The Panevėžys Jewish Community held their annual Holocaust quiz for high school students on December 2 this year, the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Four teams of students competed.

Before the quiz the high school students watched a documentary film about the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex where more than 1.5 million people were murdered, more than one million of them Jewish men, women, children and elderly.

Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman said it wasn’t just Jews who suffered from the barbaric actions planned by the Nazis in World War II against humanity. Europeans of other ethnicities also suffered because of their religion, ethnic origin, traditions and disabilities. Nonetheless, six millions Jews were exterminated simply because they were Jews.

Students and teachers were invited to light Hanukkah candles to remember and commemorate the victims.

When the quiz began, questions were posed about the history of the Holocaust in Lithuania and Europe from the beginning right up to the Nuremberg trials. The students also drew posters and signs saying “NO to the Holocaust” and presented and commented their images.

The students were truly involved and had a surprising command of the facts. They answered questions about events, facts and numbers specifically, providing dates, exact locations and numbers. The teams from the Juozas Balčikonis High School and the Fifth Gymnasium–both located in Panevėžys–did especially well in terms of knowledge and specific answers. The team from the Juozas Miltinis Gymnasium in Panevėžys impressed the panel of judges with their creativity as well as knowledge. The team from the Margarita Rimkevičaitė Service Industries and Business School performed best in terms of breadth of reading and knowledge. The teams were awarded trophies, medals and thank-you certificates for their active civic-mindedness and good command and demonstration of their knowledge. Jewish calendars and matzo bread were also presented as gifts.