anti-Semitism – Page 21 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

LJC Holding Human Rights Roundtable

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is hosting a round-table discussion on human rights and specifically the rights of Jews in Lithuania at 6:00 P.M. on October 20 at the Bagel Shop Café at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius. The discussion will be broadcast via internet as well.

As a member of the Lithuanian Coalition of Human Rights Organizations, the LJC has contributed this year to a “shadow report” to the United Nations initiated and presented by the Law and Justice and the Educational and Scientific and Human Rights Committees of the Lithuanian parliament, intended to improve the human rights situation for ethnic minorities in Lithuania, including Jews.

Those recommendations are available in Lithuanian here.

Participants will include LJC chairwoman and attorney Faina Kukliansky, Sholem Aleichem principal Ruth Reches, human rights expert Jūratė Juškaitė, diplomat Marius Janukonis, equal opportunities ombudsman Birutė Sabatauskaitė, MP and chairwoman of the parliament’s Commission on Battles for Freedom and State Historical Memory Paulė Kuzmickienė, MP and Lithuanian Supreme Court judge Stasys Šedbaras, General Prosecutor’s Office prosecutor Justas Laucius, former Constitutional Court judge and dean of the International and EU Law Faculty at Mykolas Romeris Justinas Žilinskas and others.

More information about registering and attending virtually available on facebook here.

2021-10-112021-10-22

EJC Condemns Belgian Constitutional Court Decision Upholding Ban on Kosher Butchering

Brussels, October 1, 2021–The European Jewish Congress expresses its profound regret at the decision of Belgium’s Constitutional Court to uphold a ban on the Jewish method of slaughter of animals for meat, known as shechita.

The Court upheld two decrees adopted in 2017 which banned shechita in the Flemish and Walloon regions of Belgium in 2017, ruling that these did not violate religious freedoms according to the Belgian constitution.

This follows a 2020 decision by the European Court of Justice that ruled that Belgium was allowed to impose stricter rules on the slaughter of animals than those prescribed by the EU.

2021-10-04

Vilnius University to Hold Public Lecture by German Historian Christoph Dieckmann

Vilnius University and the Lost Shtetl Museum are launching jointly a series of lectures and discussions called “Open Conversations on History” which will raise topical questions of historical truth, memory wars and society’s ability to resist the pressure to serve one or another ideology.

We invited Christoph Dieckmann, a prominent historian and author of books on German occupation policy and the Holocaust in Lithuania, to the first discussion at 6:00 P.M. on October 1. He will give a lecture called “Looking back on our past. Lithuanians, Germans, and Jews.”

Dieckmann will share his insights on the relationship between history and memory, talk about personal searches trying to find the best way to study the Holocaust in Lithuania and the method used to help incorporate the different perspectives of Holocaust participants.

2021-10-012021-10-01

LCJ Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky’s Speech at Ponar

Honored guests,

I stand before you in order to deliver a speech, but this place and this sad occasion calls for concentrating and remaining silent. The reflection, respect and humble silence which meets every thinking and feeling person in this place cannot be confused with the silence of apathy, ignorance and fear. All of us have kept silent too long. Too long. We have kept quiet about what happened, where it happened and why. It was kept quiet for most of those eight decades we count since the beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Out of fear? Ignorance? Apathy?

2021-09-242021-10-13

Slovakia Condemns Jewish Code Adopted by Protectorate of Slovakia in 1941

Declaration of the Government of the Slovak Republic on the 80th anniversary of the so called Jewish Code

2021-09-162021-09-16

Courage of Rescuers Lesson to Us All

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda held the annual ceremony at the President’s Office September 14 to award rescuers of Jews from the Holocaust and their descendants the Lithuanian Order of the Life-Saver’s Cross.

“Every September as we mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, we pay respect to memory of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens murdered during World War II. We also honor the rescuers of Jews, those people who dared oppose the occupational regime without regard to the mortal danger this posed to them and their families,” he said at the ceremony.

The Lithuanian president recalled the historical context in which these rescuers operated, with anti-Semitism dripping from the pages of the press, the mass murder of Jews underway. Despite this, they dared hide the condemned Jews and resist the occupational regime.

2021-09-142021-09-14

Pope Francis Expresses Shame over Slovakian Holocaust Victims

Photo: The Pope’s visit to Slovakia and meeting with members of the Jewish community was called historic.

“Here, in this place, the name of God was dishonored,” Pope Francis said at a Holocaust memorial in Bratislava. During World War II Slovakia was governed by a Nazi puppet regime headed by Catholic priest Jozef Tiso.

Pope Francis paid tribute on Monday to the thousands of Slovak Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.

The comments came during the pontiff’s official visit to Slovakia against the backdrop of accusations around the Catholic Church’s role in Holocaust atrocities in Slovakia.

What did the pope say?

Speaking at a former Jewish neighborhood in the capital Bratislava, Pope Francis sharply criticized “the frenzy of hatred” in World War II and continuing anti-Semitism.

Full story here.

2021-09-142021-09-14

Alytus Marks 80th Anniversary of Onset of Holocaust

Wednesday the city of Alytus south of Vilnius marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust with a procession before noon from the Old Town to a mass murder site in the Vidzgirdas Forest.

A commemoration ceremony was held at the memorial at the Holocaust site.

Jewish community members from Kaunas and Vilnius, Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, MPs, local government officials, foreign ambassadors, students from schools in the area and local residents participated.

Following the ceremony the renovated synagogue building on Kauno street was opened as the new home of the Alytus Audio-Visual Arts Center with a concert by Rakija Klezmer Orkestar.

2021-09-10

Grave Robbers Hit Old Jewish Cemetery in Kaunas

September 9, 2021

Unknown criminals desecrated the old Jewish cemetery on the Radvilėnai highway in Kaunas, exhuming at least three graves in what might have been an attempt steal valuables from the dead.

The Kaunas municipal agency charged with maintaining cemeteries noticed the disturbed graves Thursday morning while clearing tree branches at the site.

The three graves well all adjacent to one another in the southern section of the cemetery near the fence. Maintenance personnel found several pits which seemed to be dug towards the upper body section of the corpses. The pits were about a half meter deep and were partially filled in.

2021-09-102021-11-08

Holocaust Mass Murder Memorial Vandalized

While Lithuanians and Litvaks spent much of June, July, August and now September of this year marking the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust in locations around the country, vandals attacked a Holocaust memorial in the Kretinga region for the second time in two years.

The memorial marks the spot where about 700 local Jews were murdered in 1941. Kretinga alderwoman Sigita Riepšaitė said the monument was first attacked two years ago just four months after it was erected, and that the cost of repairs was roughly half the total cost for the monument to begin with, which was around 900 euros.

Lithuania’s LNK News reported the alderwoman had made a police report regarding the metal plaque attached to a large stone at Kviečiai village in the Girėlė Forest. Riepšaitė said the police were taking the report seriously at least partially because this is a repeat crime.

2021-09-092021-11-18

My Grandfather’s Crimes against Humanity

Photo: Courtesy Silvia Foti

A family memoir gets surprising reactions from Lithuanians, Russians and Jews.

by Silvia Foti, Aug. 25, 2021 6:14 P.M. ET, wsj.com

I grew up the proud granddaughter of a Lithuanian war hero who fought against Communists. My grandfather Jonas Noreika has a school and streets named after him. When my mother on her deathbed in 2000 asked me to write a story about her heroic father, I enthusiastically agreed.

Unfortunately, as I dug deeper I discovered to my horror that my grandfather was also a Holocaust perpetrator involved in murdering at least 8,000 Jews. On my story’s release, Russians wanted to use me, Lithuanians vilified me and Jews embraced me.

My grandfather wrote an order on August 22, 1941, to send thousands of Jews to a ghetto in Žagerė where they were slaughtered. My family story has brought this to the forefront, toppling Lithuania’s image as an innocent bystander in the Holocaust.

2021-08-26

Five Years On Molėtai Marches Again

Five years ago Marius Ivaškevičius wrote of the need to remember the exterminated Jewish community of Molėtai, a town about 60 miles north of Vilnius. His call to mobilize with a march through the town became the second-most popular item ever on this website (the most popular being a reprint of an article about the South African Jewish community which continues to attract hits years later). The march itself was a watershed moment in Lithuanian Holocaust consciousness, drawing ethnic Lithuanians from around the country and the world together with Lithuanian Jews and Jews from South Africa, Uruguay, Great Britain, the USA and other countries. Several thousand people turned up on the town square and listened to the different speeches before marching to the mass murder site across town there.

The march was covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Jerusalem Post and other publications.

The march is to be repeated this year. August 29 is the date all Jews from Molėtai were murdered. On that “Day of Wrath” they were marched under armed guard two kilometers from one of the synagogues to the killing ground.

2021-08-262021-09-03

EJC Slams Polish President, Calls Anti-Restitution Law Undemocratic, Unjust, Immoral

Saturday, August 14, 2021–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor slammed the ratification of a bill passed by the Polish parliament which will make it far harder for Jews to claim restitution on properties appropriated and stolen during the Holocaust era.

“This law is undemocratic, unjust and immoral,” Kantor said. “This is not bringing order to chaos as president Duda claims, it is making legal what should be illegal and is merely legalizing theft. The president had an opportunity to right the wrong created by the parliament. He could have shown moral clarity and leadership, but he chose not to.

“Moreover, this law will also further highlight Poland’s unique position as the only country in the region which makes Holocaust restitution impossible and runs counter to its international commitments. It is outrageous that someone who survived the Holocaust, who will be in their later years, will still be deprived justice by this cruel, illegitimate and discriminatory law.”

2021-08-172021-08-17

Holocaust Procession in Biržai

Last Sunday a Road of Memory procession commemorated the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust in the northern Lithuanian town of Biržai.

Participants marched from the town’s Memory Square to the Pakamponys Forest where approximately 2,400 Jews including about 900 children were murdered in 1941.

Full announcement in Lithuanian here.

2021-08-102021-08-10

Shalom, Akmenė

On August 4, 1941, the Jews of the Akmenė region who were being detained in the town of Akmenė were taken to Mažeikiai and murdered. An event called “Shalom, Akmenė” was organized and held to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust there on August 4. A new monument marking the site of the former synagogue in Klykoliai village was unveiled and the victims were remembered at the town square in Akmenė with a reading of names, sung prayers and kaddish. The ceremony there ended with a procession along Stoties and Viekšnių streets to the Akmenė town cemetery. Old Jewish cemeteries on the Tirkšliai-Mažeikiai highway were also visited.

Participants included members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community, Lithuanian MP Kasparas Adomaitis and others. Our gratitude goes to the organizers, Diana and Marijus Lopaitis and the Akmenė History Museum.

2021-08-062021-08-06

Kupiškis Remembers Onset of Holocaust 80 Years Ago

On July 30 organizers and guests of the “Road of Memory 1941-2021” project and local residents assembled at the Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum where museum historian Aušra Jonušytė moderated events.

United States embassy to Lithuania representative Wartenberg welcomed visitors in the name of US ambassador Robert Gilchrist and Lithuanian Foreign Ministry ambassador Marius Janukonis and veteran Conservative Party politician, former minister and MEP Rasa Juknevičienė as well as others participated and spoke at the event whose main organizer was Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes, whose deputy director Ingrida Vilkienė also delivered an address to the audience. Kupiškis regional administration mayor Dainius Bardauskas also spoke.

A procession bearing banners and flags walked to the mass murder site at the Freethinkers’ Cemetery in Kupiškis with marchers bearing flowers, candles and stones inscribed with the names of the murdered. The commemoration included a reading of the names of the victims and descriptions of their lives and families.

2021-08-04

Table of Truth Web Event

About the event

Learn about the extraordinary connection to one chess table with Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman, Lithuanian Jewish Community; Shulamit Rabinovich, San Francisco engineer; Dudu Fisher, Israeli-based world-renowned entertainer; Grant Gochin, South African wealth Manager and Silvia Foti, Chicago journalist.

We will reveal recently discovered facts about the Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust denial by the Lithuanian Government, and present new paths to education about the horrors of the past.

The table WILL talk.

We will conclude the program with Dudu Fisher chanting Kaddish.

When: 10:00 A.M. PST, 1:00 P.M. EST, 7:00 P.M. South Africa, 8:00 P.M. Israel, September 12, 2021

Representatives of the Lithuanian Government have also been invited to attend and speak.

For more information and to register, see http://israelusa.org/table-of-truth/

2021-08-022021-09-14

Sergejus Kanovičius: Why the LAF Didn’t Invite My Grandfather to the June Uprising

by Sergejus Kanovičius, poet and essayist

I always find it difficult to talk about the subject of the Holocaust in Lithuania. And not just talk about it – it is difficult for me to think about it, too. It is the biggest crime ever committed on the Lithuanian soil. We all play our part in history, we all–from historians to history fans, political figures, the general public–have our own interpretation of it. I am a writer, a descendent of Lithuanian Jews and Holocaust survivors, a child of Lithuania.

And I am honestly confused. And I don’t think I am the only one. The cautious statements that the Holocaust in Lithuania was a tragic page in our history, the popular expression of pseudo-empathy when fallen Lithuanian Jews are referred to as fellow citizens; but at the same time, no one is ever mentioning–even at the parliament–who their executioners were, and the list of people who have been identified as collaborators in that crime, remains hidden.

2021-07-202021-08-27

Šiauliai Regional and Klaipėda Jewish Communities Commemorate Holocaust Victims in Ylakiai

Members of the Šiauliai Regional and Klaipėda Jewish Communities attended an event to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Ylakiai, Lithuania, on July 6. The town center hosted an exhibit called “The Homes They Lived In” about Jewish families, businesses and activities. During the commemoration opera soloist Olga Šardt-Žarova sang “Our Father” and other works in Hebrew. After a minute of silence, a procession set off for the mass murder site and the old Jewish cemetery. Candles were lit and flowers placed at the site of the former synagogue, as were stones as well at the mass murder site, where kaddish was also performed.

According to the census at the end of the 19th century, 57% of the town’s population were Jews. Before World War I there were 150 Jewish families there. The town was heavily damaged during that war and many buildings include the synagogue burned to the ground. The town was rebuilt with large contributions made by Jews and in 1923 Jews constituted 41% of the population then. Many Jewish residents engaged in trade, light production and even agriculture before World War I. There were two mills with Jewish owners. Commerce took place at the weekly market and the large fair held once every five years. According to a government survey in 1931, there were 20 shops there, of which 17 belonged to Jews.

2021-07-192021-07-19

Utyan Jews Speak about Holocaust and Post-War Years in Lithuanian Translation of Zakhor Book

The A. and M. Miškiniai Public Library in Utena (Utyan in Yiddish), Lithuania, hosted a presentation of the only Lithuanian translation of a zakhor or memorial book in Yiddish about the city and region of Utena (the region includes Molėtai, Anykščiai, Vyžuonos and other locations. Incredibly, it took the book 42 years to reach the Lithuanian reading public: it was published in Tel Aviv by Nay Leben in 1979 under the title “Yishker-bukh Utyan un umgegnt.”

The translation and publication was the initiative of cultural historian Sandra Dastikienė as part of her project “Old Neighbors” to educate the public about the Jewish community, Jewish culture and the Litvak legacy in the Utena region.

“The old neighbors return to their towns in different ways–as works of art on the streets, through live appearances–but we are really missing the authentic history. This book fills that gap. It’s not an academic work, not an historical study, but the real memories of Jews who survived the Holocaust or left Lithuania before it. It raises more questions and presents a lot of answers,” Sandra Dastikienė said.

The recollections were collected into a single zakhor book from 1945 to 1979 in Israel. Roma Jančauskienė has long been interested in the history of the Utyan Jews and when she learned of the existence of this book tried over an extended period to buy a copy on the internet, unsuccessfully. About four years ago she finally did buy a copy on eBay, in Yiddish of course.

2021-07-142021-08-05