by Algis Jakštas, Švenčionių kraštas

We will probably never find an answer to why expressions of mass genocide [sic] keep repeating in human history, why people are murdered for their ethnicity, race and religion. A few years ago as I watched the film Salt of the Earth (2014) about the photographer Sebastião Salgado who has spent many years photographing genocide committed around the world at the end of the 20th and in the early 21st century, I recalled the Holocaust carried out by fascists against the Jewish people as well. I have spoken many times with Moise Preis who lives in Švenčionys and who passed through all the brutality of the ghettos and concentration camps and through a miracle survived. Sometimes as I listened to his stories I found it hard to even imagine how a person could bear such atrocities and survive, and preserve his humanity.

Although the inspirers and leaders of the Holocaust were Hitler and his subordinates [sic], many local people contributed to the mass extermination of Jews in the occupied territories. That happened in Lithuania, too. It’s sad, but we must admit that a handful of our countrymen [sic] contributed to the mass murder of the Jews, to the Holocaust. I write “handful” because this was truly not a mass phenomenon [sic], because very many people at risk to their lives and those of their families hid Jews and their children. It couldn’t have been otherwise [sic], because Jews had lived in Lithuania for centuries and got along well with Lithuanians, Poles and Russians. Taking a look at the tragic statistics of the Holocaust we see that 192,000 Jews were exterminated in Lithuania, and that’s 96% of the Jews who lived here until World War II, while in Latvia 95% [were murdered], and the most horrible figure is in Poland, where 2,800,000 Jews were exterminated. Time cannot heal the wounds from such brutality in the hearts of the people of the Jewish nation. Incidentally, very few people of Jewish ethnicity now live in the Švenčionys region and surrounding areas. According to Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moisejus Šapiro, they might number 50.

On Sunday, October 2, the history of the Švenčionys ghetto at the Švenčionys city park was again remembered and the memory of the dead was honored at a mass murder site near Švenčionėliai. Incidentally, there are many more sites where Jews were shot in the Švenčionys region. The marking of the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust victims [sic] began Sunday in front of the Menorah. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moisejus Šapiro spoke. Nalšia Museum historian Nadežda Spiridonovienė gave a brief presentation of the history of the Švenčionys ghetto. Survivor of the ghetto and concentration camps Moise Preis and Vilnius ghetto prisoner Faina [sic] Brancovskaja laid a wreath for honoring the memory of the dead.

At the mass murder site of the Jews of the district of Švenčionys in Švenčionėliai Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon and Švenčionys regional administrators spoke. The collective of violinists from the Pabradė Art School and a performance by students from Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium enlivened the artistic part of the event dedicated to mark the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust.

Let’s remember the life of the Jews of Švenčionys and the history of the ghetto.

What sort of community was the Švenčionys Jewish community before the war? Educated: it had Jewish schools. Spiritual: there were five synagogues. They had their own shops. Of course not all shops belonged to the Jewish community. How else did Jews make a living? They were good craftsmen: cobblers, smiths, carpenters. They also worked at market, resold mushrooms and fish and had barbershops. There was a pharmacy in Švenčionys. The entire family made simple pharmaceutical mixtures and sold them. There was a Jewish doctor who had a practice for Jews. In their free time children and adolescents attended amateur art and drama groups.

In what is now the city park in Švenčionys, during the first years of World War II, where there was a high Jewish population density, a ghetto was set up. Now the Menorah stands there, reminding us of Jewish life in the ghetto. Three families lived in a room in the same house, but the territory was surrounded by barbed wire, and where the Menorah stands there was a gate through which Jews were marched to work.

They only got to eat what they got after coming back from work, what they stole or what local residents brought them, throwing a small loaf of bread over the fence. Some escaped the ghetto and lived with local residents. Risking their lives and their families’ lives, locals strove to help their neighbors in trouble. Secret organizations operated inside the ghetto which brought small groups out to the forests and became partisans. The Jews left in the ghetto were painfully punished for these transgressions: not just shooting them after taking them through the gate, but also marching them to Švenčionėliai to be shot [?]. According to SS Einsatzgruppen statistics, 1,169 men, 1,840 women and 717 children from the Švenčionys ghetto were shot.

In March of 1943 the period of stabilization in the Vilnius ghetto ended. At that time the small ghettos in the Vilnius district (Švenčionys, Ašmena, Salos) were liquidated. Some of their residents were moved to the Vilnius ghetto, others were brought by train to Ponar and shot there (about 5,000 people in total).

Not only were the people destroyed, so was a culture, customs and traditions developed over centuries, and material goods and other property was stolen. The Holocaust as history lesson shows future generations what people blinded by hate who have lost their moral accountability can do.

It’s important to recognize and understand the Holocaust in trying to overcome nationalist and anti-democratic ideologies, to spread democratic society, to teach tolerance and understanding of a different culture. And every time we remember the Holocaust, we hope such events never happen again in the history of humanity.