a mass murder site where eight thousand Jews were murdered in the Švenčionys Forest. Deputy Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Gidron, after hearing eight thousand Jews were murdered at the site, and that six million in total were murdered over a few years, said it is difficult to comprehend those numbers. “I am glad the Švenčionys municipality is planning to erect a memorial plaque with the names of the Jews murdered next to the Menorah statue in the former ghetto territory. This is important not just for each of us, but also for everyone who lives in Švenčionys,” he said.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said: “We should remember not just the names of those who were murdered, but the names of those who murdered as well. This is necessary not just for condemnation or revenge, because those who are some still alive are very old, while others have passed on and stand in the court of the Almighty. I think it is necessary for all of us, their inheritors, so that our neighbors might know by whose hand the most horrific crime of the 20th century was committed. Because only when everyone whose hands were sullied with the blood of innocent victims is named and condemned, even if only in our thoughts, only then can we start to hope Lithuania might rid itself of its shameful title as a ‘nation of Jew-shooters’,” she said.

Vilnius Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yatom said Kaddish for the dead.