The International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust is on January 27. It commemorates the date the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated and the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust in Europe. In Lithuanian entire Jewish communities in cities and towns were exterminated.

The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community invites residents to come to monument marking the site of the Šiauliai ghetto at the corner of Vytauto and Žalgirio streets at 12 noon on January 27 to light candles and remember the victims of the Holocaust.

At 12:30 we’ll move to the Square of Righteous Gentiles to honor the heroes of the Lithuanian nation who rescued their Jewish fellow citizens during World War II. At 1:00 P.M. we will light candles at the site of the former second ghetto at the corner of Trakų and Ežero streets.

Regarding the event, Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community chairman Sania Karbelis told the newspaper Šiaulių Kraštas: “More than 80 years ago a huge catastrophe occurred, but humanity has not really learned from it. Recently and near us, there is an ongoing attempt to seek solutions by scaring one another with weapons. It seems as if people live in an illusory world, imagining war as some sort of computer game: you do battle, press a button and everyone comes back to life again. People who have lived through it know that there are no winners in war. We need to remind people of this so they at least think a little bit about it. Right now people are very much set against one another, it appears we should unite, to overcome the pandemic, but we see even greater division.”

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