anti-Semitism – Page 11 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

We Must Stop Commemorating Those Who Spread Hate and Death for Jews

At a special meeting of the Lithuanian parliament held today to mark the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky called for remembering the contributions Jews made to the birth and development of the Lithuanian state before the Holocaust.

“It seems to me the memory of the history of Lithuanian Jews and the Vilnius ghetto has been reduced to official events, excursions and interactive tours for foreigners,” she noted.

Kukliansky said this wasn’t the first time she was forced to remind politicians and the Lithuanian public that plans for the Ponar Memorial Complex and other projects haven’t been completed.

“Every year I speak from this podium, saying there is no monument to rescuers of Jews. … If this is impossible to do for so many decades, let’s at least stop commemorating those who sowed death and hatred of the Jewish people,” Kukliansky told the Lithuanian parliament, foreign ambassadors and other guests.

2023-09-222023-10-25

Schedule of Commemorative Events for the 80th Anniversary of the Anti-Nazi Resistance and Liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto

European Days of Jewish Culture

Time: Starts at 10:00 A.M. on September 3, 2023
Location: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius; Choral Synagogue, Pylimo street no. 39, Cvi Park (Petras Cvirka Square across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community).

Exhibit “Ghetto Children Tell Their Story to Contemporary Children”
Time: September 4 to September 30, 2023
Location: Adomas Mickevičius Public Library, Trakų street no. 10, Vilnius.

Special Concert to Remember Victims of the Holocaust
Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė, patroness
Time: September 6, 2023
Location: Lėlė Theater, Arklių street no. 5, Vilnius.
by invitation only

2023-09-212023-11-14

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of Vilnius Ghetto: Play “Symphony of Dance from the Jerusalem of the North”

The dance troupe Lietuva and the Prabudimo orkestras present a song and dance spectacular called “Symphony of Dance from the Jerusalem of the North.” The performance is based on Jievaras Jasinskis’s work “Simfonija iš Šiaurės Jeruzalės” [Symphony from the Jerusalem of the North]. The story begins 4,000 years ago and extends till the present. The performance will take place on different dates around Lithuania. Tickets available here.

Schedule:

7:00 P.M. on September 23 at the State Youth Theater in Vilnius, by invitation only.

6:00 P.M. on September 24 at the State Youth Theater in Vilnius

7:00 P.M. on September 27 at the State Drama Theater in Kaunas

6:00 P.M. on October 7 at the Concert Hall in Palanga

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2023-09-202023-09-20

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of the Vilnius Ghetto: Conference at Parliament “Communism and Anti-Semitism”

The Lithuanian parliament will host an international conference called “Communism and Anti-Semitism” beginning at 10:00 A.M. on November 28. The organizers of the conference include the Lithuanian Jewish Community, YIVO, the POLIN institute and the Goodwill Foundation. It will be broadcasted on the parliament’s website www.lrs.lt and via the parliament’s youtube channel. Stay tuned for more details.

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2023-09-20

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of the Vilnius Ghetto: Play “The Choice”

The Lėlės Theater in Vilnius presents a play in Lithuanian called “Pasirinkimas” based on Holocaust survivor and trauma psychologist Edith Eva Eger’s book “The Choice: Embrace the Possible,” which details her Holocaust experience as a young woman. The play starts at 4:00 P.M. on Sunday, September 24. The theater is located at Arklių street no. 5 in Vilnius.

Tickets are available here.

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2023-09-20

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of the Vilnius Ghetto: Short Underground Films

Filmmaker Justinas Lingys’s two shorts “Vilniaus geto gyvybės arterija” [Life Artery of the Vilnius Ghetto] and “Holokausto aukoms atminti” [To Remember the Victims of the Holocaust] will be screened at the Adomas Mickevičius Public Library at Trakų street no. 10 in Vilnius at 5:30 P.M. on September 28.

The celebrated Lithuanian filmmaker takes two approaches regarding the Vilnius ghetto: the actual Holocaust, and the underground city connected by a system of tunnels where life was carried on unseen by the Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators, where people taught children, through which food supplies were smuggled into the ghetto and through which information and news about the war travelled. Jews were also rescued through the tunnels, and when the Vilnius ghetto was liquidated a small number escaped through the tunnels.

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2023-09-202023-09-20

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of the Vilnius Ghetto: Play “Ghetto”

The National Drama Theater in Kaunas presents the play “Getas” [Ghetto] written by Joshua Sobol and directed by Gintaras Varnas at 4:00 P.M. on September 24 and 6:00 P.M. on November 14. The theater is located at Laisvės alley no. 71 in Kaunas.

The play centers around Vilnius ghetto inmates who waged a spiritual and cultural war for survival under genocidal conditions, founding the Vilnius ghetto theater in the face of almost certain death.

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2023-09-202023-09-20

Eightieth Anniversary of the Liquidation of and Uprising in the Vilnius Ghetto: Film Clips about Ponar and Litvaks

The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum will host a viewing of scenes about the Ponar mass murder site outside Vilnius from the 9.5-hour-long documentary film Shoah (1985, France) and short film clips from YIVO and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D. C., touching on Jewish life in Lithuania before the Holocaust. A panel discussion will follow.

The event begins at 6:00 P.M. on September 22 at the Tolerance Center located at Naugarduko street no. 10 in Vilnius.

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2023-09-20

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of the Vilnius Ghetto: Play “Dust”

The State Youth Theater located at Arklių street no. 5 in Vilnius presents the play “Dulkės” [Dust] at 6:00 P.M. on September 22, based on the book “Panerių dienoraštis 1941–1943” [Ponar Diary 1941-1943] which is a collection of observations made there by Polish journalist and refugee Kazimierz Sakowicz, hidden in bottles, buried and later recovered after the war and painstakingly deciphered.

The young director of the play Justinas Vinciūnas said he was looking for his own attitude regarding the Holocaust and instead of using literary sources preferred authentic primary sources such as the Ponar Diary.

Sakowicz and his wife were forced out of their apartment in Vilnius and their newspaper press was seized by the Soviets in 1940. He took up residence in Ponar outside Vilnius and observed the daily mass murder operations there. Lithuanian readers are sometimes shocked to learn the mass murder was carried out mainly by Lithuanians with very little Nazi German presence there.

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2023-09-202023-09-20

Lithuanian Parliament Empanels Commission of Inquiry for Impeaching Allegedly Anti-Semitic MP

Lithuania’s channel 3 evening news reported Tuesday the Lithuanian parliament has approved forming a commission to investigate allegedly anti-Semitic statements made by Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis on facebook for his possible removal as a member of parliament. According to the evening news program, all opposition parties have refused to take part in the MP’s possible impeachment and are saying this is a move by the ruling Conservative Party to remove an MP who is part of their opposition in parliament.

Žemaitaitis, according to channel 3, says his statements weren’t anti-Semitic and targeted specific public figures rather than the Jewish people as a whole.

His same facebook posts displayed a rabid sort of Russophobia which the ruling coalition of Lithuanian Conservatives and Liberals haven’t criticized, although Lithuania’s criminal code also expressly forbids sowing hatred against Russians. The Lithuanian constitution provides for legal immunity to members of parliament, namely regarding freedom of speech. MPs cannot be convicted of a crime by prosecutors unless the majority of the parliament votes to remove legal immunity for a specific MP, including prosaic crimes such as driving while drunk.

2023-09-19

Eightieth Anniversary of the Liquidation of and Uprising in the Vilnius Ghetto: Remembering Vilna Podcast Episode

The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies present their podcast episode “Remembering Vilna: Voices from the Holocaust” at 6:00 P.M. on September 21 at the National Library located at Gedimino prospect no. 51 in Vilnius. The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University in the United States currently conserves over 4,000 testimonies by Holocaust survivors. “Remembering Vilna: Voices from the Holocaust” is the third episode of the podcast series “Those Who Were There: Voices from the Holocaust” produced jointly by the Fortunoff center and YIVO in New York. This episode draws upon Hermann Kruk’s diary and other testimonies which detail the destruction of the Jews in Vilnius. Podcast guests also discuss the rise of anti-Semitism in the period between the two world wars, the Soviet occupation of Lithuania followed by the Nazi occupation, the establishment of ghettos, the mass murder of the Jews of Vilnius and the end of the war and what that entailed.

Podcast producers Nahanni Rous and Eric Marcus and hostess Eleanora Reissa will attend the event which will be conducted in English.

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2023-09-19

Eightieth Anniversary of the Liquidation of and Uprising in the Vilnius Ghetto: Film “Samuel Bak: Painter of Questions”

The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum will screen the documentary film “Samuel Bak: Painter of Questions” following a discussion of the film and the artist. The film was made by Christa Singer in 2003 and looks at the life and work of Samuel Bak through the prism of his childhood in the Vilnius ghetto. In the film he returns to Vilnius, walks the streets of the ghetto and visits Ponar where his father and grandparents were murdered. The film is in English and there won’t be subtitles in Lithuanian. The event begins at 6:00 P.M. on September 21. The Tolerance Center is located at Naugarduko street no. 10 in Vilnius.

imdb entry here.

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2023-09-19

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of the Vilnius Ghetto: The Holocaust, Anti-Semitism and Remembering for the Future

Historian Christoph Diekmann, film-maker Saulius Beržinis, independent Holocaust archive founder and director Darius Staliūnas and Lithuanian History Institute historian Tomas Balkelis will hold a panel discussion moderated by Dina Porat from Yad Vashem about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and commemorative policies at the National Martynas Mažvydas Library at 5:00 P.M. on September 20. Before the discussion begins, Beit Vilna director Mickey Kantor, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein and National Martynas Mažvydas Library director Renaldas Gudauskas will deliver brief addresses. The panel discussion will be followed by brief speeches by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and representatives from Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania.

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2023-09-18

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of Vilnius Ghetto: Discussion of Polish Jewish Refugees

Vilna Gaon Museum director Simonas Strelcovas and Eleaonra Bergman from Poland, moderated by Lara Lempertienė, will engage in a discussion of Polish Jews who fled to Vilnius between 1939 and 1944 at the Vilna Gaon Museum’s Tolerance Center at 6:00 P.M. on September 19.

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2023-09-18

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of the Vilnius Ghetto: Readings and Activity for Children

Vilnius’s Adomas Mickevičius Public Library will host a reading from 3rd and 4th grade students in Lithuanian from the book “Akmenėlis” [Little Stone] by Marius Mickevičius by professional actors telling the story of friendship, hope and fear experienced by children imprisoned in the ghetto, with a talk about the stone as a symbol for remembering and commemorating history, followed by an activity where every child will be invited to paint a stone. It happens at 11:00 A.M. on September 19, and then again at the same time on September 21, at the Adomas Mickevičius Public Library at Trakų street no. 10 in Vilnius.

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2023-09-18

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of Vilnius Ghetto: Walking Tour

When the Nazis and local Lithuanian collaborators instituted a ghetto for Jews in Vilnius, it was in two parts: a smaller ghetto for the aged and infirm, and a larger ghetto for able-bodied younger Jews to be used as slave labor. The smaller ghetto was liquidated almost immediately, meaning those imprisoned there were slaughtered. This event is a walking tour of the large ghetto which endured for several years. Walking tour participants will gather at the historic address Žemaitijos street no. 4 at 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, September 19. Formerly known as Strashun street before and during the Holocaust, this street was located inside the ghetto and was the address of the Jewish Educational Library headed by Herman Kruk during the life of the Vilnius ghetto. It is also next to the balcony where Jewish partisans fired on Estonian Nazi troops during the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto.

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2023-09-18

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of Vilnius Ghetto: Walking Tour of Vilnius Ghetto through Eyes of Children

Guide Gina Justina Raibužytė will lead walking tours of the Vilnius ghetto focusing on how it appeared to the children trapped inside, starting from the Adomas Mickevičius Public Library at Trakų street no. 10 in Vilnius, at 11:00 A.M. on September 18, 11:00 A.M. on September 20 and 12:00 noon on September 22. Registration via internet is required by filling out the form here: https://forms.gle/ZrosR3TYVB3wF6bc7

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2023-09-18

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of Vilnius Ghetto: City of the Living, City of the Dead Photo Exhibit

This is a photography project authored by Robert Wilczyñski where archival photos of the Warsaw ghetto are superimposed on the current, rebuilt Polish capital, accompanied by texts taken from diaries, testimonies and other sources documenting daily life, suffering and death in the Warsaw ghetto as well as the Warsaw Uprising. Pawel Freus is curator of the exhibition. The exhibit went on display September 12 at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum located at Naugarduko street no. 10 in Vilnius and will run till December 15 of 2023.

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2023-09-18

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of Vilnius Ghetto: Exhibit “Children of the Ghetto Tell Their Stories to Children of Today”

This September Lithuania and the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liquidation and uprising of the Vilnius ghetto back in 1943 when several thousand Jews imprisoned and still suriving there were sent to concentration camps and murdered. At the same time, Jewish underground paramilitary forces attempted to stage a defense, and several hundred left to join the Soviet partisans battling the Nazis and their local collaborators in Lithuania and elsewhere.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is proud of the courage and unbreakable will of the prisoners of the Vilnius ghetto and invites you to celebrate their memory in a series of events to be held throughout September into mid-November this year.

The exhibit “Children of the Ghetto Tell Their Stories to Children of Today” is one such on-going event which began September 4 at the Adomas Mickevičius Public Library at Trakų street no. 4 in Vilnius and which will run till September 30. It consists of brief sketches of the life of children in the Vilnius ghetto with guidance and access to books by children about the Holocaust for those interested in learning more.

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2023-09-18

2023-09-18