The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum screened the NOVA documentary about Jewish Vilna which aired earlier in the spring on the PBS network in the United States on July 18. The event space was filled with audience members and staff had to find additional chairs for the large crowd. Many sat in the upstairs balcony overlooking the space. Also in attendance were current and former staff from the Vilna Gaon museum and MP Emanuelis Zingeris. The audience was mainly interested members of the Lithuanian public including a large number of young Lithuanians.

Speaking before the film, museum director Markas Zingeris praised the documentary about archaeological digs at the site of the former Great Synagogue in Vilnius and at the Holocaust mass murder site Ponar just outside the Lithuanian capital.

Deputy chief of mission at the United States embassy to Lithuania Howard Solomon also called the film important and reiterated long-standing US support for the Lithuanian Jewish community.

Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon noted Israelis remember the heroes as well as the victims during Holocaust commemorations, and said his personal hero was Fania Brancovskaja, the FPO partisan present in the audience. He also expressed the hope the documentary would be shown throughout Lithuania.

Chief archaeologists at last year’s digs–which resumed this year on July 10–Dr. Jon Seligman and professor Richard Freund fielded questions from the audience following the film. They are currently continuing work at the former Great Synagogue site in central Vilnius and said they will be there until July 22, concentrating on the area where they believe they uncovered ritual baths last summer.