Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky delivered the following short address at a concert held in Munich Monday:

Dear honored guests,

It is my pleasure to be here and on behalf of the Lithuanian Jewish community to express my utmost respect and gratitude to our honored partner, the Order of Malta, and to all of you for paying the tribute to the Lithuanian Righteous of Nations, some of the all-time greatest ambassadors of humanity.

Over 90 percent of the once-flourishing, vibrant and influential Lithuanian Jewish or Litvak Community was destroyed during the Holocaust by the Nazis and their local collaborators. This means that out of approximately 210,000 Lithuanian Jews, an estimated 195,000 fell as victims of the Holocaust, and not without the help of local citizens, despite having more than 600 years of shared history.

A significant number of courageous and kind-hearted Lithuanian people, however, found inner strength when it was needed most to take a stand against evil at all costs, despite having very limited resources and facing an immense threat to the lives of their families and their own.

Their heroic act of saving their innocent Jewish neighbors during the grimmest of times, often involving much self sacrifice, demonstrated great human compassion; the hearts of the Jewish rescuers became shelters of hope for the hopeless, their eyes saw light in time of darkness. The life-saving decisions they made and the actions they took set the true example of morality for every of us to follow to this day.

The Lithuanian Jewish community is alive today thanks to the compassion and courage of the Righteous among Nations. I thank you all for remembering them together today and for recognizing their noble cause as well as their colossal contribution to our history.