The exhibition “People and Books of the Strashun [Mefitse Haskalah] Library” opened May 22 to mark the public launch of the Judaic Studies Center at the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library. Dr. Lara Lempertienė, director of the new center, is the curator of the exhibition and the designer was Center researcher Miglė Anušauskaitė.

The exhibit documents the Mefitse Haskalah Jewish Public Library located on what was then Strashun Street from 1902 to 1940 (and which became the Vilna ghetto library under Herman Kruk until 1943), but also pays homage to Mattityahu Strashun (1817-1885), the bibliophile whose collection was housed at the Strashun Library proper, next to the Great Synagogue, but large portions of which passed through the Strashun street library during the Holocaust. The exhibit includes items from the collections of the Lithuanian national library as well as documents on load from YIVO, the Lithuanian Central State Archive, the History of the Lithuanian State Archive and the Lithuanian Art Museum.

National library general director Dr. Renaldas Gudauskas opened the exhibit at the ceremony Monday. YIVO director Jonathan Brent and Frida Shor, the author of an article about the Strashun Library, were also there.

The exhibition will be open to the public till June 23.

More information about the Strashun Library and Mattityahu Strashun available in Lithuanian here.