Holocaust – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Looking for Roots in Šiauliai

Alexander Phibbs arrived at the Šiauliai Jewish Community last week looking for more information about his ancestors.

His grandmother A. Gensaitė-Ustjanauskienė was born in Kaunas and went abroad with her mother after World War II. Gensaitė spoke seven languages and found emplyment as a translator with the US federal government.

Phibbs’s great-grandfather Jakov Gens was a Jew from Šiauliai and a veteran of Lithuania’s battles for independence during World War I. He is better known as the controversial chief of the ghetto police in the Vilnius ghetto. He was murdered in September of 1943 at Gestapo headquarters in Vilnius.

Phibbs said he spent a lot of time with his grandmother listening to stories from her homeland, which led him to seek more information about his family and to visit Lithuania.

Community members showed him around the city, including the school Gens attended and the old Jewish cemetery.

2025-04-01

Righteous Gentile Day in Švenčionys Region

The Rytas Gymnasium in Pabradė together with the Pabradė City Culture Center and the Pabradė Art School held a commemoration of Lithuania’s Righteous Gentile Day on March 14. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro, Švenčionys Region administrative council member Bronislovas Vilimas, Pabradė alderwoman Ana Zingerienė and 7th and 8th grade students participated. History teacher Danguolė Grincevičienė organized the event and provided the main feature about Righteous Gentiles and those who rescued Jews in the Švenčionys district. Local music teachers and students provided musical accompaniment, and art teacher Žana Semaško and her students presented an exhibit they made about the Holocaust and rescuers.

Students from a regional history club read out the names of Righteous Gentiles and of those whom they rescued, followed by more music by local students and the Pabradė Culture Center orchestra. Chairman Shapiro and Rytas Gymnasium principal Laima Markauskienė thanked everyone for organizing and attending the event.

2025-03-24

Happy Birthday to Moshe Shapiro

Dear Moshe,

We wish you a very happy 75th.

Your dedication and many years of work conserving and celebrating the culture and history of the Švenčionys Jewish Community is a priceless contribution to our shared heritage, and your work bringing people together and spreading mutual understanding inspires us to take on new challenges.

We wish you good health, endless energy and everyday joy. May respect, human warmth and beautiful life moments always follow you.

Mazl tov. Bis 120!

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2025-03-202025-03-20

Kaunas Jewish Community Marks Righteous Gentile Day

Conservative member of parliament Paulė Kuzmickienė initiated legislation back in 2022 to make Righteous Gentile Day an official Lithuanian holiday. This year the Kaunas Jewish Community marked Righteous Gentile Day for the third time with a group of Community members, interested citizens and Kaunas tourist guide Mariya Onishchimk.

It’s sad to report that our Righteous Gentiles, those brave and courageous souls who rescued Litvaks from the Holocaust, Lithuania’s true heroes, remain largely unsung and are barely commemorated in Kaunas, and remain largely unknown throughout the country.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas commented: “There have been and are, of course, many initiatives, many things done, many researchers studying this topic, but then there is truly so much more to be done. This is our duty, not just to pay honor and respect to the rescuers of Jews, but also for the mission which can be performed though knowledge of them and their activities, even those actions which the rescuers themselves don’t consider heroic, though conserving and forming humanitarian, altruistic values, teaching empathy and reconciliation.”

2025-03-19

Righteous Gentile Day in Šiauliai

Students, teachers, descendants of Righteous Gentiles, MP Paulė Kuzmickienė, architect Tauras Budzys and members of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community gathered Sunday to mark RIghteous Gentile Day at Righteous Gentile Square in Šiauliai. The commemoration continued at the Šiauliai District Jewish Community with music by violinist Dalia Dėdinskaitė and Glebas Pyšniakas playing cello. Tauras Budzys created a special marker for the graves of Righteous Gentiles and affixed the symbol to the headstone of Righteous Gentiles Eleonora and Antanas Margaitis.

2025-03-19

Panevėžys Commemorates Righteous Gentile Day

The Panevėžys Regional History Museum hosted an event to mark Righteous Gentile Day last week.

The Lithuanian parliament declared the day back in 2023 to coincide with Yad Vashem’s award of the title of Righteous Gentile to Ona Šimaitė back on March 15, 1966. She was the first Lithuanian given the distinction for her rescue of and aid to Vilnius ghetto inmates.

The commemoration in Panevėžys included speakers and a screening of the documentary film “Ponivez, Lithuania, 1932” about the Jewish community in Panevėžys or Ponevezh before the Holocaust.

Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman spoke at the event and delivered a message from Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky who was unable to attend in person.

2025-03-182025-03-18

Righteous Gentiles Day at the Choral Synagogue

Last week Lithuania marked the third annual commemoration of Righteous Gentiles Day and the Lithuanian Jewish Community remembered their courage, risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.

Sulamita Fromanaitė-Lev, rescued by nuns, shared her family story. Descendants of Righteous Gentiles Kazys and Sofija Binkis, Iga Mautėnienė and Romualdas Juknelevičius, talked about their family. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky spoke about the rescue of her family and Evangelical Lutheran reverend Mindaugas Sabutis and father Aligrdas Toliatas also addressed the commemoration.

Violinist Simas Tankevičius and bayan accordion player Yevgeni Musiyets provided music at the event. Students from Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium read excerpts from Yitzhak Mer’s Holocaust memoirs. Thank you to Sholem students Dina Perelman iand Markas Šulmanas, and to Sholem graduate Jokūbas Davidavičius who was master of ceremonies.

2025-03-17

Righteous Gentiles Day in Vilnius

This year will be the third Lithuania has officially remembered her Righteous Gentiles who rescued Jews from the Holocaust. It is another opportunity to remember the bravery and shining example set by those who risked their lives to help their fellow man.

“Time is pitiless. Every year more rescuers and more survivors pass away, but the memory of their experience will never fade,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said. She added that her family was also saved by Righteous Gentiles.

Time: 12:00 noon, Thursday, March 13
Place: Choral Synagogue, Vilnius

2025-03-10

Argentina’s Milei Opens Nazi Ratline Files

Up to 10,000 Nazi war criminals fled Europe using these escape routes. President Javier Milei pledges to declassify files related to how his country settled 5,000 of them.

Argentinian president Javier Milei promised officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center his full cooperation in granting access to documents related to the financing of so-called ratlines which helped Nazis escape Europe after the Holocaust. The promise was made in Buenos Aires at the presidential palace, Casa Rosada, during a meeting with Milei and activists February 18.

For decades organizations including the Simon Wiesenthal Center have sought records related to escape routes taken by thousands of Nazis during the years after World War II. Up to 10,000 Nazis and other war criminals escaped justice by fleeing to Argentina and other countries.

“While some previous leaders promised full cooperation to get to the hard truths that involved Argentina’s past, Milei is the first to act with lightning speed to enable the SWC to uncover important pieces of the historic puzzle, especially as it related to involvement with Nazis before, during and after the Holocaust,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Times of Israel.

Full story here.

2025-03-052025-03-05

Condolences

Dita Sperling has passed away at the age of 102. She was born in Kaunas in 1922. She survived the Kaunas ghetto and Stutthof and went on to be a prolific writer and Holocaust educator. Our deepest condolences to her surviving family and friends around the world.

2025-03-04

Šiauliai Remembers Righteous Gentiles

The Šiauliai District Jewish Community invites you to an event to mark Lithuania’s Righteous Gentiles Remembrance Day called “Witnesses to the Miracles of Life” on March 16.

Program:

1:00 P.M. Commemoration ceremony at Righteous Gentiles Square including words and wreath-laying with MP Paulė Kuzmickienė and the architect Tauras Budzys who began marking the graves of Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania with a special symbol back in 2018;

2:00 P.M. Exhibit of Righteous Gentiles called “Unafraid to Die, They Became Immortal” at the Šiauliai District Jewish Community, Višinskio street no. 24, and a musical performance by Dalia Dėdinskaitė on violin and Gleb Pyšniak on cello.

Time: 1:00 P.M., Sunday, March 16
Place: Righteous Gentiles Square and Šiauliai District Jewish Community, Šiauliai

2025-03-04

Samuel Bak Presents Catalog

Samuel Bak himself and a panel of experts will launch a Bak catalog in Lithuanian on the first day of the Vilnius Book Fair. The catalog of his artwork is called “Gydantys simboliai.”

Joining via video link from the USA, Litvak painter from Vilnius Samuel Bak will speak with Bak Museum senior curator Ieva Šadzevičienė, illustrator Jokūbas Jacovskis and others with synchronous translations in Lithuanian and English.

Time: 2:00 P.M., February 27
Place: conference hall 5.5, Litexpo building, Laisvės prospect no. 5, Vilnius

2025-02-262025-02-26

Criminal, Trash and Enemy of the State

by Grant Gochin

All I sought was information about the murder of my Lithuanian family during the Holocaust. This was my entanglement with the government of Lithuania.

Most barbarians shout about their hideous torture and murder of innocents as a matter of pride. Palestinian terrorists murder Jews and boast about it. They have parades with slain bodies. They hand out candy, and dance with joy, thinking they have done something wonderful. They haven’t.

During the Holocaust, Lithuanians murdered Jews with an even greater level of ferocity and depravity than Hamas currently displays. Their conduct was reprehensible and not even close to human. The Lithuanian slaughter was almost complete. They murdered 96.4% of all Jews they could reach. The current dream of Gaza is the replication of the Lithuanian Holocaust.

2025-02-24

Condolences

Marian Turski died February 14. He was born in Druskininkai in 1926. A survivor of the Łódź ghetto, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald and was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. He resettled in Poland where he advocated for the Communist regime and served as editor of the newspaper Sztandar Młodych and then as chief of the history department of the weekly Polytika, and authored at least seven books about the Holocaust and Communist politics in Poland. Our deepest condolences to his surviving daughter Joanna.

2025-02-202025-02-20

Condolences

Garij Rudštein passed away February 15. He was born in 1943. He was a member of the Klaipėda Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. Our deepest condolences go to his friends and surviving family members.

2025-02-19

Condolences

Antanas Segalis died February 16. He was born in 1940 and came from Kalvarija, Lithuania. He was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and a client of the Saul Kagan Welfare Center. We extend our sincere condolences to his son and family.

2025-02-19

Children of the Holocaust Project Takes Flight in Palanga

A project to study the history of pre-Holocaust Lithuanian Jewish and Roma urban and rural communities has begun in Palanga. The aim is to recreate city, town, village and community history to understand how the former way of life connects with the present and future. Called “Children of the Holocaust: Illuminating the Shadows of Lithuanian History,” the Palanga Jewish Community said in a press release public understanding of the Holocaust is changing, with the history of the Jews now being told by creating a personal connection with the past.

This Lithuanian Jewish Community for implementation between 2024 and 2026 is supported by the EVZ Fund in Germany. The Palanga Jewish Community, the Jonas Šliūpas Museum in Palanga, the Old Gymnasium in Palanga, the Palanga Youth and Volunteer Center, the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius and the Roma Community Day Center are all partners in the project.

The goal is to encourage specific, novel, lively retellings of history to engage young people from Vilnius and Palanga. The focus is on children who were victims of the Holocaust from the Litvak and Roma ethnic communities and their experience, stories and recollections among survivors.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2025-02-13

National Library Celebrates 100 Years of YIVO

The Martynas Mažvydas Lithuanian National Library conserves a YIVO document collection of very significant volume and content. The YIVO was established exactly a century ago in Vilnius in 1925. It is the only Vilnius Jewish institution which did not stop operating during the Holocaust and which continues to operate today. After World War II YIVO made its main headquarters at its branch in New York City. This branch took over the institute’s functions as a center for the preservation of Jewish heritage and research.

Many traces of the institute’s work survived in Vilnius: fragments of its documentation, correspondence, library collection and archives, scattered among several commemorative institutions. The National Library is conducting a study of the institute’s archives which is revealing YIVO’s origins in Vilnius and its especially fruitful period of activity in Vilnius before WWII.

The 100-year anniversary of the founding of the YIVO was noted back in 2023 in a resolution by the Lithuanian parliament as being of special significance to world culture and the National Library. Lithuanian National Library director Aušrinė Žilinskienė spoke about this at the Lithuanian embassy in Washington, D.C., on December 9, 2024. That event to mark the anniversary was organized with YIVO headquarters in New York.

The National Library is holding an event in cooperation with a large number of Lithuanian and foreign partners with a spectacular program, including the publication of books on the history of the YIVO, an international academic forum and an exhibit of textual heritage.

2025-02-122025-02-12

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