Holocaust – Page 17 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

New Commemorative Plaque Marks Old Synagogue in Panevėžys

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.

2023-06-14

Congratulations to Joana Viga Čiplytė

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.

2023-06-14

LJC Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky Accompanies Lithuanian PM on Visit to Israel

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.

2023-06-142023-06-14

Silvia Foti to Visit Šiauliai Jewish Community

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.

2023-06-122023-06-12

LJC Chairwoman Travels to Ukmergė

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.

2023-06-092023-06-09

Bas-Relief to Commemorate Herman Perelstein

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.

2023-06-09

Happy Birthday to Fruma Kučinekienė

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!

2023-06-082023-06-08

Suigara House Opens Jan Zwartendijk Room

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.

2023-06-072023-06-07

News from Meeting of Young Scouts, Parents

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.

2023-06-07

Litvak Literature Conference “Litvak Literature: A Remarkable Direction in the Lithuanian Cultural Inheritance”

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.

2023-06-062023-06-07

Vilnius Jewish Public Library to Screen J’Accuse

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.

2023-06-052023-06-22

First Religious Ceremony at Žiežmariai Synagogue since World War II

For the first time since World War II the wooden synagogue in Žiežmariai has hosted a bat mitzvah ceremony. Aleksandra and Viljamas Žitkauskas’s daughter Ariana read from the Torah in the ceremony conducted by Rabbi Nathan Alfred and cantor Alan Brava accompanied by Brian Drutman.

The wooden synagogue fell into disuse after the Holocaust and was used as a warehouse. In 2016 the Lithuanian Jewish Community began renovation work there in cooperation with local municipalities and Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage Department. In September of 2021 it ceremoniously reopened for European Days of Jewish Culture events. The wooden synagogues in Žiežmariai and Pakruojis have been fully renovated and restored by the LJC, local governments and the Lithuanian government agencies and are scheduled for use as venues for cultural events and exhibitions by their respective local populations.

2023-06-052023-06-10

Spiritual Leader of Lithuanian Haredim Dies at 100

Netanyahu mourns the loss of “a great scholar and leader” ahead of what is expected to be one of Israel’s largest funerals ever.

Israeli spiritual leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein died Tuesday at the age of 100 in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak.

He was the head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, where a funeral procession was scheduled to depart in the afternoon. Hundreds of thousands are expected to participate.

Edelstein became the leader of the Lithuanian stream of Ashkenazi Orthodox Judaism following the passing of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky in Bnei Brak on March 18, 2022. He was also president of the Council of Yeshivas, an organization that supports Lithuanian-style yeshivas in Eastern Europe, and the president of the Council of Torah Elders of the Ashkenazi haredi political party Degel HaTorah.

2023-05-312023-06-02

Jewish Orphanage Commemorated in Kaunas

A commemorative plaque was unveiled on an important Jewish site in Kaunas from the period before and between the two world wars. The former orphanage building is located at the intersection of Gruodis and Smolensk streets in Lithuania’s second city which served as the provisional capital in interwar Lithuania.

The orphanage was for boys aged 7 to 18 who were left parentless or found themselves in dire circumstances. The orphanage opened in 1905 as part of a network of Jewish orphan houses. It was called Jewish Sirot House, but was better known as the Yitzhak Spector Orphanage, being tied in with the synagogue as an institution of education, primary education for the youngsters and evening classes for older people.

The commemorative plaque was the fruitt of efforts by the Benayahu and Blumenthal families in Israel to commemorate this historical institution. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, representatives from the Israeli embassy to Lithuania and from the city of Kaunas and guest from overseas. Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom performed a prayer.

2023-05-31

Kaunas Jewish Community Honors Rescuers

Photo: Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, by Regimantas Zakšenskas.

Last week the Kaunas Jewish Community invited several dozen people–rescuers of Jews and relatives of rescuers–to the Višta Puode restaurant to remember their courageous acts during the Holocaust. They were treated to a meal and concert.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas conducted the event which included moving stories by the participants. Lithuanian Conservative MP Paulė Kuzmickienė was present at the event and Žakas thanked her for her initiative in the Lithuanian parliament naming March 15 the official day for commemorating those who rescued Lithuanian Jews from the Holocaust.

2023-05-30

Vilnius, Vilne, Wilno: One City, Many Stories

Professor Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, a specialist in art and visual representation in Lithuania and Eastern Europe focusing on the late 19th and 20th centuries from the Lithuanian Cultural Research Institute as well as the Vilnius Art Academy, will give a presentation called “Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne, 1918-1948: One City, Many Stories. Exhibit and Its Context” as part of the lecture series “Topical Art Research: The Newest Revelations from Lithuanian Art Research, Dedicated to the 700th Anniversary of the Founding of Vilnius” at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, May 30, at the Lithuanian National Art Gallery in Vilnius.

“Vilnius, Wilno, Vilne, 1918-1948: One City, Many Stories” is also the name of a museum exhibit which opened in Cracow, Poland, on May 23, 2023, and will travel to Lithuania and go on public display on November 9 at the the Lithuanian National Art Gallery in Vilnius.

Jankevičiūtė plans to discuss in her presentation the motivations which led to the creation of the exhibit, its structure, content and possible significance for Lithuanian and Polish art culture, especially the visual arts. She says the period chosen for her discussion was a time of true cultural ferment, that the city then on the borderlands was reminiscent of Lvov and Trieste for its multicultural identity and dynamism, with increasing and decreasing shifts in its population. Despite its interesting and unique identity, Vilnius hasn’t found a place on the art culture map of Poland or Europe, and only closed groups of people in Lithuania and Poland are interested in this period in the city, she claims. Usually they are people with a personal connection to the city.

The professor calls this exhibit the first attempt to integrate the art of Vilnius in the period between the two world wars into the wider history of the region’s culture and to provide a credible visual reconstruction of Vilnius art and its artistic life. She says the exhibit integrates the work of artists from the Jewish community.

2023-05-292023-05-29

Avoiding a Third Wife in Lithuania

“If I lived in Lithuania, I would be an active member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, at least in order to avoid a third marriage,” a guest from the United States visiting the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius while on a tour of Litvak heritage sites said.

The old joke goes like this: in Lithuania, a man must marry three times: a Polish woman, a Jewish woman and a Lithuanian woman. The first wife is to show him what true passion is. The second wife teaches him how to treat money, and the third wife will tend his grave beautifully.

The group from the Taube Center for Jewish Life and Learning are visiting Jewish heritage sites in Lithuania and Poland.

2023-05-24

News from the Panevėžys Jewish Community

Last week Baruh Yorex from the city of Kiryat Ono in Israel visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community. He is a high-ranking officer in the reserves of the Israeli army. He has Litvak roots and grandmother and grandfather named Jurotewski came from Poland.

A big fan of Tel Aviv’s Maccabi, Yorex used to play for the basketball team. Now he’s cheering on his three sons on the team, and was in Kaunas for the Euroleague championship last week.

He met with Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman and showed great interest in the Litvak legacy. While looking at period photographs in the Community’s archives, he was thrilled to learn almost every Lithuanian city and town had its own Makabi association before the Holocaust, with local tennis, soccer, gymnastics and basketball teams, as well as other kinds of athletics teams. Yorex was also delighted to see how active the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club is today, with members participating at international sporting events.

2023-05-24