Lithuanian state radio and television has published an interview with Jenny Kagan:

As Margarita Štromaitė, born in Kaunas, wrote in her memoirs, her future husband she met in the ghetto, Juozas Kagan and his mother Mira were rescued by Vytautas Rinkevičius’s family: “Regardless of the deadly danger, which threatened his entire family, he set up a hiding place for us in the attic of the forge. It was where the straw was, separated by an imaginary wall.” Twenty years after the Holocaust Margarita met her only surviving relative, her brother Aleksandras Štromas. In 1965 she and Joseph had a daughter, Eugenia. Or Jenny.

Jenny Kagan will be in Kaunas beginning August 4 for the exhibit “From Darkness” which is part of the Kaunas Capital of European Culture 2022 program, which will present her family history in subtle artistic techniques including text and audio, revealing previously unknown pages from the story of Kaunas.

This is also the story of the humanness and light we require to survive as a civilization. The exhibit will be held at Gimnazijos street no. 4 in Kaunas as part of the Histories Festival of the Kaunas Capital of European Culture 2022 program.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

Grant Gochin

In a study by the UN titled ”History under Attack,” António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, stated: “Understanding the history of the Holocaust is crucial to safeguarding our future. This is particularly crucial as we see some seeking to rewrite history or to whitewash and rehabilitate those who committed crimes against humanity. If we fail to identify and confront the lies and inhumanity that fueled past atrocities, we are ill-prepared to prevent them in the future.” This article borrows heavily from this UN study.

UN Findings

The UN finds that Holocaust distortion is just as pernicious as Holocaust denial. Holocaust distortion depends upon and spreads antisemitism. It threatens the ability to remember and learn from the past by misrepresenting the historical record. It is an attack on truth and knowledge. It feeds on and spreads antisemitic tropes and prejudices, and threatens our understanding of one of the most tragic and violent histories–the genocide of six million Jews.

by Karolis Vyšniauskas, photographs by Ieva Lygnugarytė, sound engineer Adomas Zubė

Samuel Bak is a miraculous survivor of Vilnius Ghetto. Now 88 at his studio in Massachusetts, the prolific painter recalls lost Jewish life in Vilnius for a NARA podcast.

For many decades Samuel Bak didn’t want to come back to Vilnius. It is the city where his father, grandparents and even his best friend, a child at the time, were killed.

But eventually through an initiative by local Lithuanians he returned to the place which formed his childhood memories. Now Vilnius hosts the Samuel Bak Museum, to which the painter has donated more than 50 of his works.

Full text and audio file of interview here.

by Evaldas Balčiūnas

Reading through the writings of various Lithuanian historians engaged in “historical memory policy” (an interesting term recalling totalitarian order in and of itself), texts which distort and even deny the Holocaust, I often wonder when it began. It began before the mass murder of Jews in Lithuania.

For instance, the Lithuanian Activist Front’s call to action “Dear enslaved brothers” appeared March 19, 1941, and was published in several versions. At least, two different versions have survived.