The Povilas Matulionis Pre-Gymnasium and the Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum held a conference at the school May 30 called “The Kupiškis Jewish Community: Connections between Past and Present.” Participants included Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman, Lithuanian MPs Aleksandras Zeltinis, who spoke first, and Sergejus Jovaiša, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon, Kupiškis regional administration head Dainius Bardauskas, regional administration assistant director Aurimas Martinka, Kupiškis culture, education and sports department director Violeta Aleknienė and Povilas Matulionis Pre-Gymnasium principal Rimvydas Latvys.

MP Zeltinis said the former synagogue, now the Kupiškis public library, would be restored at his initiative. Ambassador Maimon delivered the first paper and called current relations Israel and Lithuania wonderful and warm. Historian Arūnas Bubnys gave a presentation on the mass murder of the Jews of Kupiškis during the Holocaust. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman spoke about the Holocaust and righteous gentiles who rescued Jews.

The idea of holding the conference came from Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum museum specialist Aušra Jonušytė. She said the idea came to her of holding a comprehensive conference to discuss research on the Kupiškis Jewish community when Israeli ambassador Maimon visited the Lithuanian town and the school in August of 2015. She said Jews were prolific in the social and political life of the region and she has collected a lot of material about Jewish life there. She said she visited the Lithuanian Central State Archive and found information about the Jewish organizations which operated in Kupiškis.

“I wanted to explore this topic more broadly, especially because there are people who have written on it. These are the historian and doctor of liberal arts Bubnys who wrote about the mass extermination of Jews in our region in the summer of 1941, and also the historian Simonas Jurkštaitis who was deeply interested in the history of the Jewish community from ancient times till World War II. Doctor of history Aldona Vasiliauskienė has collected material on Kupiškis emeritus Feliksas Ereminas, a Righteous Gentle who hid the Jewish woman Regina Rozenberg. Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon agreed with the idea of holding a conference and the embassy of the state of Israel became its patron,” she said.

According to the Atlas of the Lithuanian Holocaust, about 1,500–2,000 Jews from Kupiškis, Šimonys, Subačius and Viešintai rural districts were murdered at the Kupiškis Jewish cemetery from July to September, 1941, and about 1,000 Jews were murdered at the Free Thinkers Cemetery in Kupiškis in the second half of 1941. The Jews of nearby Subačius, about 80 people, were murdered sometime in July, 1941, according to the Atlas of the Lithuanian Holocaust.