Silvia Foti was present for a screening of the Holocaust documentary J’accuse at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library Monday. She’s featured in the film along with Litvak Grant Gochin. The film was shown with Lithuanian subtitles. It’s estimated around 20 to 25 people attended, mainly older people.
by Geoff Vasil
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda has joined the chorus, the other two heads of state, the prime minister and the speaker of parliament, in declaring Lithuania has zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. At the same time, the state and the nation continue to glorify, lionize and commemorate, often enthusiastically, Lithuanian Nazis who were complicit in Holocaust crimes and responsible for the death of nearly every Lithuanian Jew.
The state-funded Lithuanian Academy of Sciences has removed the Jonas Noreika plaque on its walls “for repairs” even though permission was never granted by any state or municipal body to place the plaque there. Its latest incarnation was the work of enthusiastic Lithuanian neo-Nazis. Streets, schools and squares retain the names of known Holocaust perpetrators with commemorative plaques and statues to them scattered across Lithuania.
At the same time, the ruling coalition, aka the Lithuanian Government, has engaged in rank censorship for two and a half years now, along with a complicit media and law enforcement bodies. This has created a virtual atmosphere of full-fledged fascism and conformity in the country, with straight-up propaganda de rigueur on a range of topics.
The Kaunas Jewish Community will hold a ceremony to commemorate the Jewish victims murdered during the barbaric Lietūkis garage incident in Kaunas in the early days of World War II this June 26 at 4:00 P.M. at the statue to the victims at Miško street no. 3, moving afterwards to the Slobodka Jewish cemetery on Kalnų street and then to the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery on the Radvilėnų highway.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is saddened by the recent anti=Semitic statements and posts made by member of the Lithuanian parliament Remigijus Žemaitaitis in some of the media, social networks and even at the Lithuanian parliament itself. It must be said that these sorts of expressions haven’t appeared in Lithuania in a very long time, and that the Jews who live in Lithuania, 80 years after the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto, had hoped there would be no more such expressions. All the more so as the war continues in Ukraine and people who comprise an ethnic minority can be used by the aggressor as a tool for inciting social conflict and dividing society.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community believes this act by the member of parliament intentionally sows ethnic discord and is a distortion of historical memory as well as a continuation of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” promulgated by the security service of the Russian tsar over a century ago.
We feel ashamed of the county in which we live and which we love and respect. Its citizens cannot elect to parliament a member who can allow himself to descend to making the following statements:
“It seems that besides Putin another group of animals has appeared in the World: ISRAEL. One group razes schools with tanks, the other group uses tractors,” the politician wrote on his facebook page. “After these kinds of incidents, it’s no surprise why these sorts of statement arise: ‘A Jew climbed a ladder and fell down accidentally. Children, take a stick and beat that little Jew to death…'”
Lithuanian member of parliament Remigijus Žemaitaitis who came under scrutiny several weeks ago for anti-Semitic posts on facebook has stepped up his attacks on Jews during Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė’s working visit to Israel this week, according to Lithuanian media reports.
According to Tele3 news, on Tuesday Žemaitaitis released a new flurry of facebook posts blaming Jews for the Soviet deportation of Lithuanians, claiming Lithuanians experienced a greater genocide than Jews did in the Holocaust and blaming Jews for this alleged genocide. He published a list of alleged Jewish perpetrators of Lithuanian genocide and claimed Soviet Jewish partisans had committed mass murder in Pirčiupiai, a village in southern Lithuania near the town of Varėna. He also referred to Jews as “a subspecies,” presumably of Homo sapiens and presumably meaning subhuman.
Besides misspelling the name of the village, historian Algimantas Kasparavičius told Tele3 news he got the facts wrong: a Nazi SS unit destroyed that village and murdered 119 inhabitants on June 3, 1944, as revenge for several German soldiers murdered by Soviet partisans in the area.
Last weekend one of the few extant wooden synagogues in Europe opened its doors to visitors following renovation work. Last December Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky signed an agreement with the Anykščiai Cultural Center: in exchange for renovation, the center will enjoy the use of the building for its activities.
Chairwoman Kukliansky commented: “There was a significant Jewish community in Kurkliai before World War II which was lost following the tragic events of the Holocaust. The reconstructed building will soon fall into ruin again if it isn’t used. We are therefore very glad the Anykščiai Cultural Center and the whole regional community stood shoulder to shoulder to outfit the building for a new life. This is yet another wonderful example of cooperation between the Lithuanian Jewish Community and municipal and regional governments as well as cultural centers.”
The synagogue building will include an exhibit about the Kurkliai Jewish community and Jewish life in the village located about midway between Anykščiai and Ukmergė just north of Vilnius.
June 14 is officially the Day of Mourning and Hope in Lithuania but colloquially Black Ribbon Day, marking the beginning of Soviet deportations of Lithuanian citizens in early June, 1941. Jews were hugely overrepresented among the victims of the Soviet deportations to Siberia and Central Asia. Those who survived and managed to return to Lithuania found the entire Jewish community and their families had been slaughtered.
Photo courtesy the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum.
Following vandalism in January of 2022 to the commemorative plaque marking a former synagogue in Panevėžys, a new plaque has been placed on the building located at Valančiaus street no. 4.
That certainly wasn’t the only recent act of vandalism against Jewish sites in the area, including at Jewish cemeteries, at Memory Square and the “Sad Jewish Mother” monument to Holocaust victims where vandals poured paint. That’s been cleaned up as well and there are now video cameras monitoring the square.
The stone stele commemorating 100 years of activity by the Joint or Jewish Distribution Committee in Panevėžys and Lithuania was also vandalized.
Over the last decade anti-Semitic vandalism also occurred at the mass murder site in the Žalioji Forest and at the monument in the Kurganava Forest. Around 5500 Jews were murdered at the former and around 8000 Jews at the latter site.
Joana Viga Čiplytė, an historian who has written extensively about the history of the Panevėžys Jewish community, has been awarded the Gabrielė Petkevičaitės-Bitė medal “Tarnaukite Lietuvai” [To Serve Lithuania] in recognition of her work. Her first book was called “Mažosios Jeruzalės – Panevėžio žydų istorija. Holokaustas” [The History of Little Jerusalem, the Panevėžys Jewish Community: The Holocaust].
At the award ceremony Čiplytė said she was grateful to her family and to Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman for their support.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky took part in events as part of Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė’s working visit to Israel.
The delegation began the visit at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
After speaking to the American Jewish Committee conference being held in Tel Aviv, Lithuanian PM Šimonytė met with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, who expressed interest in the pace of restitution for stolen Jewish property in Lithuania.
Silvia Foti is scheduled to visit the Šiauliai Jewish Community on June 22 for a presentation of her book about her grandfather, Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika, followed by an open discussion. Jonas Noreika was appointed head of the Šiauliai district under the Nazis and was responsible for the murder of thousands of Jews from the city and region. The event starts at 6:00 P.M. and is free and open to the public.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky made a trip to the city of Ukmergė, known in Yiddish as Vilkomir, to address several issues there.
Her first order of business was to make contact with Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas and the new mayor, Darius Varnas.
“I came with the desire of increasing cooperation. We would like to take part in city holidays and to invite Ukmergė to take part in international projects which our Community is coordinating in Lithuania. This would give the city an opportunity to be more visible in Europe, to present and take pride in its material heritage,” Kukliansky said.
The primary issue for the visit was to encourage local leaders to revisit the issue of public commemoration in the form of a statue of Lithuanian Nazi Juozas Krikštaponis. Kukliansky said she hoped the newly-elected mayor would take a different position on the controversy, but after meeting with Varnas commented the problem had not been solved.
A bas-relief commemorating Herman Perelstein, the founder of the Ąžuoliukas choir, will be unveiled at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic in Vilnius at 5:00 P.M. on June 15.
A very happy birthday to Fruma Kučinekienė in Kaunas, beloved by the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community. She lost her entire family to the Holocaust and yet has endured and lived a meaningful and even happy life. We wish you the very best health, many happy moments with friends and many more milestone birthdays to come. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Dovydas Leibzonas passed away Monday, June 5, at the age of 88. He was born in 1936. He was a member of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners and a Lithuanian Jewish Community Social Center client. Our deepest condolences to family members and friends.
The Sugihara House museum in Kaunas has opened a special Jan Zartendijk room to celebrate the Dutch Righteous Gentile who worked hand-in-hand with Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara to rescue Jews from the impending Holocaust, according to the Russian-language obzor.lt webpage. Although the two men reportedly never spoke, they both issued visas for Jews. Japanese ambassador Sugihara issued visas for transiting through Japan, but Jews needed a visa for a final destination, which Dutch consul Zwartendijk furnished by stamping passports with a fictitious visa for the island of Curaçao in the Caribbean, which at that time didn’t require visas from travellers.
According to obzor.lt, museum staff had considered including a period typewriter in the exhibit, but Zwartendijk’s daughter told them he never used the device.
Full story in Russian here.
On May 29 scout leader Adomas Kofmanas, young Jewish scouts and a number of their parents all got together for a meet outdoors with games and a barbecue by outdoorsman Audrius Vainonis. Plans for this summer were also a main topic of discussion, including the world jamboree scheduled for July 8 to 16 in western Lithuania called Tarp trijų vandenų [Between Three Bodies of Water]. So far over 2,000 scouts from around the world have registered for the big jamboree and of course Jewish scouts and their parents are invited to attend. The young people are getting close to restoring the pre-Holocaust Lithuanian Jewish scouting movement with closer cooperation with the Scouts of Lithuania organization. For more information on any of these topics or others, please write skautai@lzb.lt.
The International Publishers Association and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to an academic and practical conference on the significance of Litvak literature on the Lithuanian cultural heritage. Besides presentation by individual scholars and thinkers there will also be readings of texts and some more personal commentaries. The conference will be conducted in Russian and is free and open to the public.
LJC Saul Kagan Social Center client Inna Pavlovskaja has died. She was born in 1928. We send our deepest condolences to her daughter, son and other family members.
The Vilnius Jewish Public Library is to screen the film J’accuse with Lithuanian subtitles at 5:30 P.M. on June 19. Author Silvia Foti featured in the film is scheduled to attend the screening and discuss the film and the Holocaust in Lithuania with the audience.
More information available here.