The Kaunas Jewish Community marked the mass murder of the Jews of Petrašiūnai and the Kaunas ghetto intellectuals’ aktion/mass murder at the Fourth Fort in Kaunas August 28. Members of the KJC, residents of Petrašiūnai, including some living eye-witnesses, and deputy Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Efrat Hochstetler, US assistant ambassador Howard Solomon and other US embassy staff, director of the Cultural Heritage Department of the City of Kaunas Saulius Rimas and representatives of the Kaunas Forts associations assembled to honor the victims of the Holocaust.

KJC chairman Gercas Žakas and embassy staff spoke of our duty to remember the Holocaust and the great loss not just to Jews but all Lithuanian citizens, the loss of possibilities and of people who might have achieved much in their home country and the need to remember the victims by name, not as statistics.

The sad ceremony also had some positive moments: Solomon spoke of the failure to exterminate the Jews and the continuing existence of the Jewish community. Saulius Rimas took joy in ever-closer cooperation with the Jewish community, with the US and Israeli embassies and the results of this cooperation. Ghetto prisoner and KJC member Fruma Kučinskienė recalled with deep respect and gratitude the residents of Petrašiūnai who rescued her family. Prayers were said for the dead.