Ingrida Vilkienė, education program coördinator of the International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania reports on the commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day at a conference held at the high school in Ariogala, Lithuania. Teachers and students from schools with tolerance education centers throughout Lithuania as well as many others came to the Lithuanian town January 27 to remember the dead and present student works about the Holocaust. Others at the conference included Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon, Lithuanian ambassador for special assignments Dainius Junevičius, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Žakas Gercas with community members, Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman, Raseiniai district administrative head Algirdas Gricius and a large number of people from the education department and other institutions in the Raseiniai district administration.
The conference lasting the whole day featured students’ works, plays, artwork and reports about Lithuanian Jews rescued from the Holocaust and about the rescuers and their families. Many of the student works reflected their places of origin. Students over a wide age range presented very different reports and skits. High school students from the Žemyna Gymnasium in Klaipėda gave a tasteful and sublime presentation of the history of their region and how Jews lived there until World War II. Students from Alytus gave a dramatic performance of the birth and rescue of a Jewish girl. The tolerance education center of the Balbieriškis primary school showed a video detailing the history of that town where there was a large Jewish community before WWII. The Ariogala Gymnasium screened an interview with a Lithuanian woman from the Raseiniai region whose family rescued eight Jews. The woman repeated some very basic phrases about humanity, empathy and helping people in a hopeless situation. Students from the Ąžuolas Gymnasium in Varėna presented many profound ideas in their composition, Vilkienė reported. She said students from twenty different schools gave presentations, and that organizers hoped students and teachers would discuss the other presentations back at their own schools.
Simonas Dovidavičius, director of the Sugihara House Museum in Kaunas and a partner in the event, gave books about Litvaks and fin-de-siècle Lithuanian-Jewish relations to representatives of each school.
Vilkienė reported this was the sixth national conference held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Lithuania and there were 150 participants from 26 institutions in attendance.
