Thursday, February 22, Vilnius–Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė opened the 19th annual Vilnius Book Fair. She said this year was special because the Republic of Lithuania is celebrating its 100th birthday, and that other states in the region represented at the fair are doing the same.

The book fair slogan this year was “I read Lithuania, I read the world.”

Grybauskaitė said: “If you can read and know Lithuania, that means you can read the world, too, and Lithuania as part of it.”

She was presented a copy of the Vilnius ghetto diary of Yitzhak Rudashevski in Lithuanian translation, to be officially launched at the book fair Sunday.