Holocaust

Help Mark the 80th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania This Year

Help Mark the 80th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania This Year

Dear Community members,

This year we’ll mark the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust in Lithuania. The Lithuanian Jewish Community is creating a digital chronicle to help the broader public understand how Litvaks lived before the Holocaust and what happened to their communities beginning in 1941.

We are asking you to share the stories and photographs of your relatives who lived in the Lithuanian shtetls and died in the mass murders in 1941 or the years following.

Everyone is invited to participate by sending copies of photographs and short texts including biographies and descriptions of murders to info@lzb.lt or zanas@sc.lzb.lt

Please indicate the names of people in photographs, locations and dates if available.

Happy Birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya

Happy Birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya

Happy birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya, our living link with former Lithuania before the Holocaust. A Jewish partisan, she kept fighting after the war, educating generations about the truth of what happened. Most of us at a certain age in adulthood begin to slow down, to rise more slowly from our chairs, to walk more cautiously. Fania never did. She still walks with a spring in her step as if she were a teenager, with a smile for everyone and ready to talk to anyone without regard for social status. Happy birthday, Fania. Mazl tov! Bis 120!

Condolences

We are ad to report the death on May 13 of long-time member Lidija Kazmina. She was born in 1927. We extend our deepest condolences to her children and grandchildren.

Newly Renovated Synagogue in Žiežmariai to Host Cultural Events

Newly Renovated Synagogue in Žiežmariai to Host Cultural Events

The renovated synagogue in Žiežmariai will become a new cultural center. The first synagogue in appeared sometime between 1690 and 1696. In the 19th century there three synagogues. Not surprising, since the majority of the population were Jewish. This synagogue which has survived and has now been renovated stands in the southern part of town between Vilniaus and Žalgirio streets, with the Strėva river flowing from southeastward from there. This synagogue was build in the mid-19th century and is one of only a handful of surviving wooden synagogues in Lithuania.

The plan is to use the refurbished synagogue to host cultural exhibits and events.

“At first there was doubt the synagogue could even be saved. It was so abandoned and ruined. Even so, we resolved to renovate it and now we are very proud we have such a beautiful building,” director of the Strategic Planning and Investment Department of the Kaišiadorys Regional Administration Ramutė Taparauskienė said.

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Lithuania’s Orwellian Genocide Center Celebrates Victory Day with Propaganda Poster Desecrating Memory of Holocaust Victims and Military Veterans

Lithuania’s Orwellian Genocide Center Celebrates Victory Day with Propaganda Poster Desecrating Memory of Holocaust Victims and Military Veterans

Lithuania’s Orwellian-named Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, more commonly abbreviated to Genocide Center, lived up to their reputation of ignoring the Holocaust by reportedly issuing a special computer-graphic propaganda poster on facebook May 8, presented below with a translation into English.


Translation:

The Work of the Red Liberators

[photos of corpses, coffins and a Soviet train]

The End of World War II in Europe on May 8

The Red Liberators Liberated Europe and the Baltic States, and This is What Their Liberation Brought Lithuania:

20,000 murdered partisans
110,000 deported Lithuanians
The self-immolation of Romas Kalanta
500 arrested during the Kaunas Spring
14 Lithuanians murdered on January 13
7 officials murdered at the Medininkai border post

World War II ended in Europe on May 8.
After Germany surrendered unconditionally
the Soviets marched into Berlin on May 9
and proclaimed to the entire world “Victory Day” which for many
countries including Lithuania brought only fear,
pain and death.

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Interview for Jerusalem Day with Chargé d’Affaires Adi Cohen-Hazanov at Israeli Embassy to Lithuania

Interview for Jerusalem Day with Chargé d’Affaires Adi Cohen-Hazanov at Israeli Embassy to Lithuania

On May 9, Israel will celebrate Yom Yerushalayim. Tell us more about this day and its significance.

Prior to the founding of the State of Israel, Jerusalem had different rulers, but it was always part of the prayer and the identity of the Jewish people. We have always called Jerusalem our eternal capital.

All the synagogues of the world are built in such a way that the prayers are directed towards Jerusalem, and during our two most important festivals–Pesach and Yom Kipur—we wish to meet each other in Jerusalem next year. Today, Jerusalem is also mentioned in our anthem: “The Land of Zion and Jerusalem” (in Hebrew, Zion is used as a synonym for the city of Jerusalem and the land of Israel).

On June 27, 1967, Israel won the Six-Day War and regained its historic capital, Jerusalem, which was later recognized as the official capital of Israel by the country’s parliament. Twenty years later, on the 28th day of the month of Iyar in 1998, Yom Yerushalayim was declared a public holiday.

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LJC Chairwoman Visits Veterans for Victory Day

LJC Chairwoman Visits Veterans for Victory Day

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky personally visited World War II veterans in their homes to congratulate them on Victory Day. There are only six such veterans known to be resident in Vilnius. Warm wishes and congratulations to RIva Spiz, Aleksandr Asovski, Boris Lipnicki, Fania Brantsovksaya, Eliziejus Rimanas and Tatyana Arkhipova-Efros.

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Condolences

Holocaust survivor and historian and Jewish partisan Yitzhak Arad died May 6 at the age of 95 in Israel. He was one of the founders and the first director of the Yad Vashem memorial institute in Jerusalem. He also achieved the rank of brigadier general in the IDF. He was born in Švenčionys (Shventsian), Lithuania, in 1926, moved with his parents to Warsaw and escaped back into Lithuania with his sister at the onset of World War II. He escaped the Švenčionys ghetto and joined partisans in the forests in Belarus. In 1945 he went to Israel where he fought in four wars and was later appointed director of military education. He served in the Israeli military for 25 years and was appointed to head Yad Vashem in 1972. He earned a doctorate at Tel Aviv University and taught Jewish history, authoring numerous books about the Holocaust.

Our deepest condolences to his family and friends for their loss.

EJC President Applauds EU Declaration to Fight Anti-Semitism at All Levels

EJC President Applauds EU Declaration to Fight Anti-Semitism at All Levels

Brussels, December 2, 2020–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor applauds the European Union Council Declaration on mainstreaming the fight against anti-Semitism across policy-areas, adopted unanimously by EU member states.

“This is an important decision, one that appreciates the sad growth of anti-Semitism and how it not only targets Jews, but is corrosive for any society,” Kantor said. “The EU firmly states that anti-Semitism is against European values and commits itself to a holistic program to eradicate it from the continent.”

“We are delighted that our strong message that fighting anti-Semitism robustly at all levels, that we have consistently delivered in our meetings and activities, is received.”

“The declaration adopted by the German presidency of the Council affirms several principles, including that anti-Semitism is an attack on European values, that protecting Jewish life and making it more visible as part of Europe’s identity is essential and that it is necessary to combat anti-Semitism head-on in all its forms, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“The importance that the EU is placing on protecting and emboldening Jewish life is also very important,” Dr. Kantor continued. “Jews have been a part of Europe for millennia and continue to contribute at all levels, so it is very gratifying to hear that our leaders will ensure that Jewish life will not only be protected but making it more visible.”

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

The Lithuanian internet news site 15min.lt is reporting what everyone already knew: the new head of Lithuania’s so-called Genocide Center, appointed by secret ballot in the Lithuanian parliament following an internal power struggle, will maintain the status quo at the state institution whose mission is commemorate the alleged genocide of Lithuanians under the Soviets, not the genocide of the Jews in the Holocaust.

Arūnas Bubnys in the 15min.lt interview maintained the party line formed and maintained by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania over the last three decades: Lithuanian heroes such as Jonas Noreika are sensitive, tortured and complicated individuals who cannot be judged one way or another. In other words, you still can’t call Lithuanian Nazis Nazis at Lithuania’s new and improved but still fake Genocide Center.

Full propaganda interview in Lithuanian here.

Ceremony to Commemorate Victims of World War II

Ceremony to Commemorate Victims of World War II

A small, closed ceremony will be held at noon on May 7 to commemorate the victims of World War II at the Sudervės road Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. LJC chairwoman Fainia Kukliansky, LJC representatives and foreign diplomats are scheduled to attend a wreath-laying ceremony at monuments commemorating ghetto victims and lost children. Because of wide-spread fears of viral contamination the ceremony won’t be open to the public and no further official commemoration ceremony to mark Victory Day will be held in Vilnius this year.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Visits Lost Shtetl Museum in Šeduva

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Visits Lost Shtetl Museum in Šeduva

Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis visited the site of the Lost Shtetl Museum being built in Šeduva in central Lithuania May 4.

“The future modern museum in Šeduva will better showcase the extraordinarily rich history and legacy of the Litvaks for Lithuanians and the world. I sincerely thank the initiators and executors of the project,” he said.

The private initiative is supported by the Šeduva Foundation created by Jews with roots in the town and is being carried out in cooperation with the Radviliškis regional administration.

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If a Genocide Happens in the Forest and No One Hears It…

If a Genocide Happens in the Forest and No One Hears It…

That’s the question the news service of the LNK television channel in Lithuania faced Friday when they were investigating the case of a mysterious Holocaust site which vanished somewhere along the Kaunas-Vilnius highway during reconstruction.

The mass murder site in the Strošiunas forest, aka Vladikiškės forest, near Bačkionys village in the Kaišiadorys region is the mass grave of about 1,800 women and children from Žiežmariai, Žasliai, Kaišiadorys, Rumšiškės and the surrounding areas murdered on August 29, 1941, according to Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage Department. The Lithuanian Holocaust Atlas says the number was 784 people from the same locations, with other, larger mass murder and mass grave sites in the same immediate area.

The paved road to the Holocaust memorial was fenced across and the sign announcing it as a mass murder site was removed about six months ago during reconstruction of Lithuania’s busiest highway. This is the only access to the site in the Kaišadorys region near Žiežmariai. LNK said they received a complaint from the Lithuanian Jewish Community and looked into it. After receiving mixed comments from Lithuania’s Department of Vehicle Routes Directorate, the fencing blocking access was removed within two hours–just in time for the evening news broadcast–with the promise to replace the road sign marking the Jewish mass grave in the immediate future.

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Greece Takes Over IHRA Presidency from Germany

Greece Takes Over IHRA Presidency from Germany

“As the years pass it is our duty to tell this story. To preserve memory, to learn the lessons, to never, never forget,” Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a video address on the occasion of Germany passing the IHRA presidency to Greece on April 1.

In the virtual ceremony ambassador Michaela Küchler handed over the role of IHRA chairman to ambassador Chris J. Lazaris, who stated: “The thread running through this presidency will be teaching the Holocaust, including combating denial and distortion in the new fields now opened by the net.”

The Greek deputy prime minister, the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of education and religious affairs added voices of support in the video, underlining Greece’s strong commitment to the mission of the IHRA.

Happy Birthday to Eta Gurvičiūtė

Happy Birthday to Eta Gurvičiūtė

Dear Eta,

We congratulate you on your energy and vitality. The Lithuanian Jewish Community wishes you good health and warmth every year. You turned 100 last year and received greetings from the city in the name of all residents of Vilnius. This year you have enchanted us all and inspired everyone with your smile, sincerity, clear memory and unfading sense of humor. You are an example to all of us.

Mazl tov! Bis 120!

Documentary about Eglė Ridikaitė and Jewish Culture

Documentary about Eglė Ridikaitė and Jewish Culture

LRT.lt

The Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Contemporary Arts Center in Vilnius are preparing to show a video documentary called “Jewish Vilnius in the Work of Artist Eglė Ridikaitė,” the Lithuanian Culture Institute announced in a press release.

The story directed by Mikas Žukauskas looks at the work of Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize recipient Eglė Ridikaitė and at her artistic method of confronting difficult topics. Her cycle of paintings “We Are Guests” pictures fragments of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius uncovered by archaeologists and her sense of space within the razed synagogue. This is one of the rare cases where Lithuanian contemporary art addresses Jewish historical memory and heritage. Her works have drawn international attention.

The premiere of the short on April 28 will include a discussion titled “In Jewish Vilnius and Elsewhere: Contemporary Art and Historical Memory.” Participants will include professor of architecture Amnon Bar Or and the artist Dora Zlek Levy from Israel, Vilnius Museum director Rasa Antanavičiūtė and art history professor Adakhiar Zevi from Israel. Architecture historian Ūla Tornau, cultural attaché to the United Kingdom, will moderate.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Hirsh Glik’s Birthday Was April 24

Hirsh Glik’s Birthday Was April 24

Hirsh Glik authored the words to the Jewish partisan hymn Zog Nit Keynmol. He was born on April 24, ca. 1921 according to the US Holocaust Museum, in Vilnius and belonged to the Yungvald circle of Yiddish poets. Later imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto, he and fellow ghetto inmate and Vilnius native Rokha Margolis, both youth members of the FPO Jewish partisans group operating there, set his words to music and presented the song to the FPO leadership. He is thought to have been killed in 1944.

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Lithuanian Parliament Secretly Appoints New Head of Genocide

Lithuanian Parliament Secretly Appoints New Head of Genocide

The Lithuanian parliament Thursday held a secret vote to appoint Arūnas Bubnys to a five-year term as head of the country’s Orwellian-named Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania. Seventy-six MPs voted for him, 34 against, 8 abstained and 2 MPs ruined their ballots in apparent protest.

Bubnys had been director of the Center’s Research Department. When he was nominated for the new position by the speaker of parliament, he told the assembly if he were appointed he would seek to restore the institution’s “recently damaged prestige” and to normalize the work atmosphere there.

He also pledged “to disperse and negate the artificial opposition between Center researchers and public organizations, to restore an atmosphere of confidence and exemplary cooperation with political prisoner, deportee and partisan institutions, and other organizations of those who suffered under the occupational regimes.”

Bubnys has worked at the Center since 2009 and was part of the successful push to have the last general director, Adas Jakubauskas, removed from the post by parliament for alleged mismanagement. In 2020 Bubnys ran for parliament on the ticket of the little-known political party Nacionalinis susivienijimas, or National Unification. According to his personal statement, he was graduated from the History Faculty of Vilnius University in 1985 and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1994.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Condolences

Berelis Vaineris passed away April 19. He was born in 1923 and was a veteran of World War II, having served in the 16th Lithuanian Division. Our deepest condolences go to entire his family suffering this painful loss and to his wife Jelena and son Raimondas.