Vilnius, March 22, BNS–The two-day conference “The Beginning of Mass Murder: Identification and Remembrance of Mass Murder Sites from Summer and Fall of 1941” began at the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum in Vilnius Wednesday. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky was a speaker.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance with 31 member-states and a number of historians, educators, museum specialists and other Holocaust researchers from around the world organized the conference. Lithuania acceded to IHRA membership in 2003 but this is the first time an international IHRA conference has been held in Vilnius, a museum representative said.

The two-day conference is being hosted by the Tolerance Center of the museum and is dedicated to identifying, marking and commemorating mass murder sites in the Baltic states, Romania, Ukraine and Belarus.

Participants include Holocaust researchers and experts and representatives of governmental institutions and NGOs from Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Latvia, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and Ukraine as well as Lithuania. Participants are meeting to share experience and practices, to discuss mass murder site research, challenges in commemoration and possible solutions. Separate specialized workshops are being held for participants in various fields.

Vilna Gaon Museum and the Lithuanian History Institute plan to present new findings from archaeology conducted at the Ponar mass murder site outside Vilnius. Participants will be offered the opportunity to visit Ponar and the Naujaneriai mass murder site.