Litvaks – Page 12 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Congratulations to Lara Lempertienė

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda presented the Lithuanian medal “For Merit” to Lara Lempertienė, director of the Judaica Research Center of the Lithuanian National Library, on July 6, Lithuania’s State Day, Coronation of Mindaugas Day. She received the award in recognition of her work at the Center going beyond textual research and including exhibits, publications, presentations at international conferences and presenting the Litvak cultural legacy in Lithuania and abroad. The Lithuanian Jewish Community congratulates Lara on yet another Lithuanian state award and wish her continued success.

2023-07-10

Honored Guests Visit Panevėžys Jewish Community

Williams Tcath, the president of the Gendel/Hendel family association, and a group of fellow travellers visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community this June. His grandfather Salomon Hendel was a merchant of pre-made clothing and died in 1916. His descendants have banded together to form an association of families who left Panevėžys after 1919 with 416 members.

Mr. Tcath looked through the archives and photo albums of the Panevėžys Jewish Community, and left an inscription in the guest book.

The point of their trip to Panevėžys was to collect information and photographs concerning the families belonging to their association and to make known the contributions made by these families to life in Panevėžys at that time. Members of the delegation had numerous documents which they gave to the Panevėžys Jewish Community. They only had one day in Panevėžys and then travelled on to Vilnius.

2023-07-07

Israeli Ambassador to Lithuania Commemorates Holocaust Victims in Jurbarkas

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg-Silverstein visited the western Lithuanian town of Jurbarkas, or Yurburg in Yiddish, on July 3, according to the Jurbarkas Regional Administration webpage jurbarkas.lt.

The ambassador began her visit at the V. Grybas Museum where Jurbarkas regional mayor Skirmantas Mockevičius and museum director Rasa Grybaitė received her.

At the Jurbarkas Regional Library the ambassador met with regional administration director Rūta Vančienė, culture and sports department director Aušra Baliukynaitė, senior department specialist Akvilė Sadauskienė and library director Rasida Kalinauskienė. They discussed opportunities for cooperative work.

2023-07-072023-07-07

Greetings on Coronation of Mindaugas Day

Greetings on Lithuania’s Coronation of Mindaugas Day, or State Day, July 6.

For centuries Jews and Lithuanians with others have created and built Lithuania, and have worked hard for the country’s welfare and success.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and chairwoman Faina Kukliansky send our greetings to everyone on this holiday and wish you peace, happiness and concord.

2023-07-07

Classical Music Concert

Photo: Violinist Atis Bankas and pianist Victoria Korchinskaya-Kogan.

The Vilnius Jerusalem of the North Jewish Community and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to a free concert of classical music performed by violinist Atis Bankas and pianist Victoria Korchinskaya-Kogan.

Born in Kaunas, Atis Bankas moved to Canada in 1981 and joined the national symphony orchestra in Toronto. Korchinskaya-Kogan is the heiress of a family of famous violinists and began playing piano at the age of 5, performing a public concert at the age of 6 in Moscow.

Time: 6:30 P.M., Tuesday, July 18
Place: Lithuanian Jewish Community, Vilnius

2023-07-05

Young Adventurers Club Day Camp

The Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite children aged 6 to 15 to an unusual summer day camp involving travelling and hiking from 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. on August 14 to 16. Participants will meet at the Sholem Aleichem school in Vilnius. For more information, call Vilma at (+370) 659 41244. Registration here.

2023-07-05

Garage Victims Remembered

The annual commemoration of the Jewish victims tortured and murdered at the Lietūkis garage in Kaunas took place last week at the site on Miško street with kaddish performed for the dead as well at the Jewish cemeteries in the Slobodka and Žaliakalnis neighborhoods.

The Lietūkis garage massacre became one of the most notorious episodes in the Holocaust in Lithuania. Jewish men were rounded up at random and brought to the automobile service station were they were attacked with picks, crowbars and shovels, and water houses were stuffed down their throats and turned on till their stomachs burst. Around 68 Jews were killed there after enduring hours of torture.

According to German statistics from 3,500 to 4,000 Jews were murdered in Kaunas between June 24 and June 30, 1941, but the peculiarity of the Lietūkis garage atrocities was that they were committed by local Lithuanians rather than Nazis. German soldiers appeared only as spectators and didn’t intervene. The names of most victims and perpetrators remain unknown. The German Wehrmacht photographer who was there recalled:

2023-07-03

World Premiere at Vilna Ghetto Judenrat to Celebrate Vilnius’s 700th Birthday

Contemporary composer Michael Gordon will present the premiere of his work Resonance in the courtyard of the Youth and Lėlė Theaters accessible at Arklių street no. 5 at 9:00 P.M. on July 5. The courtyard was the home of the Judenrat in the Vilnius ghetto, the Jewish council set up by the Germans. The composer’s family came from Vilnius. The composer will give a talk the next day at Rūdininkai square across Rūdininkų street from the Judenrat at 2:00 P.M. on Thursday, July 6.

Tickets for the concert may be purchased here: https://shorturl.at/gE178

2023-07-03

Lithuanian Archivist Seeks Lost Documents among Cape Town Litvaks

Lithuanian state radio and television reports on efforts by Juozapas Blažiūnas, the director of the Lithuanian Literature and Art Archive, for making a working trip to South Africa following expeditions to Australia and New Zealand as well as Argentina and Uruguay to seek a legacy of lost documents, netting the archive over 800 kilograms of paper.

In an article entitled “Kraštas, kuriame ‘pinigai semiami saujomis,’ arba, ką PAR [sic] veikė 2015 žemaičių” [The Country Where ‘Money Is Taken by the Fist-Fulls,’ or, What Were 2,015 Žemaitijans Doing in the Republic [sic] of South Africa?], chief archivist Juozapas Blažiūnas writes:

“Why did we travel there? About 90% of the 80,000 Jews living in South Africa are of Lithuanian origin (the so-called Litvaks), and this is the largest Litvak community in the world. And it wasn’t just Jews, Lithuanians also travelled to the distant country seeking success, for example, according to the newspaper Lietuva, from 1892 to 1895 some 2,015 Žemaitijans [an ethnic subgroup in Lithuania] travelled to South Africa just through the port of Bremen [Germany] alone.”

2023-06-282023-06-28

Litvak Artists in Paris

Lithuanian state radio and television reports on a new exhibit in Vilnius called Litvak Artists in Paris, demonstrating for the first time here a comprehensive exhibit of works of art by the Litvak ensemble living in Paris before and between the two world wars. Lithuanian state media spoke with Litvak art expert and curator of the exhibit Vilma Grandinskaitė, PhD.

Q.: What story does Litvak Artists in Paris tell?

A. The exhibit talks about the Litvak artists, the wave of Lithuanian Jewish migration to Paris, with Paris the destination most desired by artists at that time. We can differentiate three different waves of migration. The first was in the latter half of the 19th century with Mark Antokolski, the first Jewish sculptor from our Lithuania. Antokolski set up a studio in Paris. Many artists soon flocked to it, his followers. The second wave was students from the Vilnius School of Drawing, including Marc Chagall, Michel Kikoïne, Jacques Lipchitz, Emmanuel Mane-Katz and Chaïm Soutine. Gradually with Chagall the news spread of Paris as the Promised Land, a Mecca of the arts, and one after another artist began moving there. The third wave involves Lithuania in the interwar period when Arbit Blat, Max Band [Maksas Bandas] and Jacob Messenblum [Jacques Missene] left.

2023-06-28

Library Named after Litvak Novelist in Home Town

The public library in Jonava, Lithuania, has been renamed the Grigoriy Kanovitch library. The late Litvak writer came from Jonava originally.

At the naming ceremony the writer’s son, Sergejus Kanovičius, also a writer, quoted from an interview made with his father several years ago:

Q.: If you could be anywhere in an instant, which location do you hold most dear?
A.: I’d go back to my childhood. To Jonava, on the banks of the Vilija [Neris River].

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky both attended the ceremony at the town hall as well. Both women thanked the city council and the library for the name-change. The library awards a Gigoriiy Kanovitch literary prize annually.

“A few days ago my father would have celebrated his 94th birthday and tomorrow would be exactly 82 years since he and his family were forced to leave Jonava, as he believed, for life. I am extraordinarily grateful that after so many years you have brought his memory back to Jonava, to his childhood on the banks of the Vilija,” his son said.

2023-06-262023-06-26

Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel Speaks Out

2023-06-26

Silvia Foti and J’Accuse at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library

Silvia Foti was present for a screening of the Holocaust documentary J’accuse at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library Monday. She’s featured in the film along with Litvak Grant Gochin. The film was shown with Lithuanian subtitles. It’s estimated around 20 to 25 people attended, mainly older people.

2023-06-222023-06-22

Against Anti-Semitism in Name Only

by Geoff Vasil

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda has joined the chorus, the other two heads of state, the prime minister and the speaker of parliament, in declaring Lithuania has zero tolerance for anti-Semitism. At the same time, the state and the nation continue to glorify, lionize and commemorate, often enthusiastically, Lithuanian Nazis who were complicit in Holocaust crimes and responsible for the death of nearly every Lithuanian Jew.

The state-funded Lithuanian Academy of Sciences has removed the Jonas Noreika plaque on its walls “for repairs” even though permission was never granted by any state or municipal body to place the plaque there. Its latest incarnation was the work of enthusiastic Lithuanian neo-Nazis. Streets, schools and squares retain the names of known Holocaust perpetrators with commemorative plaques and statues to them scattered across Lithuania.

At the same time, the ruling coalition, aka the Lithuanian Government, has engaged in rank censorship for two and a half years now, along with a complicit media and law enforcement bodies. This has created a virtual atmosphere of full-fledged fascism and conformity in the country, with straight-up propaganda de rigueur on a range of topics.

2023-06-222023-06-23

Commemoration of Garage Victims

The Kaunas Jewish Community will hold a ceremony to commemorate the Jewish victims murdered during the barbaric Lietūkis garage incident in Kaunas in the early days of World War II this June 26 at 4:00 P.M. at the statue to the victims at Miško street no. 3, moving afterwards to the Slobodka Jewish cemetery on Kalnų street and then to the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery on the Radvilėnų highway.

2023-06-222023-06-22

Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on Anti-Semitic Statements by a Member of the Lithuanian Parliament

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is saddened by the recent anti=Semitic statements and posts made by member of the Lithuanian parliament Remigijus Žemaitaitis in some of the media, social networks and even at the Lithuanian parliament itself. It must be said that these sorts of expressions haven’t appeared in Lithuania in a very long time, and that the Jews who live in Lithuania, 80 years after the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto, had hoped there would be no more such expressions. All the more so as the war continues in Ukraine and people who comprise an ethnic minority can be used by the aggressor as a tool for inciting social conflict and dividing society.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community believes this act by the member of parliament intentionally sows ethnic discord and is a distortion of historical memory as well as a continuation of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” promulgated by the security service of the Russian tsar over a century ago.

We feel ashamed of the county in which we live and which we love and respect. Its citizens cannot elect to parliament a member who can allow himself to descend to making the following statements:

“It seems that besides Putin another group of animals has appeared in the World: ISRAEL. One group razes schools with tanks, the other group uses tractors,” the politician wrote on his facebook page. “After these kinds of incidents, it’s no surprise why these sorts of statement arise: ‘A Jew climbed a ladder and fell down accidentally. Children, take a stick and beat that little Jew to death…'”

2023-06-222023-09-04

MP Žemaitaitis Steps Up Anti-Semitic Posts

Lithuanian member of parliament Remigijus Žemaitaitis who came under scrutiny several weeks ago for anti-Semitic posts on facebook has stepped up his attacks on Jews during Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė’s working visit to Israel this week, according to Lithuanian media reports.

According to Tele3 news, on Tuesday Žemaitaitis released a new flurry of facebook posts blaming Jews for the Soviet deportation of Lithuanians, claiming Lithuanians experienced a greater genocide than Jews did in the Holocaust and blaming Jews for this alleged genocide. He published a list of alleged Jewish perpetrators of Lithuanian genocide and claimed Soviet Jewish partisans had committed mass murder in Pirčiupiai, a village in southern Lithuania near the town of Varėna. He also referred to Jews as “a subspecies,” presumably of Homo sapiens and presumably meaning subhuman.

Besides misspelling the name of the village, historian Algimantas Kasparavičius told Tele3 news he got the facts wrong: a Nazi SS unit destroyed that village and murdered 119 inhabitants on June 3, 1944, as revenge for several German soldiers murdered by Soviet partisans in the area.

2023-06-162023-06-16

Renovated Wooden Synagogue in Kurkliai Opens Doors

Last weekend one of the few extant wooden synagogues in Europe opened its doors to visitors following renovation work. Last December Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky signed an agreement with the Anykščiai Cultural Center: in exchange for renovation, the center will enjoy the use of the building for its activities.

Chairwoman Kukliansky commented: “There was a significant Jewish community in Kurkliai before World War II which was lost following the tragic events of the Holocaust. The reconstructed building will soon fall into ruin again if it isn’t used. We are therefore very glad the Anykščiai Cultural Center and the whole regional community stood shoulder to shoulder to outfit the building for a new life. This is yet another wonderful example of cooperation between the Lithuanian Jewish Community and municipal and regional governments as well as cultural centers.”

The synagogue building will include an exhibit about the Kurkliai Jewish community and Jewish life in the village located about midway between Anykščiai and Ukmergė just north of Vilnius.

2023-06-152023-06-15

Black Ribbon Day in Lithuania

June 14 is officially the Day of Mourning and Hope in Lithuania but colloquially Black Ribbon Day, marking the beginning of Soviet deportations of Lithuanian citizens in early June, 1941. Jews were hugely overrepresented among the victims of the Soviet deportations to Siberia and Central Asia. Those who survived and managed to return to Lithuania found the entire Jewish community and their families had been slaughtered.

Photo courtesy the Vilna Gaon Jewish History Museum.

2023-06-142023-06-14

Congratulations to Joana Viga Čiplytė

Joana Viga Čiplytė, an historian who has written extensively about the history of the Panevėžys Jewish community, has been awarded the Gabrielė Petkevičaitės-Bitė medal “Tarnaukite Lietuvai” [To Serve Lithuania] in recognition of her work. Her first book was called “Mažosios Jeruzalės – Panevėžio žydų istorija. Holokaustas” [The History of Little Jerusalem, the Panevėžys Jewish Community: The Holocaust].

At the award ceremony Čiplytė said she was grateful to her family and to Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman for their support.

2023-06-14