Holocaust – Page 11 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

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

European Days of Jewish Culture in Prienai

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and Bagel Shop Café were invited to participate at the European Days of Jewish Culture in Prienai, Lithuania, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, where around 40% of the population was Jewish before the Holocaust. The local organizers of the event there demonstrated a keen interest in the Jewish past of their town and in what was until now exotic Jewish cuisine.

The event kicked off at the synagogue, one of two and the only one left standing, in the early afternoon with a planting of crocus bulbs outside the synagogue. Participants walked from there to the Vėlyvė café which used to house a famous restaurant belonging to the Milstein family. Litvak snacks, challa bread and humous were served with fresh bagels. Local genealogist Janina Paplauskaitė-Leonavičienė then told the story of the synagogue and the restaurant which belonged to the Milstein family.

2023-09-18

Eightieth Anniversary of Liquidation and Uprising of Vilnius Ghetto: Ponar Escape Tunnel

This event is a tour featuring the escape tunnel dug by prisoners held underground at the Ponar mass murder site whose gruesome job was to exhume, burn and crush into dust the 70,000-150,000 corpses of Jews murdered there by Lithuanians and Nazis over the course of three years. After their task was completed, the enslaved members of the so-called burners team–Jews and Soviet POWs–would also be murdered and disposed of there. Some members of the team escaped on April 15, 1944, through the tunnel they excavated more than 30 meters long using spoons and sticks. The tour begins at 12:00 noon on September 16 at the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius.

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2023-09-162023-09-18

Marija Krupoves: Vilna Ghetto Songs Became My Destiny

by Olga Ugriumova, LRT.lt, September 6, 2023

What is the Puppet Theater in the Lithuanian capital today was the Vilnius ghetto theater during the Holocaust. It is hosting a concert to mark the 80th anniversary of the destruction of the ghetto. The concert is preceded by the opening of an exhibit dedicated to the memory of Leiba and Khael Rosenthal in the courtyard, which was the courtyard of the Vilnius ghetto Judenrat or Jewish council during Nazi rule.

The concert includes songs sung by Marija Krupoves, Arkadijus Gotesmanas doing percussion, Boris Kizner on violin, Artūras Anusauskas on piano and other well-known musicians. Krupoves ,besides earning renown for her musical performances, is also an academic who explores the folklore of many peoples and her song repertoire includes texts in Yiddish, Polish, Lithuanian, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Roma, Tartar and Karaïte, among other languages and dialects.

Marija says the songs of the Vilnius ghetto became her destiny.

2023-09-132023-09-13

Historical Drama in Klaipėda

Klaipėda residents were treated to fictional historical plays in situ and Rosh Hashana treats as part of European Days of Jewish Culture events in the Lithuanian port city September 10. A series of skits were performed in the Old Town by the Šatil theater troupe depicting Jewish experience, daily life, triumphs and misfortunes in the interwar period. This was followed by a presentation of Jewish folklore at the Puppet Theater in Klaipėda, formerly known as Memel under East Prussian rule.

2023-09-112023-09-13

Lithuania Needs a Separate De-Nazification Law

by Arkadijus Vinokuras, LRT.lt, September 5, 2023

With great pomp the de-Sovietization law has been released into public circulation. Correction: the law bans the propagation of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and ideology in any form. The law allows for the removal of symbols of both authoritarian ideological from public spaces.

Nonetheless, the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania [hereinafter Genocide Center] and the worshipers of Nazi collaborators arrayed around that institution are standing shoulder to shoulder when it comes to the removal of symbols from the period of the Nazi occupation. When Genocide Center historian Alfredas Rukšėnas cynically called for respecting the feelings of those who honor the murderer Juozas Krikštaponis, the question arose of whether Lithuania isn’t being guided by a broken moral compass.

The worship of Nazi collaborators is a method by which Lithuania’s radical right-wingers push their pro-fascist and authoritarian ideas on society and put a stop to historical truth. At the same time, attempting to hide their obvious affiliation with the Nazis, they beat their chests crying out they are against anti-Semitism, respect victims of the Holocaust, condemn Nazis and fascists, but still they worship these “heroes” who called for a fascist revolution in Lithuania. Who called for getting rid of the Jews and murdering them.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

2023-09-11

European Days of Jewish Culture in Ukmergė

The Lithuanian Jewish Community was gratified to see so many young people attend European Days of Jewish Culture events held in Ukmergė (Vilkomir) last Tuesday. A large number of local residents and a delegation of 62 students from Israel attended events including a reading of the names of Holocaust victims from the area.

The Lithuanian town where about half of all households spoke Yiddish until World War II had multiple working synagogues, a Jewish hospital, Jewish schools and other Jewish institutions. Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas introduced local Holocaust survivor Elena Jakiševa, said to be the only Jew from Vilkomir to survive the Holocaust, to participants who were keen to hear everything she had to say. Chairman Taicas said it was important for the current generation of young people to learn from living witnesses without distortion and suppression.

2023-09-11

Commemorating Holocaust Victims in Švenčionys

This year the Švenčionys Regional Jewish Community will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the largest mass murder operation in the Švenčionys district on October 1. Švenčionys Regional Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro invites everyone to attend.

Program:

11:00 A.M. Remembrance ceremony at the Menorah statue in the Švenčionys city central park;

12:00 noon Opening of new exhibit at the Nalšia Museum;

1:00 P.M. Remembrance ceremony at the mass murder site in Platumai village in the Švenčionėliai rural district.

2023-09-11

Commemorating Victims of the Holocaust in Panevėžys

The Panevėžys Jewish Community will hold a series of ceremonies on Friday, September 22, to remember the victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Participants will gather at the Sad Jewish Mother monument on Memory Square in Panevėžys located at Vasario 16-osios street next to the Vyturis pre-gymnasium.

Program:

2:00 P.M. Opening ceremony, wreath- and stone-laying at the monument, addresses;

2:40 P.M. Travel to the mass murder site in Kurganava Forest where approximately 8,000 Ponevezh Jews were murdered;

3:30 P.M. Travel to Žalioji Forest where approximately 5,000 Ponevezh Jews were murdered;

5:00 P.M. Conference and screening of Holocaust films from Yad Vashem at the Panevėžys Jewish Community located at Ramygalos street no. 18 followed by coffee and tea.

Everyone is invited to attend any and all of these events.

2023-09-08

European Days of Jewish Culture in Vilkomir

After a great start in Vilnius, the European Days of Jewish Culture move on to Vilkomir (Ukmergė) with a series of interesting and perhaps moving events. The two-day program promises to enrich the public’s knowledge of Jewish culture and hopefully to teach them about the rich Jewish heritage inherent in their local area.

At 2:00 P.M. on Thursday, September 7, there will be a reading of the names of Holocaust victims at the location where the Great Synagogue once stood in Vilkomir (Vienuolyno street no. 2).

At 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, September 7, the Ukmergė Tolerance Center (Vasario 16-osios street no. 11) will open an exhibit of photography by Jurga Jackevičiūtė called “Įmelsta žemė” [Pierced Land] including a presentation by the photographer of her trips to Jerusalem.

At 5:00 P.M. on Friday, September 8, the Ukmergė Tolerance Center will screen a documentary film by Loic Salfati called “Secrets of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius” which includes documented historical facts, a large number of interviews and findings from archaeological digs at the site of the former Grand Synagogue in 2019 and 2021 to tell the hitherto little-known true history of the synagogue which mostly survived the Holocaust and World War II only to be razed in the 1950s. There will be a discussion with the French filmmaker following the screening.

2023-09-05

Commemoration of Holocaust Victims in Vilkomir

The first Sunday in September is the traditional time to commemorate the Jewish victims murdered in the Holocaust in the Pivonija Forest outside Vilkomir (Ukmergė) and this year marked the 82nd anniversary of the mass murder. As usual, the commemoration began at 12 noon.

Members of the Ukmergė Jewish Community and fellow Jews from the Vilnius and Kaunas communities gathered at the mass murder site for the ceremony.

Also attending the ceremony were Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, American embassy chargé d’affaires Tamir Wasser, UK ambassador Brian Olley, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, Ukmergė regional administration mayor Darius Varnas and others.

Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas initiated the ceremony, saying: “Every year we remember this tragedy, we gather here not only to honor the dead, but also in order to ensure this tragedy never happens again, and with the aim of telling the truth about the tragic events of 1941.”

2023-09-052023-10-16

Lithuania’s Genocide Center: A Bullhorn for the National Unification Party?

by Arkadijus Vinokuras, Times of Israel, September 2, 2023

Director of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania [hereinafter Genocide Center] Arūnas Bubnys in refusing to carry out the decision from the so-called De-Sovietization Commission to remove a monument commemorating murderer of Jews Juozas Krikštaponis, under pressure from public anger, has ordered the municipal administration of Ukmergės [Vilkomir] to remove the bas-relief image and name of Juozas Krikštaponis and to rededicate the monument to local Lithuanian partisans.

Finally, some initiative has been shown, although the law was grossly violated. Nonetheless, the issue of what influence the National Unification Party [Nacionalinis susivienijimas] and other interest groups have over Genocide Center commemorative policies remains unanswered.

The situation is absurd: Genocide Center director Arūnas Bubnys acting as sovereign has come up with his own pseudo-rules and has refused for months to follow the order from the De-Sovietization Commission, an order which, according to Lithuanian law, must be carried out within 5 days.

2023-09-042023-09-20

Bavarian Governor Orders Deputy to Fully Explain Himself to Clear Allegations of Anti-Semitism

Bavaria’s governor says his deputy has not done enough to prove he wasn’t responsible for an anti-Semitic flyer as a high school student

BERLIN (AP)–The governor of the German state of Bavaria said Tuesday [August 29] that his deputy had not done enough to prove he wasn’t responsible for an anti-Semitic flyer as a high school student and ordered him to answer a detailed questionnaire to clear himself of any possible involvement in the scandal that caused an uproar in Germany.

Daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Friday that when deputy governor Hubert Aiwanger was 17 he was suspected of writing a printed flyer calling for entries to a competition titled “Who is the Biggest Traitor to the Fatherland?”

2023-08-312023-08-31

Biblio File: Journey toward Dark Truths

Photo: Jews in the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania are boarded onto trucks during a deportation action to a work camp c. 1942 (Image: US Holocaust Memorial Museum)

by Justin Amler, August 30, 2023

Our People: Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust
by Rūta Vanagaitė and Efraim Zuroff
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 240 pp., A$49.99

Under the terms of the secret protocols of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940. After the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, Lithuania was occupied by the Germans in June 1941.

Caught in the middle were the country’s Jews.

Our People is a book about a journey in search of truth in the face of authorities who want to take that truth and distort it into something quite different.

One of the greatest myths of the Holocaust was that it was Hitler and the Nazis alone who committed the atrocities against the Jews. But this is, at best, misleading. While the Nazis were the driving force behind the genocide of the Jewish people, they could not have succeeded without the collaboration of willing local citizens across many countries.

2023-08-312023-08-31