Memory cannot survive from one commemoration to another. Members of the Commission of Historical Memory are laid here and in pits in another hundred small Lithuanian towns and villages. To them it’s completely clear: no one defended them then. However strange it might seem, they have to be defended today, too. At that point in time one group chose to save people, while the other chose the path of Satan. They told my people in 1941 they would be safe in the ghetto. They lied. Today, eight decades later, as then, again they are telling us persistently that the ghettos were good, and those who helped set them up were heroes, or almost saints. Is there anyone today who will speak up and say clearly and without ambivalence that this is immoral? Who, where, when did they say this?

“History can never be left to the politicians, whether they be democratic or autocratic. History is not the property of a certain political doctrine or regime. History, when it is understood truly, is the symbol of our daily moral choices.” And I would add to these words of the late professor Leonidas Donskis: our attitude towards this tragedy, towards its victims, the rescuers, the desk murderers, its direct perpetrators and their unlimited worship–these reflect the state of our ability to remember. And today there are clear signs there is an attempt to make our memory and our moral choices sick. There is only one way to heal our memory: to tell the truth finally. If we want THEM to not just rest in peace, but in honor and dignity.

I wrote this poem 30 years ago:

From the memoirs of an émigré. A Tour. Vilnius.

That morning rose up
We left Ponar
No one, no one
Saw us
There was a mist
And we were the mist
On and on and on we walked
All as one
We thought we were going home

The Vilnius ghetto had changed unrecognizably
Homes simply of exemplary appearance
And people
In basements where we played
Hide-and-seek with death
Cold cold cold champagne is bubbling
Until midnight, a sale of the smiles of doormen
Maybe they are drinking our health there

What on mediaeval wall
Carefully, secretly,
Does the child draw with a cigarette butt
A bearded baby plays with a swastika
You are mist Juden raus

The tour guide
An old cobbler from the Glass Street, who was shot
Tears off the yellow patch
The star from his chest
Covering the past, healing,
And requests everyone be brought to Ponar
As many stones
As the forefathers brought to the city
For its walls, houses and pavement
The Jerusalem of Lithuania no longer needs our tribute
This city doesn’t remember blood
This city doesn’t remember our lives
Its history has been calculated well
It is equal
To the history of this city
Minus
Us

Hey you
With the minus sign
Peel the rocks
Just don’t take another’s
The others will themselves come
To take back their destiny

Beautifully restored Vilnius
Without us dissolves in fog
Holes gape in the defensive wall
We carry stones, trades
The Karaïtes carry out spears and arrows
How empty the sky is above the city

The tour is over
Again we migrate
To Ponar