On International Holocaust Day Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė told LRT.lt the Palace of Sports complex in Vilnius could become a memorial to Jews. For more than a decade now there has been consideration on how to renovate this historical building of brutalist architecture. The main idea was to create a modern conference center, but the Government might not go along with this now.
The building has a unique roof and is an example of brutalism [Soviet architecture]. If there are even a few sites in the Lithuanian capital where it’s possible to travel back through time in an instant, the Palace of Sports is one of them. Abandoned and apparently forgotten, although it once throbbed with life.
Many Lithuanian music stars performed on its stage and festivals and plays were held there.
In 1989 while the USSR still existed the group Sonic Youth performed there.
The Lithuanian independence movement Sąjūdis held its founding conference there.
The building was built over 50 years ago. The idea of renovating the building to turn it into an international conference center ran up against another reality: the building was built in the middle of the old Jewish cemetery.
There is a small monument there to the former Jewish cemetery. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said during the commemoration of International Holocaust Day on January 27 that the cemetery territory is still disordered.
“We need to decide what to do. We simply have to make a decision. This can be very difficult sometimes, but it is necessary to do this. Otherwise we can just forget about Šnipiškės as a cemetery, but among Jews there is no such thing as a former cemetery,” Kukliansky said.
Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė told LRT.lt in an interview the Government is planning to look for ways to commemorate Jews and would like to do so at the Palace of Sports including putting the general area into better repair.
“We’ve tried to consult over the entire last year and how, if you change that view, since the project hasn’t begun to be implemented yet, it’s just planning decisions, and if we decide that this site as a special place in Lithuanian Jewish history should be dedicated to Lithuanian Jewish history and this should be told there. Either through a museum, a memorial or some site dedicated to that goal,” the Lithuanian prime minister said in a radio interview.
She said she was inspired by the POLIN Jewish history museum in Warsaw, by the number of ideas implemented there and its interactivity. While the Palace of Sports is a cultural heritage site and additional construction is therefore not allowed [sic], Šimonytė said this is a unique opportunity to put the building back into use, to tell the story of Lithuanian Jews, and thereby avoid ethnic disputes.
The Lithuanian Government plans to look for the best idea for the site and in the meanwhile the Palace of Sports in Vilnius will remain closed to the public.
Full article in Lith8uanian here.