Holocaust – Page 24 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Holocaust Commemoration in Panevėžys

Dear reader,

You and your family members are invited to attend a ceremony to commemorate the Holocaust in Panevėžys on September 23, 2022.

Program:

1:00 P.M. Beginning of ceremony at the “Sad Jewish Mother” monument at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Panevėžys
1:30 P.M. Continuation of ceremony honoring Holocaust victims at Ghetto Gate monument
2:00 Participants will be ferried by bus to mass murder site in Kurganava forest
2:20 P.M. Ceremony to remember the victims at the Kurganava mass murder site (following which participants will be returned to Panevėžys by bus).

2022-09-05

Lithuanian Cinematographer and Cultural Expert Pranas Morkus Has Died

The Lithuanian Jewish Community mourns the death of the famous Lithuanian filmmaker and cultural scientist Pranas Morkus (1938-2022) and we extend our most sincere and deepest condolences to his family members and friends.

Morkus was born February 18, 1938, in Klaipėda to the family of theater actress Galina Yatskevich. From 1955 to 1957 he was a student at the Lomonosov Philology Department of Moscow State University, and from 1957 to 1960 at the History and Philology Faculties of Vilnius University.

From 1962 to 1964 he was attended the highest-level courses for scriptwriters and directors in Moscow. He was a member of the Lithuanian Union of Cinematographers. From 1960 to 1962 he was editor-in-chief of radio theater for the Television Radio Committee of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, and from 1968 to 1970 he served as editor-in-chief for the creative body Lietuvos Telefilmas.

2022-08-312022-08-31

A Cry to Heaven

Photo: Jewish nursery school in Plungė, Lithuania. Almost no Jewish children survived in Lithuania. Photo source: Screenshot from the documentary J’Accuse

Renowned cantors unite to give their voices to Baltic Truth premiere

There were very few survivors from Lithuania. In the villages, there were almost none. We know what happened in some locations because we have testimonies from some survivors.

Yakov Zak testified about the Lithuanian Holocaust: “The rabbi of Kelmė, Kalmen Benushevits, who had escaped to Vaiguva at the outbreak of the war, had been brought together with the Jews from Vaiguva. He had been forced to kneel next to the pit the entire day. He had quietly whispered a prayer, watching while the Jews were shot. After all the Jews were shot, he was shot as well.”

And:

“The mystic religious melodies of the yeshiva students, their rabbis and leaders were eternally silenced. The town was ruined down to the foundations; the Jewish community of Kelmė was ruined forever. Peasants also related that while the yeshiva students were being taken to be shot, they did not weep. Like stone statues, they moved slowly, with their eyes raised to the sky, murmuring prayers.”

2022-08-312022-09-03

Lost Shtetl Museum Takes Part in Blue Family Picnic in Šeduva

On the last weekend of summer we participated in the Blue Family Picnic which has been held in the Šeduva city park for seven years now. The Blue Family Picnic is intended to strengthen community, reduce social inequality and carry on family traditions.

We came up with all sorts of activities for attendees, including recognizing Jewish religious regalia, teaching them to write their names in Hebrew, a puzzle made up of period photographs of the town/shtetl, how to make traditional Sabbath challa and how to set the Sabbath table. Younger attendees made models of the shtetl, learned how to arrange food items on the plate for Passover seder and spun and taught other children to spin the dreidl. We treated everyone to traditional Litvak dishes as well.

So many friendly and eager to learn families came to the picnic. We wanted to share with them in a fun way the culture and traditions of the Jewish community of Šeduva and to remind them of the town’s not-so-distant past, the shtetl of Šeduva where Jews and Lithuanians lived peacefully together. Two special guests attended, two women from Šeduva for whom the shtetl isn’t lost in the mists of time. They spent their childhoods in the shtetl and have shared their memories with us numerous times.

2022-08-30

Memory Stones Laid to Commemorate Rabinovitch Family

The Lithuanian Human Rights Center is responsible for the laying of six new memory stones dedicated to the memory of the Rabinovitch family at Gedimino prospect nos. 37 and 46 in Vilnius.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky attended the unveiling ceremony and said: “Today I attended a very moving ceremony. Next to the buildings located at Gedimino prospect number 37 and number 46 six memory stones commemorating the Rabinovitch family were laid. They were murdered at Ponar. I am glad their memory and the memory of their relatives has come back to Vilnius. Thank you to the relatives who found the energy to preserve the memory of their loved ones and to travel to Vilnius for that purpose.”

2022-08-30

Vilnius City Council Changes Name of Road to Ponar Memorial Complex

The Vilnius city council has decided to change the name of the portion of Agrastų street leading to the Ponar Memorial Complex to Memorialo (Memorial) street. They also resolved to name several unnamed roads in and around the village of Ponar.

2022-08-25

Condolences

We extend our deepest condolences on the death of Polina Zingerienė at the age of 101 to her sons Markas and Emanuelis and her many friends and relatives.

She was born in Kaunas where she was graduated from high school. Her adolescence was cut short by World War II. She was imprisoned in the Kaunas ghetto and later sent to a concentration camp. After the Allies liberated the camp, Polina returned to Kaunas.

Her painful experiences and struggle to survive the Holocaust led her to go into medicine. She received in diploma in natal and developmental nursing. She worked in her field of medicine till the age of 76.

2022-08-25

Shalom in All the World Events in Klaipėda

The International Festival of Jewish culture “Shalom in All The World” returns to Klaipėda.

This year, the International Festival dedicated to learning about the history, culture, art, and traditions of the Jewish society will be held for the second time and is part of the program of events dedicated to the 770th anniversary of the city of Klaipėda. During the events of the Festival, the aim will be to emphasize the historical roots of the Jewish society in Memel, specifically the contribution of the Jewish residents to the development of the city in that time

Full of events, an enthralling and significant Festival will again invite everyone, regardless of their nationality, religion, beliefs, to meet at the concerts, talks, movie screenings, exhibitions, creative workshops, traditional Jewish dance lessons, excursions.

Youth, adults, families, regardless of age, education, interests are very welcome! All events are free of charge! Be with us and among us!

Full program here.

2022-08-182022-08-19

News from the Panevėžys Jewish Community

Every month the Panevėžys Jewish Community celebrates its members’ birthdays and anniversaries. In July and August we congratulated Diana Narevič and Rimantas Rimkus and Jurijus and Svetlana Grafman on their anniversaries.

We also provided and provide material support to our members.

Despite summer vacations, cultural and athletic events are being held and members are participating in Panevėžys regional events and scouting activities.

In the summer we usually have a large number of guests who care about their family histories. They often talk about their families over a cup of tea at the Panevėžys Jewish Community. One of the newer stories is about a family who emigrated to South Africa, then later between 1900 and 1910 they went their separate ways to Canada, China, England and Israel. They came back to Lithuania to learn about the former shtetl where their forebears once lived.

2022-08-18

Lithuanian News Site on Pakruojis Synagogue

Pakruojis Synagogue is a Monument to All the Jewish Houses of Prayer Which Stood in Lithuania

15min.lt, reprinted from a facebook user

It’s believed there were about 500 or 600 different Jewish houses of prayer in our country, although no one knows the exact number. There might have been more than 100 synagogues in Vilnius alone.

Most of Lithuania’s synagogues were wooden, but today we only have about a dozen. On the other hand, no other European state has so many surviving wooden synagogues.

The question of restoring these historically and culturally very valuable wooden buildings is coming up more and more. One wonderful example of a restored wooden synagogue stands in the town of Pakruojis. After walking through its interior and getting a closer look at its careful restoration, I was pleasantly surprised at what had been returned from the ravages of time, people’s neglect and even fires.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

2022-08-16

Book Review: Come to This Court and Cry

img20220816_18281349

2022-08-152022-08-17

Happy Birthday to Tatjana Archipova-Efros

We wish a very happy milestone birthday to our long-time member and WWII veteran Tatjana Archipova-Efros. Mazl tov. Bis 120!

2022-08-10

Litvak Descendant Jenny Kagan Opens Interactive Holocaust Exhibit in Kaunas

Litvak descendant and artist Jenny Kagan has opened an exhibit telling her family’s story during the Holocaust. The “Out of Darkness” exhibit’s main motif is that of a box, the one in which her parents Joseph and Margaret hid, among the few survivors of the Kaunas ghetto. Through interactive objects and audio/video installations the exhibit tells her family history. She told BNS she wanted to provide exhibit goers with a real emotional experience. She added that while the story is a narrative, she comes from a theatrical background and decided to make the experience a theatrical one. The exhibit was first installed in the atmospheric Viaduct Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2016.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2022-08-10

Memory Wars

Lithuanian Archive reference LCVA R683, aprašas 2, byla2 lapas 80

“Memory Wars” are fought worldwide. The United Nations and Jew-haters everywhere appear to have reasonable certitude that Jews do not have much of any historical link to Israel, and should not “occupy” Israel. History is a tool of propagandists, able to be rewritten to fight any current conflict and to re-frame a national identity. Soviets did it, North Korea does it, Putin does it, Lukashenko in Belarus does it. But no government in the world has developed historical revisionism into the art form that Lithuania has. They have created an entire government agency to rewrite history, called “The Genocide Center.”

Lithuanian Government

The following is an excerpt from a text by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania (the Genocide Center) titled “On Accusations against Jonas Noreika (General Storm), March 27, 2019, Vilnius”:

2022-08-10

Five EU Countries Who Shouldn’t Be Throwing Stones

Efraim Zuroff

Accusing Russia of rewriting the Holocaust for its current propaganda is fair, but not when you’ve always whitewashed the Holocaust for your own purposes

Several days ago I was shocked to learn that five heads of state from Lithuania, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, all post-Communist Eastern European countries, had recently beseeched the leaders of the European Union to step up efforts to “preserve historical memory.” It was addressed to the European Council president, European Commission president and the Czech prime minister, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

For the past three decades since their transition to democracy, these countries have excelled in grossly distorting their own respective histories of the Holocaust. Yet the quintet of leaders now maintains that the Kremlin “is seeking to rewrite history and use it to justify its aggression against sovereign states.” Thus they urge the bodies of the EU to take a leadership role in “preserving historical memory and preventing the Russian regime from manipulating historical facts.” They contend that this concern “is particularly relevant in light of Russia’s intensive use of history for propaganda purposes in the context of the war in Ukraine.”

Full editorial here.

2022-08-092023-02-14

Genocide Center Sets Up Information Stand at Mass Murder Site Near Trakai

The controversial Lithuanian Genocide Center erected an information stand about the mass murder of the Jews of Trakai next to the mass murder site in the Varnikai village in the Trakai district on August 4, 2022.

The stand was erected at the request of directorate of the Trakai National Historical Park.

It contains information including 297 names of those murdered at the site on September 30, 1941. The Genocide Center claims the actual number of those murdered at the site on that day was 1,446, a figure likely taken from the Jäger report.

The stand says the Ypatingasis unit (still notorious in its original Lithuanian form in Holocaust testimonies in numerous languages, literally “the special unit,” or Sonderkommando in German) under the command of SS officer Martin Weiss and Vilnius Ypatingasis commander Balys Norvaiša murdered more than a thousand Jews from Trakai and surrounding towns and then got drunk and sang songs at a local cafeteria.

2022-08-052022-08-05

Tisha b’Av on Saturday

Tisha b’Av, the 9th day of the month of Av on the Hebrew calendar, falls on Saturday, July 6 this year.

Tisha b’Av commemorates the destruction of the First Temple of Solomon ca. 587 BCE and the Second Temple in 70 CE in Jerusalem and is traditionally a day of fasting and mourning. Observance includes five prohibitions, the main one being a 25-hour fast. The Book of Lamentations is read in the synagogue followed by the recitation of kinnos, liturgical dirges for the Temple and Jerusalem. Since the day has become associated with other major Jewish tragedies, some kinnos recall other events, including the murder of the Ten Martyrs in ancient Rome, pogroms against medieval Jewish communities and the Holocaust.

According to tradition, the sin of the Ten Spies is the real origin of Tisha B’Av. In the Book of Numbers, 13:1-33 when the Israelites accepted their false report of the Promised Land, they wept, thinking God could no help them. The night the people wept and wailed was the ninth day of Av, which then became a day of weeping and misfortune for all time, according to tradition, following which the Jews were made to wander the desert for 40 years.

2022-08-03

Roma Holocaust Memorial Day Marked in Lithuania

Around 4,300 people of Roma and Sinti ethnicity were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp complex on the night of August 2, 1944. In 2015 the EU parliament resolved to make this day the Roma Holocaust Memorial Day in memory of the approximately 500,000 Roma and Sinti murdered in Europe.

World War II and its genocide of the Roma did great harm to the Roma living in Lithuania and left agony in its wake for the Roma community. In 1942 Nazi-occupied Lithuania undertook mass arrests of Roma, and the arrestees were taken to concentration and labor camps in France and Germany. About 1,000 Roma were deported from Lithuania, most of whom returned to Lithuania after the war. Roma were murdered in Lithuania. The majority were shot in Pravieniškės, but they were also murdered en masse outside Švenčionys in the Šalčininkai region in southeast Lithuania. Near Vilnius in the Kirtimai village a caravan of Roma was liquidated, although the exact number murdered is not known. About 500 Roma were murdered during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, about one in three. The Nazis murdered Roma families they encountered travelling, but didn’t report how many they killed, so the figure of 500 could be significantly larger.

The Roma Community Center marks August 2 annually. Below is the story told by Anastazija Jablonskienė-Bagdonavičiūtė’s daughter Elžbieta. She was the only survivor from her family, she was away when the Nazis came for them. She hid during the war and survived. Anastazija had 18 children.

2022-08-02

Litvak Descendant Jenny Kagan Comes Back to Kaunas: How Can You Live Here When You Know Any Passerby Might Have Beaten Your Father to Death?

Lithuanian state radio and television has published an interview with Jenny Kagan:

As Margarita Štromaitė, born in Kaunas, wrote in her memoirs, her future husband she met in the ghetto, Juozas Kagan and his mother Mira were rescued by Vytautas Rinkevičius’s family: “Regardless of the deadly danger, which threatened his entire family, he set up a hiding place for us in the attic of the forge. It was where the straw was, separated by an imaginary wall.” Twenty years after the Holocaust Margarita met her only surviving relative, her brother Aleksandras Štromas. In 1965 she and Joseph had a daughter, Eugenia. Or Jenny.

Jenny Kagan will be in Kaunas beginning August 4 for the exhibit “From Darkness” which is part of the Kaunas Capital of European Culture 2022 program, which will present her family history in subtle artistic techniques including text and audio, revealing previously unknown pages from the story of Kaunas.

This is also the story of the humanness and light we require to survive as a civilization. The exhibit will be held at Gimnazijos street no. 4 in Kaunas as part of the Histories Festival of the Kaunas Capital of European Culture 2022 program.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

2022-08-02