In 1996 the General Assembly of the United Nations passed resolution 51/95 inviting member-states to observe November 16 as the International Day for Tolerance. The day has been observed in Lithuania for over a decade now. Each year’s commemoration has featured a different symbol. This year it was a bird. More than 700 cultural and educational institutions marked the day. Tolerance birds decorated schools, kindergartens, private educational agencies and daycare centers.
The Šviesa special education center organized Tolerance Day events for November 14 through 16 in Panevėžys, in which the Panevėžys Jewish Community participated. Also participating were representatives from the Panevėžys primary school for the deaf and hearing-disabled and students and teachers from other primary and secondary schools. Sign-language interpreters conveyed speech to deaf members of the audience.
Special education center principal Petras Leikauskas gave the keynote address, saying our future depends on us and our relationships with others. He said educational institutions, where bullying often occurs, have a large part to play in teaching tolerance and respect. Center librarian Agnė Miliukaitė talked about the history of the Holocaust. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman said tolerance is the realization people are both equal and unique. Tolerance occurs when neighbors respect neighbors and young people their parents and teachers, he said. Conflicts should be solved peacefully, without resort to compulsion or violence. He said Lithuanian Jews respect Lithuanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Community chairman Kofman presented the school principal the Jewish calendar recently published by the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Goodwill Foundation. The calendar is dedicated to Righteous Gentiles who rescued Holocaust victims and victims of war during World War II in Lithuania. The cover features former interwar Lithuanian president Kazys Grinius with wife Kristina. Kofman then played excerpts from a documentary film about the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Event participants listened intently to each speaker. All attendees were presented a star of David lapel pin designed by Panevėžys Jewish Community members Yuri and Svetlana Grafman. The event continued at the Panevėžys Jewish cemetery where children laid wreaths and their own hand-made tolerance birds at the commemorative statue called Sorrowful Jewish Mother. The Community chairman spoke there about the history of the cemetery and the Holocaust.
On November 17 the Panevėžys Jewish Community participated at a commemoration of International Tolerance Day held at the Paltarokas Gymnasium in Panevėžys.