photo courtesy Milda Jakulytė-Vasil

In line with the expressed wish of the recently deceased Lithuanian philosopher and author Leonidas Donskis, a group will assemble in the Lithuanian town of Butrimonys Sunday, October 23, to say kaddish for the Jewish community murdered there in 1941.

“I would be happy, if while I am still alive, something similar would happen in Butrimonys… I feel a moral obligation to say kaddish there with Jews,” Donskis said in an interview on Delfi TV on July 31, 2016. The interview in Lithuanian is available here.

Kaddish will be performed by Lithuanian Jewish opera soloist Rafailas Karpis.

Time: 3:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., Sunday, October 23, 2016
Location: Jewish mass grave site in Butrimonys, Lithuania

Butrimonys is located between Vilnius and Alytus and is about 10 kilometers northeast of Alytus. Traveling by car from Vilnius the scenic route passes through Trakai and Onuškis. The Jewish mass grave is on road 1222 south from Butrimonys to Klydžionys village about 4 kilometers from Butrimonys.

Event organizers provide directions taken from holocaustatlas.lt:

Driving from Butrimonys to Klydžionys village (4 km down road no. 1122), look for a way on the right side in a pasture field. In the distance you can see the tops of the fir trees that are surrounding the monument site. There are no signs leading to the mass execution site from the road. Following this small way through the fields you will reach a small river with a bridge over it. That’s the main murder site.

Latitude:    54.487367
Longitude: 24.258327

Please note there are two other Holocaust mass murder sites in the immediate vicinity.