Holocaust – Page 57 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Faina Kukliansky Proposes Special Attention Be Paid to Anti-Semitic Crimes

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky says in light of increasing anti-Semitic graffiti recently the Lithuanian criminal code could be expanded to include acts of vandalism against Jews.

“Anti-Semitism is assigned a special article in the criminal code in Britain. I don’t know whether anyone in Lithuania is making graffiti against Tatars. But the swastika is a thing which recalls the Holocaust during which the community was exterminated. So it’s clear these crimes need to be taken care of. If we are given such exceptional treatment from the anti-Semite camp, then perhaps we should be given special treatment by the state as well,” she said.

Justice minister Elvinas Jankevičius says the criminal code currently allows for bringing to criminal account the sowing of ethnic or religious discord, and that such law would be excessive. Kukliansky told BNS there were five such incidents over the past month in Vilnius, Šiauliai and the Kaunas region, with swastikas, crossed-out stars of David and the vandalization of a statue in Šiauliai honoring 20th century industrialist Chaim Frenkel.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2019-10-212019-11-11

Lithuanian General Prosecutor Says Vilnius Mayor Exceeded Authority in Noreika Take-Down

Lithuania’s Office of General Prosecutor says Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius exceeded his authority in unilaterally ordering the removal of a plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika.

In a statement released Thursday the lead prosecutor in the defense of the public interest department at the Office of General Prosecutor said he had considered complaints filed by public organizations on a lower prosecutor’s decision and said the mayor had exceeded his authority.

“Public administrative actions performed by a public administration entity which exceed the authority provided that entity, and also the issuance of administrative acts [rules, regulations, orders] which exceed the authority granted are illegal,” the prosecutor said in his finding. He also considered complaints from public organizations on the city council’s renaming of Kazys Škirpa Alley and rejected them, letting stand a lower prosecutor’s opinion regarding the matter.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

Note: Noreika and Škirpa were Holocaust perpetrators.

2019-10-18

Story of a Man of God

Arkadijus Gotesmanas working together with director Adolfas Večerskis and artist Linas Liandzbergis created the Story of a Man of God almost a decade ago. Author of the music and text, he was also the performer of this drama. One week ago it was presented to an audience in Uzhgorod, Ukraine. In the one-man play Gotesmanas recalled horrible, funny, sad and happy events from his own life accompanied by creative percussion, the life of one man, one family, one people marked by the tragedies of the 20th century but nonetheless filled with unconditional love for faltering humanity.

The audience in Uzhgorod listened and watched in rapt attention. Arkadijus was born there 60 years ago. The “hometown boy” appears to have impressed the audience with his high degree of creativity, talent and musical ability. Arkadijus said he only really knew about “our Uzhgorod” from his parents before this. In infancy he and his parents left the city. So the next performance of Story of a Man of God might include this trip as well.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2019-10-172019-10-21

Launch of Book about Vilkija Ghetto in Kaunas

The rare books department of the Kaunas Public Library hosted the launch of the book “Vilkijos getas. 1941 metai” by Aleksandras Vitkus and Chaim Bargman. Vilkija deputy alderman Algimantas Smolenskas led the event.

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas spoke about Lithuanian Jewish community activities before 1940 and the active participation of Jews in the country’s cultural, economic and social life.

Participants discussed current commemoration policies, Lithuanian and Jewish relations, what goes into determining Nazi collaboration, education and other topics.

The Jewish community formed in the village of Vilkija, just 30 kilometers from Kaunas, in the late 18th century. According to the censuses, there were 652 Jews in Vilkija in 1766, 789 in 1847 and 1,431 out of a total population of 2,012 in 1897.

2019-10-16

U.S. Rep Sends Letter to Lithuanian PM: We Never Exonerated Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis

by Vilius Petkauskas, 15min.lt

Lithuanian prime minister Saulius Skvernelis has received a letter from the Congress of the United States requesting Lithuania stop claiming U.S. institutions had found Lithuanian Provisional Government prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis hadn’t been party to the genocide of Lithuanian Jews [was not a Holocaust perpetrator] in 1941.

According to information available to 15min.lt, the chairman of the [subcommittee on Asia of the] Foreign Affairs Committee [representative Brad Sherman of California] sent a letter to Skvernelis which asks the Lithuanian PM to require the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania to stop claiming erroneously Ambrazevičius-Brazaitis had been exonerated. Prime ministerial press representative Tomas Beržinskas confirmed such a letter had been received.

“Yes, the prime minister has received such a letter. A reply has not been drafted yet,” he told 15min.lt

Full article in Lithuanian here.

2019-10-152019-10-24

Holocaust Commemoration in Švenčionys on October 6

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Švenčionys Jewish Community remembered the victims of the Holocaust from the Švenčionys region at their mass murder site, the Švenčionėliai military base, on October 6, 2019. The mass murder site is the final resting place of about 8,000 Jews from the surrounding area.

Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moisej Šapiro said: “Memory is alive and no one is forgotten. Together we must recall from generation to generation the painful fate of the Jewish people, so that the memory of the innocent people who died under such extremely brutal and inhumane circumstances is honored. So that respect and history are maintained for as long as a single citizen of this country lives.”

Participants from Lithuania, Belarus, Sweden, Israel and elsewhere attended. Švenčionys regional administration head Rimantas Klipčius spoke and laid a wreath at the memorial. Pawel Tadeusz Purski, third secretary at the Polish embassy in Vilnius, also participated. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky spoke at the ceremony.

2019-10-142019-10-14

Walls That Remember Art Installation Vandalized

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:

2019-10-142019-10-21

Special Guests from America and Israel at Kaunas Ghetto Concert

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.

2019-10-11

European Commission Wants Better Security for Jewish Institutions

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.

2019-10-112019-10-21

Cooperation or Collaboration: Who Deserves a Statue in Vilnius?

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.

2019-10-10

Holocaust “Historian” Pinchos Fridberg Asks the Holocaust Historians of the Genocide Center: Can We Trust Archival Document LCVA f. R-1436, ap. 1, b. 29, l. 13-13 a. p.?

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?

2019-10-102019-11-04

Yom Kippur, the Day of Spiritual Cleansing and Hope

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

2019-10-082019-10-11

Yad Vashem Says Lithuanian President’s Visit Important to Lithuanian Public

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.

2019-10-08

Serge Cwajgenbaum Has Died

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.

2019-10-08

History of the Destruction of the Šiauliai Jewish Cemetery

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.

2019-10-072019-10-15

Lost Yanishok: Two Synagogues and the Last Jewish Woman

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.

2019-10-072019-10-10

Chaim Frankel Sculpture Vandalized

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.”

2019-10-062019-10-17

Holocaust Commemoration in Švenčionys October 6

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

2019-10-042019-10-07

Another Scandal: It’s Becoming Clear Not All Names on Martyrs’ Wall Were Angels

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.

2019-10-032019-10-04