Five years ago Marius Ivaškevičius wrote of the need to remember the exterminated Jewish community of Molėtai, a town about 60 miles north of Vilnius. His call to mobilize with a march through the town became the second-most popular item ever on this website (the most popular being a reprint of an article about the South African Jewish community which continues to attract hits years later). The march itself was a watershed moment in Lithuanian Holocaust consciousness, drawing ethnic Lithuanians from around the country and the world together with Lithuanian Jews and Jews from South Africa, Uruguay, Great Britain, the USA and other countries. Several thousand people turned up on the town square and listened to the different speeches before marching to the mass murder site across town there.
The march was covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Jerusalem Post and other publications.
The march is to be repeated this year. August 29 is the date all Jews from Molėtai were murdered. On that “Day of Wrath” they were marched under armed guard two kilometers from one of the synagogues to the killing ground.
The program for this year’s march on August 29 is as follows:
1:30 P.M. Unveiling of monument at site of former synagogues, across from the main square.
2:00 P.M. Assembly at town square with speeches by the mayor, Tzvi Kritzer, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and others.
3:00-4:00 P.M. Procession to mass murder site.
4:00 P.M. Kaddish performed by Shmuel Yaatom at the mass grave with Leonas Kaplanas and Donatas Katkus in attendance. Arkadijus Gotesmanas, Petras Vyšniauskas and Dmitrijus Golovanovas will perform their musical composition “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”
7:00 P.M. screening of film “Last Sunday in August” on the mass murder of the Jews of Molėtai and the march five years ago at the Molėtai Cultural Center with cartoonist and screenwriter Ilja Bereznickas in attendance.
For more information, please contact Viktorija Kazlienė by telephone at +37068214595 or by sending an email to info@moletumuziejus.lt