Holocaust – Page 28 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

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

Panevėžys Jewish Community Celebrates 30th Birthday

On July 24 members, partners and friends of the Panevėžys Jewish Community gathered to celebrate the organization’s 30th birthday. Chairman Gennady Kofman thanked active members of the community in carrying on Jewish tradition and preserving Jewish heritage and gave special thanks to supporters and partners for their contribution in expanding the Community’s activities.

Community members recalled how the Community was formed and paid respects to its first chairman, the journalist Anatolijus Fainblumas, and others. Sincere words of gratitude went to Righteous Gentile Jonas Markevičius’s son Vidmantas and daughter Janina, who have helped promote the Community as well in the local community. Thanks were given to executive board members Jurijus Grafman and his wife Svetlana. Deep gratitude was expressed for the Lithuanian Jewish Community and its chairwoman Faina Kukliansky.

Chairman Kofman told the 30-year story of the Community. On July 8, 1991, the Panevėžys Jewish Community was officially reconstituted and articles of incorporation filed at the Panevėžys municipality. Goals and duties were set then: “To develop the national consciousness of members, to raise the level of culture and spirituality, to conduct our activities based on exemplary behavior and sincerity, to cooperate with all sorts of democratic organizations and religious confessions,” etc.

2022-08-01

Limmud in the Woods 2022

The annual international Limmud conference will be held August 19 and 20 in the woods of south Estonia. To register, go to the Limmud page here. For more information, check out Limmud’s facebook page here.

2022-07-28

Condolences

With deep sadness we report Jakovas Mendelevskis passed away at the age of 91 on July 26. He had been deported from Lithuania by the Soviets and was a member of the minyan at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.

2022-07-27

Happy Birthday to Gennady Kofman

The entire Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman a terrific milestone birthday. He has done so much to collect and share information about the city’s once numerous Jewish community, and always finds the time and energy to meet and help travellers looking for their roots and to teach school children and the wider community about the Holocaust. Mazl tov. Bis 120!

2022-07-19

Condolences

Richard Freund passed away in Charlottesville, Virginia, on July 14 due to complications involving a bone-marrow transplant he received 18 years ago. He was 67. Freund was a frequent visitor to Vilnius and a friend of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Besides annual summer digs at the Great Synagogue site in Vilnius, revealing many new facts and the existence of surviving elements and a few surprises at that site, he also headed the non-invasive investigation of the escape tunnel dug by the brenner kommando at Ponar, Jews who were forced to exhume corpses, burn the flesh and crush the bones, who themselves were slated for death upon completion of their task aimed at hiding Holocaust crimes. The rediscovery of the tunnel was featured in an hour-long documentary by NOVA on the American public television network PBS. Freund also led the effort to map the lost Jewish shtetl of Rumshishok (Rumšiškės) just outside Kaunas flooded in the post-war period to create a hydroelectric generation station, and worked on a number of other Jewish sites in Lithuania. He also used non-invasive techniques to investigate the Warsaw ghetto in 2021.

Freund always found the time in the middle of his work to explain his finds to interested on-lookers, and presented his findings to the Lithuanian Jewish Community in a series of presentations in Vilnius.

We mourn his loss and extend our deepest condolences to his widow Eliane, his three children Eli, Ethan, and Yoni and his many other family members and friends at the University of Hartford and around the world.

2022-07-18

Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Roma

The Roma Social Center invites you join them in marking the Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Roma, August 2.

The commemoration starts at 12 noon at the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius. On August 3 at 6:00 P.M. the one-man digital play “Samudaripen, I Am King” starring Marius Jampolskis will be performed at the Museum of Modern Art in central Vilnius, located at Pylimo street no. 17.

Roma Social Center facebook announcement here.

2022-07-152022-07-15

Who Are the Degenerates Now?

Grant Gochin

In a study by the UN titled ”History under Attack,” António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, stated: “Understanding the history of the Holocaust is crucial to safeguarding our future. This is particularly crucial as we see some seeking to rewrite history or to whitewash and rehabilitate those who committed crimes against humanity. If we fail to identify and confront the lies and inhumanity that fueled past atrocities, we are ill-prepared to prevent them in the future.” This article borrows heavily from this UN study.

UN Findings

The UN finds that Holocaust distortion is just as pernicious as Holocaust denial. Holocaust distortion depends upon and spreads antisemitism. It threatens the ability to remember and learn from the past by misrepresenting the historical record. It is an attack on truth and knowledge. It feeds on and spreads antisemitic tropes and prejudices, and threatens our understanding of one of the most tragic and violent histories–the genocide of six million Jews.

2022-07-14

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Netflix Hit Stranger Things Slammed for Nazi Prison

by Emma Myers

Netflix has come under fire for using the sites of past atrocities as locations or inspiration for its nostalgic hit show Stranger Things, including a plan to let fans book a themed cell in a former Holocaust prison on AirBnB.

Two of the locations in its fourth season–the final episodes of which were released last week–have dark roots in the real world.

Russian prison scenes were filmed in a former Lithuanian prison used by Nazis during the Holocaust while the show’s fictitious mental hospital was inspired by an infamous U.S. asylum with a similar name.

Mental health and Jewish advocates have criticized the streaming giant for what they see as exploitation of a brutal history. Both locations are also now tourist attractions.

2022-07-102022-07-10

New Condo Ad in Kaunas: “Lietūkis: A Building with History”

A building built between the two world wars on Vytautas prospect in Kaunas is now undergoing renovation. The architect was Karolis Reisneris, the same architect who designed the Church of the Assumption in Kaunas. Advertisements to purchase apartments have caused controversy because of the phrase “Lietūkis: A Building with History,” recalling the Lietūkis garage massacre in Kaunas in late June of 1941.

Artist Paulina Eglė Pukytė spotted the advertisement on facebook and was surprised by it.

“If the ad campaign is mentioning history, then how can it ignore completely some of the blackest pages of 20th century history connected with the word Lietūkis? The advertisement suggests ‘touching history.’ How should we touch it, and which history?” she said to 15min.lt.

Between the two world wars the compound word “Lietūkis,” made up of Lietuva or Lithuania, shortened to Liet-, followed by ūkis, meaning economy, farm or household, was the name adopted by the Union of Lithuanian Agricultural Cooperatives, which operated in Kaunas from 1923 to 1940. Their headquarters were located at no. 43 on Vytautas prospect. The daylight pogrom and mass murder of Jews was perpetrated at the garage, actually an automobile service and repair station, located on Miško street in Kaunas and still known as the Lietūkis garage, despite abolition of the Lietūkis organization, the Union of Lithuanian Agricultural Cooperatives, prior to that.

2022-07-07

Painted in Sound: An Interview with Samuel Bak

by Karolis Vyšniauskas, photographs by Ieva Lygnugarytė, sound engineer Adomas Zubė

Samuel Bak is a miraculous survivor of Vilnius Ghetto. Now 88 at his studio in Massachusetts, the prolific painter recalls lost Jewish life in Vilnius for a NARA podcast.

For many decades Samuel Bak didn’t want to come back to Vilnius. It is the city where his father, grandparents and even his best friend, a child at the time, were killed.

But eventually through an initiative by local Lithuanians he returned to the place which formed his childhood memories. Now Vilnius hosts the Samuel Bak Museum, to which the painter has donated more than 50 of his works.

Full text and audio file of interview here.

2022-07-052022-07-05

Happy Birthday to Mina Frišman

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners wish Mina Frišman a very happy birthday. Our heartfelt wishes for her endless health and many happy days ahead with her children and grandchildren.

2022-07-042022-07-04

One Hundred and Seven Years Late for Dinner

by Grant Gochin

When your grandmother’s last words make it clear that she’s not who you thought she was, you are willing to move all the mountains in Europe to get to the truth

Dinner between cousins was scheduled for Shabbat on Friday, May 14, 1915. How was I to know that the Shabbos meal never took place? Without warning, Russian forces launched a genocidal mass deportation of Baltic Jews deep into Russia. Families were torn apart, lives were destroyed and communities of Jews devastated.

The first inkling I had was on my grandmother’s deathbed. Her final lucid words to me were: “I wish I knew my name. I wish I knew who my family was.” We thought we knew her name–Bertha Lee Arenson. We were wrong.

2022-06-302023-04-17