The main feature of the Walls That Remember project has been vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti in central Vilnius.
The project aimed to remind passer-by of Vilnius’s rich Jewish past by portraying scenes from Jewish life in what was mainly the Jewish quarter of the Vilnius Old Town before World War.
Over the weekend someone added a star of David crossed out with the void symbol to the wall next to the painting. Project staff issued the following statement:
DELFI.lt
Many Lithuanians know something about the ghetto in Kaunas where tens of thousands of Jews were imprisoned from 1941 to 1944. Nonetheless, even if it’s not a secret, what life was like there behind the walls is a page of history which hasn’t been considered yet. One event in the Kaunas 2022 history festival will spotlight one of the ghetto’s leading lights, the Kaunas ghetto orchestra. On October 20 the music of the “Final Concert” at the Kaunas cultural center will mirror history: performed in the same building where the Gestapo was headquartered during World War II.
Full Lithuanian text here.
European Commission coordinator for fighting anti-Semitism Katharina von Schnurbein reports many EU states need to increase security for Jewish institutions.
Following Wednesday’s attack in Halle in eastern Germany, the EC is calling on all member-states to insure protection for Jewish institutions and communities. In an interview with the Funke media group published on October 11, von Shnurbein said many countries need to pay more attention and improve their methods and attitudes regarding security. She said each country is responsible for providing security for its Jewish communities.
The Commission’s coordinator for anti-Semitism said this is a problem throughout Europe which needs solving and that EU member-states must also help finance security for synagogues.
by Vytautas Plečkaitis, formerly Lithuania’s ambassador to the Ukraine and Switzerland
Seventy years having passed since World War II, disputes over collaboration with the Nazi regime in Germany continue in Lithuania, in neighboring Poland and in other Central and Eastern European countries.
The generation who grew up in the period of freedom and independence want to know the whole truth about the crimes of the Communist regime and the crimes of the German Nazis and those who collaborated with them and took part in the Holocaust. This is demanded of us by basic human nature, and historical memory of the Jewish community who lived in our land [sic] since the time of Vytautas the Great and who were annihilated hasn’t been fully taken into account.
Full text in Lithuanian here.
professor Pinchos Fridberg
Comments on the Title of the Article
1. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty called me an Holocaust historian. I won’t deny such words please the ear. They aren’t true, though. I’m actually a pedant: I read very carefully without missing a letter. And at the same time I also think a little bit.
2. The real (infallible) Holocaust Historians work at the Genocide Center. For that reason in the second instance I write Historian capitalized and without quotation marks. The findings of the research of these historians are even carved in granite.
3. To my very odd question “can we rely upon the archival document?” I can give a not less odd reply: who can deny that this document wasn’t created by NKVD agents seeking to discredit collaborators who worked closely with the Nazis?
The tenth day of the Jewish New Year is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. It is the only day of the year when the Torah calls upon the person to do nothing at all except reflect upon his actions and thoughts. Contrition over one’s sins.
The prayer Kol Nidrei rings out, a symbol of the entire holiday. It is sung loudly three times. Its motif is wonderful, originating in mediaeval Spain, and is beloved by world-renowned symphony orchestras.
Prayers of remembrance for dead parents are also read during Yom Kuppur. Today we add two more parts: for Holocaust victims and for the soldiers who have fallen defending the State of Israel.
Special significance attaches to the final prayer, which is read at evening twilight. This is the time when forgiveness is sought from the Most High. The plea is either accepted or rejected.
The blowing of the shofar horn concludes the Yom Kippur rituals. The traditional Jewish wish is heard: “Next year in Jerusalem.” Everyone wishes every other “gmar khatima tova,” Hebrew for wishing someone a conclusive entry in the Book of Life.
Simas Levinas, chairman
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community
Yad Vashem director Avner Shalev says Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda’s attendance at the World Holocaust Forum would be “important to the Lithuanian public.”
At a seminar dedicated to Lithuanian reporters in Jerusalem, director Shalev said he felt Nausėda would bring back an opinion from Jerusalem which would resonate with Lithuanians. “This is very important to us as well that the Lithuanian president express the importance of remembering the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism.”
Full story in Lithuanian here.
1946-2019 z”l
The World Jewish Congress joins the European Jewish Congress and our Jewish communities throughout Europe in mourning the passing of long-time EJC secretary-general and friend Serge Cwajgenbaum z”l.
Serge was a pivotal figure for European Jewry who began his communal engagement with the French Jewish students union, joined the WJC in 1974, headed the French section of the World Jewish Congress and then served as director of World Jewish Congress Europe for many years before the founding of the European Jewish Congress in 1986.
Nerijus Brazauskas, PhD, has written a history of the destruction of the old Jewish cemetery in the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai up to 2016. The newspaper Šiaulių kraštas has published the study in Lithuanian on their website. He attempts to determine whether the former cemetery, which is state-protected heritage site, should be protected by the Šiauliai Jewish Community or whether it is a matter for the local municipal administration. He details the partial destruction of the cemetery, along with the complete destruction of the Lutheran cemetery, in the 1964-1965 period by the Soviet authorities and calls it an attempt to erase Jews from public memory. He concludes it should be restored and maintained as a sacred site of memory and says both institutional and civic efforts could be harnessed to that purpose.
Full paper in Lithuanian here.
15min.lt
Note: On October 3 Irena Gečienė passed away. The Lithuanian Jewish Community expresses its condolences to her daughter Jurgita and brother Eduardas.
Before the tragic losses of World War II, Joniškis in northern Lithuania was a very Jewish town known as the shtetl of Yanishok with a vibrant Jewish community. Nothing was left after the Holocaust which only a few Jews survived here, as was the case throughout Lithuania. Now only the two restored synagogues and the only living Jew recall that Yanishok.
They Donned White Armbands and Went to Shoot Jews
Irena Gečienė remembers November 27, 1944, when the war hadn’t ended yet, in the town of Žagarė.
Local resident reported Saturday evening the statue commemorating Jewish Lithuanian industrialist Chaim Frankel in the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai had been vandalized. Male genitalia were painted on his trousers with what appeared to be white paint. This follows the appearance of a swastika at the Lithuanian Jewish Community headquarters in Vilnius in August. The male genitalia remained on the Frankel statue as of midnight as Sunday turned to Monday, October 7.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky commented on the incident: “Maybe the Frankel statue was vandalized by drunken youth, or maybe not, but this again is an opportunity to talk about anti-Semitism, especially as we prepare to participate in International Holocaust Day events in January and to mark 2020 as the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History in events around Lithuania.”
Lithuanian television channel TV3 ran the incident as their top story on Sunday with an interview with chairwoman Kukliansky, who said Frankel put Šiauliai on the map and his factory later served as a life saver for Jewish ghetto inmates who were allowed to work there, “as in Schindler’s List.”
Speaking directly to www.lzb.lt, Faina Kukliansky said: “This was just one Jewish family whose contribution to Lithuanian industry was priceless and whose memory has been desecrated so brutally just as the Jews were brutally murdered during the second half of 1941.”
There will be a Holocaust commemoration held in Švenčionys on Sunday, October 6. At 11:00 A.M. there will be a remembrance ceremony at the Menorah sculpture in the city park. At 12 noon there will be a commemoration at the mass murder site at the Švenčionėliai military base in Platumai village.
For those wishing to attend, a bus will depart from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at 9:00 A.M. Sunday. Register by calling +370 5 261 3003 or writing info@lzb.lt
Moisej Šapiro, chiarman
Švenčionys Jewish Community
by Vytautas Bruveris for Lietuvos rytas, photo by R.Danisevičius courtesy lrytas.lt
Are all the people murdered by the Soviets whose names are engraved on a building right in the center of Vilnius worthy of this sort of exceptional respect? Documents from researchers which Lietuvos rytas examined raise this question.
They helped in murdering Jews and seizing their property. They murdered and raped family members–women and children–of Soviet collaborators. There was a thief who pretended to be a partisan. Most of them fought on the side of the Nazis and in their military.
These hair-raising shadows darken the biographies of many of the people whose names are inscribed on the outer wall of the former KGB headquarters on Gediminas prospect across from Lukiškių square in Vilnius.
It’s becoming clear the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania was likely too hasty in so exceptionally honoring people murdered by the Soviet occupiers and many of them probably don’t deserve commemoration.
This is clear from documents the Center itself has.
Not Only the Names of Angels Decorate the Wall of Martyrs in Central Vilnius
Another scandal is brewing: it’s becoming clear not just the names of angels decorate the wall of martyrs in central Vilnius
by Rimvydas Valatka, lrytas.lt, from facebook
It would appear the hunger to rehabilitate the looters and murderers of Jews by incorporating them in the ranks of those who have laid down their lives for their country, the partisans, has become a sort of auxiliary to the discipline of history for the Genocide Center.
Six murderers and looters of innocent people commemorated as heroes–this is not just a plaque commemorating General Storm [Jonas Noreika] who collaborated with the Nazis on this question. This is already a very brown matter. Perhaps some Pro Patria Lithuanian teacher will splash brown paint upon the wall?
The forces of the defenders of Nazi collaborators should move quickly to the former KGB headquarters because the historians are beating “our own people.”
A series of several concerts with world-famous performers, composers and material from the works of Grigoriy Kanovitch will be held to celebrate Kanovitch’s 90th birthday. Kanovitch is the author of a number of classics in Jewish literature and is a recipient of the Lithuanian National Art and Culture Prize. Lithuanian Jewish Community members will receive a 40% discount on the ticket price.
For more information, see here.
by Sigitas Parulskis
When I think about Lithuanian anti-Semitism, there is a lack of reasoning. How can you hate someone who isn’t there? And there are almost no Jews left in Lithuania. It would be the same as being afraid of or hating the Wizard of Oz because he didn’t give you a brain.
Lithuanian anti-Semitism’s list of grievances, its casus belli, was fully formed in the period from 1939 to 1941. The loss of the Klaipeda region, the Soviet occupation, deportation, massacres, the Nazi invasion–all good reasons to look for a culprit. And here we are, still afflicted by this hapless anti-Semitism. Is it in our subconscious? In our genes? We are no longer living under conditions of occupation and war, so where does this anachronism come from?
Is it possible for us to overcome our warped relationship with Jews? Everything’s possible, if there’s a will and reason. And this is a political rather than a cultural relationship. The political man proclaims truth is on my side, while the cultural man asks what in the hell truth is anyway, and to me this question seems more interesting, more imaginative and more human.
Full text in Lithuanian here.
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda and his wife Diana visited YIVO on the last day of the president’s trip to the United Nations in New York City. They met staff, viewed exhibits and learned about the world-famous Jewish research institution founded in Vilnius in 1925.
“Jewish history and culture have formed the identity of all countries of the world, not just Lithuania. Since the 15th century the Lithuanian and Jewish communities have been united by a common rich history. Vilnius was even called the Jerusalem of the North. Activities of Lithuanian Jews have left behind a priceless religious and philosophical legacy for the entire world Jewish community which is celebrated by the YIVO institute in New York,” the newly-elected president said.
information from the President’s Office
Photo by J. Stacevičius/LRT
by Mindaugas Jackevičius, LRT.lt
We’re not ordering you, we’re only asking you to take a mirror and take a look at yourself, to open the history books and check out what happened in the dark chapters. That’s what Israeli’s new ambassador to Lithuania Yosi Levy said in an exclusive interview with LRT.lt . He thinks most Lithuanians don’t know what happened to the Jews of Lithuania during the war, that it is a story which hasn’t been told appropriately.
At the same time, he says, Israel doesn’t blame today’s Lithuania, and emphasizes mature and good relations between the countries.
On the person of Jonas Noreika, Levy said: “He wasn’t a murderer, but he collaborated with the devil.”
Levy, who began his work in Lithuania over a month ago, is a well-known writer and has worked as ambassador in Belgrade and worked at the embassies in Bonn, Berlin and Warsaw. In the interview we spoke about the fate of Lithuania’s Jews, bilateral relations and an intriguing book which will open the eyes of Lithuanians to a different side of Israel and its ambassador.
The Kaunas Jewish Community and the Ninth Fort Museum held a Holocaust commemoration on the morning of September 23. Kaunas students and cultural workers also participated in the civic initiative called “Way of Memory.”
Georgian musician Davit Kldiashvili performed and attendees viewed a Ninth Fort exhibit on the Holocaust.
After the event a group of Kaunas Jewish Community members attended the Holocaust commemoration held in Balbieriškis which also commemorated the vitality of Jewish life in the Lithuanian shtetlakh and Volfas Kaganas, Lithuanian military volunteer and twice recipient of the Order of the Cross of Vytis.
Moisiejus Preisas, survivor of Auschwitz, Dachau and Stutthof, passed away September 24 at the age of 89. He was born February 27, 1930 and was a member of Lithuania’s Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Inmates. We send our deepest condolences to his son Leonidas and his grandchildren.
Preisas is believed to be the only Lithuanian Jew to have survived three concentration camps. He was an eye-witness to the brutal murder of the Jewish children in the Kaunas ghetto. He also witnessed an officer at a concentration camp chop people in half with a shovel.
Photo: Preisas with his collection of photographs of the Holocaust and concentration camps.
Several years ago we translated and published an interview and article about Moisiejus Preisas on the Lithuanian Jewish Community website here.