Holocaust

Lithuanian Request to Germany: Return or Help Us Find Property Nazis Stole from Jews

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Almost 75 years have passed since Hitler began Operation Barbarossa. These were long and exhausting years for Lithuania and the world. But now, when the consciousness of the peoples has cleared, there are ever greater efforts to repair the losses and persecutions experienced under the Nazis.

…Emanuelis Zingeris says he’s resolved to achieve the discovery and return of Jewish property looted by the Nazis to heirs and communities. The politician says he has already grabbed the end of the thread which should lead to a location for discovering that property.

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Katerina and Benediktas Bagdanavičius: Last Hope of the Jews of Darbėnai

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by Romualdas Beniušis

I recently discovered the case-file of the deportation of the Bagdanavičius family in the archives. It is a unique document from the Soviet period testifying to the will and sacrifice of the family during the Nazi occupation of 1941 to 1944 in rescuing completely innocent people of the small town of Darbėnai from genocide, and to the bitter lot of the deportees later.

Who were they, Katerina and Benediktas Bagdanavičius, the quiet heroes of the village of Būtingė who without regard to danger to them and their family reached out a helping hand to people condemned to death simply for having been born Jews?

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Condolences

The Lithuanian Jewish Community notes with deepest sadness the death of Judelis Ronderis, an active member of the Kaunas Jewish Community, a World War II veteran, an enthusiastic supporter of Jewish culture and the man who began the search for Lithuanian citizens who rescued Jews from the Holocaust, who concerned himself with their welfare and with their commemoration. Our deepest condolences to his daughter Lėja, his family, his grandchildren, his long-time caregiver Stefanija Ancevičienė and to the many who knew and loved him.

Litvaks Didn’t Suffer Enough to Deserve Lithuanian Citizenship?

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by Grant Gochin

Lithuanian officials state that Jews were not oppressed in Lithuania:

In an astonishing display regarding the ignorance of rampant anti-Semitism in inter-war Lithuania, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius stated that there was “no violence, repressions or anything like that at the time”, against Jews in Lithuania during the period 1918 – 1939. Based on this assumption, Lithuania intends to deny citizenship applications for descendants of Lithuanian Jews. The belief that Jews did not suffer enough, in Interwar Lithuania, to warrant citizenship is simply preposterous.

http://www.baltictimes.com/litvaks_continually_rejected_restoration_of_lithuanian_citizenship/

At the beginning of the 20th Century, Jews represented about 14% of Lithuania’s population. In May 1915, the Czarist regime deported and exiled approximately 100,000 Lithuanian Jews to the Russian interior. After the war ended, Lithuanian Jews, who had lived in Lithuania for centuries and often constituted half of the population of many towns, were promised that the new independent Lithuanian state would be tolerant to minorities. Jews provided considerable political support for Lithuania in international forums and enlisted into the Lithuanian army to defend their country’s independence. A great many war medals were awarded to these soldiers for their extraordinary bravery and many lost their lives fighting for Lithuanian independence. In return for their contributions, the government granted full autonomy to the Jewish community and created a Cabinet-level Ministry for Jewish Affairs. Unfortunately, these promises were not kept; in 1923 funding for this Ministry was withdrawn, and in 1924 the Ministry was abolished. Sadly, the Ministry had served little purpose, because in 1923 the Lithuanian Government reportedly rounded up and expelled Jews whom they considered to be “alien”.

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About Taverns, the Vilna Gaon and the Shared History of Lithuanians and Jews

by Nijolė Bulotaitė

American academic Glenn Dynner is teaching a module at the History Faculty of Vilnius University called “Socio-cultural History of Ethnic Minorities in the Central and Eastern European Context.” The professor specializes in the history of Eastern European Jews and has written several books, including “Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society” (Oxford University Press, 2008) and “Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor and Life in the Kingdom of Poland” (Oxford University Press, 2014). What prompted the professor to take an interest in taverns and Lithuanian and Polish Jews, and what has he discovered? We asked him those questions in Vilnius recently.

Q. Why Poland and Lithuania exactly? Was Jewish life here somehow special?

A. When I was a naïve American student, as soon as I started professor Antony Polonsky’s class at Brandeis University I learned the majority of the world’s Jews lived in Poland and Lithuania before the Holocaust. The professor was my doctoral dissertation supervisor later. I learned three quarters of the world’s Jews in the 19th century lived in Eastern and Central Europe. My problem was I didn’t know any languages. At first I had to learn Hebrew, then Polish, Yiddish and several more. Only then did all the rich sources become available to me. Not many Americans are able to do research in this area because the languages are rather difficult, and it’s difficult for us Americans to learn languages.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

Litvaks Told No on Lithuanian Citizenship

VILNIUS, Apr 11, BNS–Jews and their descendants living in Israel and South Africa who left Lithuania in the interwar period have been receiving negative answers about restoration of Lithuanian citizenship for some time now.

Since November of 2015 the Lithuanian Migration Department has rejected the majority of applications for restoration of citizenship for people who left Lithuania in the 1920-1939 period and their descendants.

Under Lithuanian citizenship law, people who left Lithuania before March 11 of 1990 and acquired citizenship in a different country can be citizens of Lithuania, as can their descendants. About 1,000 Jews living in South Africa have taken advantage of the legal provision, but the process of citizenship restoration was suspended for some people in mid-2015.

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Joint Visits Panevėžys

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JOINT atstovai lankosi Panevėžyje

AN event was held at the Panevėžys Jewish Community April 6 to welcome honored guests during their brief visit. One of them, Lee Seidler, arrived with his family. American Joint Distribution Committee director Diana Fiedotin and JDC representative in the Baltic states Moni Beniosev also came and took an interest in the history of the Jews of Panevėžys, visited Jewish sites and viewed the stele on Zikaro street, which was named Joint Street in 1923 in honor of the Joint Distribution Committee.

Remembering Jewish Vilna in Painting

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The catalog of the exhibit of Lithuanian painting and photographs called “Zakhor. Remember. Topography of Images of Jewish Vilnius” will be launched at the Lithuanian Jewish Community at 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, April 14. The catalog and exhibit are the work of curators Linas Liandzbergis, Elke-Vera Kotowski and Gabrielė Žaidytė. The exhibit has been at show at the Old Town Hall in Vilnius and at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin.

From May to August the exhibit will grace the halls of the Cape Town Jewish Museum and the Johannesburg Holocaust Museum in South Africa, then travelling on to Israel, Argentina and other destinations where sizeable populations of Litvaks live. The presentation, to be attended by Dr. Julius Schoeps, director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center and the Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg, is also to include a short film documenting earlier showings of the exhibit. Improvisational jazz is to be performed at the presentation by Lithuanian musician Kęstutis Vaiginis.

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New Book on Litvak Art in Private Hands

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A new book/catalogue called “Litvakų dailė privačiose Lietuvos kolekcijose” [Litvak Art in Private Lithuanian Collections] was presented at the National Art Gallery on April 5. The book is bilingual in Lithuanian and English, and contains about 250 works by 44 Litvak artists, including paintings, water colors and sculpture, many of which have never been seen by the public before. The publication is the fruit of exhaustive research by Dr. Vilma Gradinskaitė, an historian at the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum’s History Department.

Lithuanian minister of culture Šarūnas Birutis spoke at the book launch and said: “This serious album spans more than 150 years from the mid-1800s to current artists working within the Litvak artistic tradition. I hope this publication will interest the broader public as well as professionals, hooking the reader and reminding us of the names and works of little-known and forgotten artists.” He said it was the only book in Lithuania which so broadly and comprehensively surveys Litvak ark, graphics and sculpture held in private collections.

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Rakija Klezmer Orkestar

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Rakija Klezmer Orkestar is a klezmer group which formed three years ago in Kaunas, Lithuania. They have performed Hanukkah concerts at the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

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The group say they want to revive Litvak klezmer traditions. The four-set will soon become five with addition of Mantas Ostreika on saxophone. The other members are Darius Bagdonavičius, Mikas Kurtinaitis, Skirmantas Rumševičius and Povilas Jurkša.

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International Meeting of Young Rabbis at Panevėžys Jewish Community

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Two groups of young rabbis from Canada, England, France, Israel, Japan and the United States came to the Panevėžys Jewish Community April 7, interested in Jewish life before World War II and now. The first group was led by Rabbi Meir Wunder, who leads trips by high school students to Panevėžys annually. The young people were interested in the life of Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman.

Kahaneman was born in the village of Kuliai in 1886 and studied at the yehsivas in Plungė and Telšiai before going on to the yeshiva in Novogrudok, now in Belarus. He became yeshiva director. He lived with his family in Panevėžys from 1919 to 1940. In 1923 he became a Lithuanian MP. In Panevėžys he set up a poorhouse, an orphanage and the Yavne Jewish religious school for girls, and headed the yeshiva. Later he and his son moved to Israel where he continued to maintain Litvak religious traditions. On the wall of an orphanage he founded are the names of the yeshivas of Lithuania. The Panevėžys yeshiva was also restored in 1919 due to his efforts.

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The second group was led by Rabbi Tuvia Konn and Rabbi Nesivos Tours. They spoke about how they had heard of the Bokhrim yeshiva and became interested in the city of Panevėžys, and when there was opportunity to visit, they gladly came in search of their roots. They visited Jewish sites in Panevėžys and viewed a film about the history of the Jews of Panevėžys which they said opened a window onto the past.

Documentary Filmmaker Visits Panevėžys Jewish Communtiy

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A documentary film crew shot footage at the Panevėžys Jewish Community April 8 for a new film about Panevėžys Jewish architecture before World War II. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman spoke about the history of Panevėžys Jews to an audience of the director and guests from the Margarita Rimkevičaitė Technical School.

Condolences

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Marija Rolnikaitė, aged 89, has died.

Born July 21, 1927 in Klaipėda/Memel, some have called her Lithuania’s Anne Frank. When she was 14 she and her family were imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto. After that she survived two concentration camps. What was a adolescent pastime, keeping a diary, became an important testimony of the fate of Lithuanian Jewry.

She wrote a poem in Yiddish about the Strazdamuiža concentration camp in Latvia which became an anthem for the anti-Nazi resistance. After the war she worked on the staff of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic for a time and was graduated from the Maxim Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow in 1955. She published memoirs about her time in the ghetto and concentration camps in 1963. She moved to Leningrad in 1964 where she wrote more books, articles and reviews and was an active member of the Leningrad Jewish Community.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community will not forget her or the bright trail she blazed and now leaves in her wake.

Lithuania and Germany Together Remember the Righteous among the Nations

President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with the initiators of a unique project carried out in Lithuania and Germany to support the rescuers of Jews. The project was launched at the initiative of the Order of Malta and the Lithuanian Jewish community. The aim of the project is to support people living in Lithuania who rescued Jews during the Second World War. President Dalia Grybauskaitė and German President Joachim Gauck serve as co-patrons of this initiative. “The Righteous Among the Nations attested humanity even in the very darkest hours of our history. Lithuania and Germany together remember their courage and sacrifice, we will always be grateful to the Righteous Among the Nations for their heroism and nobleness. This project unites people and countries, builds bridges between the past and the future, and does not allow indifference to prevail,” the President said.

From the web page of the Lithuanian President’s Office.

Righteous Gentiles Speak at LJC Press Conference

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Funds collected from a benefit concert in Munich organized by the Order of Malta Relief Organization will go to support Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania, of whom there are currently 87 living. The idea to help the rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust in this way came from Order of Malta ambassador to Lithuania baron Christian von Bechtolsheim and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky. “It was of great concern to us that our rescuers in their old age would get at least a little relief and be cared for,” Kukliansky said at a press conference held at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius April 6. “There’s no such thing as being too grateful, neither can there be too much material thanks. We wanted to materialize at least a little that which we feel towards our rescuers,” she explained.

Order of Malta Relief Organization in Lithuania secretary general Eitvydas Bingelis said some of the monies generated from the benefit concert, which totaled over 123,000 euros, will be added to debit cards for the Righteous Gentiles to purchase medicine not covered by national healthcare and medical goods, with another portion held in the fund for use for the individual needs of each Righteous Gentile.

Photos from the press conference:

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Report of New Righteous Gentile Awards to the Blažaitis Family

teisuoliu lenta

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and Commemorative Authority has reported plans to award the title of Righteous Gentile or Righteous among the Nations to the Lithuanian family of Antanas Blažaitis, Adelė Blažaitienė and Valentina Blažaitytė for saving Jews during the Holocaust at the risk of losing their own lives. The names of the new Righteous Gentiles are to inscribed on the wall of the museum. The medals and certificates will be sent through the Israeli embassy which will host a ceremony to present the awards.

Yad Vashem report available here.

Slobodka Cemetery and Seventh Fort Mass Murder Site in Kaunas to be Cleaned Up

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Following a meeting between the Israeli ambassador and the mayor and city council of Kaunas in early March, on the first Friday in April the Kaunas deputy mayors, municipal staff and the chairman of the Kaunas Jewish Community visited the Jewish cemetery in the Slobodka neighborhood [Vilijampolė] and the mass grave at the Seventh Fort. During this meeting in the field, it was resolved that the municipal body Kapinių priežiūra [Cemetery Maintenance] would set up an information stand at the entrance to the Slobodka cemetery and would post signs forbidding cars, smoking, walking dogs and lighting fires there.

Another resolution was adopted for the Seventh Fort mass murder site: the city maintenance department (represented by Jolanta Miliauskienė) is to clean up the site (clean flagstones and collect garbage) around the monument to the Jews murdered there. The environmental department (represented by Radeta Savickienė) is to cut down trees and bushes according to a request drafted by cultural heritage department head Saulius Rimas which includes a photograph showing what is to be cut down and with the consent of Gercas Žakas, chairman of the Kaunas Jewish Community.

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Order of Malta Benefit Concert in Munich Raises 123,000 Euros for Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania

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Faina Kukliansky, Christian von Bechtolsheim and Aloyzas Žukauskas

Vilnius, April 6, BNS–A benefit concert by the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Order of Malta held in Germany has raised over 123,000 euros for Righteous Gentiles living in Lithuania.

Ambassador of the Order of Malta to Lithuania baron Christian von Bechtolsheim presented the symbolic check for the full amount to go to the Righteous Gentiles at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius Wednesday.

“Righteous Gentiles are the true heroes of that time, they risked their own lives and those of their loved ones providing haven to people who would have been murdered by the Nazis. They hid them, fed them, provided a roof, and all of this demonstrates a human face during the darkest times in Europe,” the ambassador said.

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Order of Malta to Aid Lithuania’s Righteous Gentiles

April 6, 2016–Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė met Wednesday with Righteous Gentiles, or people who rescued Jews during World War II in Lithuania. The ambassadors of the Order of Malta, Germany and Israel and the leaders of the Order of Malta Relief Organization and the Lithuanian Jewish Community attended the meeting.

During friendly conversation over tea, the outstanding achievements of these brave Lithuanians were remembered and thoughts were shared on their problems, concerns and the help they need. The Order of Malta project to aid Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania was presented. All Righteous Gentiles still living in Lithuania are quite elderly and many of them live in isolation and need help.

A benefit concert was held in Munich to raise money for the Righteous Gentiles in Lithuania. More than 123,000 euros were raised for this purpose from that concert.

Baron Christian von Bechtolsheim, the ambassador of the Order of Malta to Lithuania, said: “The Maltese in Lithuania take care of many ill, elderly and isolated people. But Righteous Gentiles are special. These noble and courageous people were not afraid and risked their own lives to rescue their neighbors and countrymen from death. Now it’s our turn to help them.”

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