Litvaks

LJC Members and Friends Recognized on International Human Rights Day

LJC Members and Friends Recognized on International Human Rights Day

To mark international Human Rights Day on December 10, Lithuania’s Department of Ethnic Minorities held an awards ceremony at the M. K. Čiurlionis School of the Arts in Vilnius and recognized the work of a number of members and friends of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, including architect and designer Victoria Sideraitė-Alon, LJC executive board member and president of the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club Semionas Finkelšteinas, chairman of the Klaipėda Jewish Community Feliksas Puzemskis, Vilnius Jewish Public Library director Žilvanas Bielauskas, violinist and member of the Fayerlakh Jewish song and dance ensemble Boris Kirzner, Fayerlakh chairwoman Larisa Vyšniauskienė and documentary filmmaker and television producer Lilija Kopač.

The Ethnic Minorities Department awards are distributed to members of ethnic communities, the media and NGOs for their work increasing ethnic harmony, encouraging cultural diversity and unifying multicultural Lithuania.

We sincerely congratulate all prize recipients on the recognition of their work forging a better future for the Lithuanian Jewish Community and Lithuania.

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Condolences

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and LJC chairwoman extend our deepest condolences on the death of Adolfas Šleževičius to his many friends and relatives. The Lithuanian prime minister from 1993 to 1996 was born February 2, 1948 and his parents rescued Jews from the Holocaust. His Government stabilized the Lithuanian economy not least of all through the re-introduction of the Lithuanian currency the litas, and through improved relations with neighboring countries in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union. He is the author of over 50 articles and two books. Both his parents were recognized as Righteous Gentiles in 1994 by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Commemoration and Education Institute in Jerusalem.

Upcoming Vilnius Jewish Public Library Events

Upcoming Vilnius Jewish Public Library Events

The Vilnius Jewish Public Library presents a lecture by Oleksii Chebotarov called “Topography of Pogroms: Spatial and Social History of Anti-Jewish Violence on the Imperial Peripheries” on December 15.

On December 22 the library will feature an evening of poetry and music by Leonard Cohen.

On December 29 the library will screen the made-for-tv documentary film “The World Was Ours” (2007) about the pre-WWII Jewish community of Vilnius. According to imdb:

“A documentary chronicling the rich, vibrant history of the Jewish community of Vilna (then Poland, now Lithuania) known as ‘The Jerusalem of Lithuania’ before its destruction in World War II.”

For more information, send an e-mail to vzvbvjpl@gmail.com or call 8 604 15765.

NATO 2023 in Lithuania: Rife with Political Pitfalls

NATO 2023 in Lithuania: Rife with Political Pitfalls

Photo: Outer wall of so-called Genocide Museum on Vilnius’s main street near parliament. Personal collection.

by Grant Gochin

One of the greatest public relations catastrophes of president Reagan’s tenure was his May, 1985, visit to a cemetery in Bitburg, Germany, which contained numerous members of the SS. Today, nearly four decades later, the visit is still remembered with anger, amazement and mostly, for America, embarrassment.

NATO has announced that the next meeting of NATO heads of state and government will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12, 2023. There are, unfortunately, obvious parallels to Reagan’s “goodwill” visit to Bitburg.

In World War II, and primarily in the second half of 1941, about 200,000 Lithuanian Jews–about 96%–were systematically expelled from their homes, robbed, starved, tortured, and brutally murdered primarily by ethnic Lithuanian death squads euphemistically referred to as “auxiliary police” units. Lithuania does not acknowledge the fact that most of the mass murderers were ethnic Lithuanians. To the contrary, Lithuania in many cases has elevated the stature of many of those who led the Lithuanian Holocaust, arguing that they were anti-Soviet. This itself is an echo of the Nazis’ canard conflating Jews with Communism.

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Alejandra Czarny Yiddish Music Concert in Kaunas Great Success

Alejandra Czarny Yiddish Music Concert in Kaunas Great Success

Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas reports the concert of Yiddish music by vocalist Alejandra Czarny and Michel Gonzalez on guitar in Kaunas was a great successe with the audience.

The concert was part of a series the Kaunas Jewish Community has been putting on called “Yiddish Hear Again in Kaunas.” This concert was called “Inspired by Grandmother’s Songs.” Czarny’s grandmother and that side of the family all came from Kaunas. She’s a transplant to south Florida from Argentina and charmed the audience with tango melodies along with Yiddish favorites, which became sing-alongs with the audience, and Alejandra Czarny’s own creations which at times evoked Venezuelan music, according to Gercas Žakas.

Alejandra Czarny and Michel Gonzalez were also scheduled to perform at the restored synagogue in Alytus on November 30.

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Split Identity: Jewish Scholarship in the Vilna Ghetto

Split Identity: Jewish Scholarship in the Vilna Ghetto

Photo: Exterior of YIVO building in Vilnius, ca. 1933. Courtesy YIVO.

by David E. Fishman

ABSTRACT
In this essay David Fishman draws a comparison between yidishe visnshaft, or Jewish studies scholarship, and Judenforschung, the Nazi field of anti-Semitic Jewish studies used to justify the persecution and extermination of Jews in scientific terms. He examines the work of Zelig Kalmanovitch, who had been a well-known scholar and co-director of YIVO before World War II, during the time when he was forced to produce scholarship as a member of the Jewish slave labor brigade assigned to the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in Vilna. Fishman notes the remarkable scholarly accomplishments Kalmanovitch was able to achieve in a time of enormous adversity. He also demonstrates several junctures in which Kalmanovitch, a meticulous scholar, omitted facts or altered scholarship in order to save lives. These dual impulses of preserving historical truths about Jewish communities and a willingness to obscure facts over which people could be killed contribute to Fishman’s assessment that Kalmanovitch’s scholarship emerged from erudition, love and dedication to the Jewish people about whom he wrote, the very opposite of the purposes for which his scholarship was obtained by his Nazi slave masters.

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On June 16, 1942, Herbert Gotthardt, a staff member of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in Vilna, instructed Zelig Kalmanovitch to prepare an essay and bibliography on the Karaïtes. Kalmanovitch, a well-known scholar and co-director of YIVO before the war, was a member of the Jewish slave labor brigade assigned to the ERR which segregated Jewish and other books, manuscripts and documents into two categories: valuable items to be sent to Germany, and valueless items to be destroyed. The former YIVO co-director was an expert bibliographer in this work brigade, nicknamed the paper brigade, based in the YIVO building at 18 Wiwulskiego Street. The brigade was headed by librarian Herman Kruk and consisted of twenty physical laborers and twenty intellectuals, including the Yung-Vilne poets Abraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski.

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Holocaust and Home: The Poetry of David Fram from Lithuania to South Africa

Holocaust and Home: The Poetry of David Fram from Lithuania to South Africa

Cover: Hazel Frankel, “Holo­caust and Home: The Poetry of David Fram from Lithuania to South Africa.” Legenda, 2021. 230 pp.

My mother started learning Yiddish late in life. I felt as if she was reaching out to her dead parents, trying to connect with them. Both her mother and her father were immigrants to South Africa from Lithuania, one from the town of Shadova, the other from Pokroy. My grandfather, Abe, who came from a long line of yeshiva bochers, attended the famed Telz yeshiva. Intellectually curious, he read War and Peace in the original Russian. Later, at the Claremont shul in Cape Town, he gave many of the Saturday afternoon shiurim, written in Yiddish but delivered in English.

His wife, Anne, for who I am named, was nine years his junior. They owned a dress shop in Cape Town and, before the war, Abe went on business trips to Europe to buy the latest fashions, often with specific customers’ needs in mind. Both Abe and Anne died in their fifties, several years before I was born. I know them only from photographs. Their sepia-toned wedding photo hung in our breakfast room, where we ate all our meals. Abe was short, wore glasses, and gazed solemnly at the camera. Anne seemed softer, gentler, and had a twenties-style headdress that looked like a shower cap. There were odd flecks of white on the image that I always imagined was confetti but must have been blemishes on the photographic paper or the camera lens.

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Condolences

Condolences

Righteous Gentile Janina Vansovičiūtė-Grigaliūnienė has died. We extend our deepest condolences to her friends and family members.

Janina Vansovičiūtė-Grigaliūnienė, then Janina Vansovičiūtė, lived in an apartment in Kuršėnai which her parents had rented with Sofia Vashkevitch, who was using forged documents showing she was Janina’s sister. After the war both girls returned to the Vansovičius home in Raseiniai. Janina and her parents Jonas and Natalija were recognized as Righteous among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust authority in 2011.

Lithuanian PM Says Plans for Litvak Museum at Sports Palace Bogged Down

Lithuanian PM Says Plans for Litvak Museum at Sports Palace Bogged Down

Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė told Baltic News Service the idea to establish either a museum or a memorial dedicated to the history of the Litvaks at the Vilnius Palace of Sports complex could turn out to be a long and difficult process.

“It’s on-going, but in order to create a truly meaningful and thus memorable site about the Jews of Lithuania, we’ll have to work hard. The commission will select ideas to be adopted by consensus,” she said.

She cautioned decision-making on the concept could become bogged down and generally difficult. She said this commission will include academics, rabbis, historians and others from Lithuania and other countries and is scheduled for formation by the end of 2022. The idea since 2015 when the Lithuanian state privatization bank Turto bankas acquired the property has been to turn the Palace of Sports built in 1971 and now falling into ruin into a conference center. Different Jewish groups have opposed that plan because the Palace of Sports was built inside the old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.

Happy Birthday to Daumantas Levas Todesas

Happy Birthday to Daumantas Levas Todesas

We wish you with all our hearts the very best, the greatest health, success in your varied endeavors and the joy and warmth of friends and family. You have served us so long in so many capacities it would take a book-length post to list them all here, not least being your work as the chairman of the Vilnius, Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community, as a member of the board of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and as chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council at the Lithuanian Department of Ethnic Minorities. Mazl tov. Bis 120!

New Yiddish Classes

New Yiddish Classes

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Mameloshn Club invite you to attend Yiddish classes taught by Rosa Beliauskienė from 12 noon to 1:30 P.M. on Sundays at the LJC in Vilnius. For more information and to register, write zanas@sc.lzb.lt or call +370 678 81514.

Yiddish Concert in Kaunas

Yiddish Concert in Kaunas

The Kaunas Jewish Community invites you to their concert “Yiddish Heard Again in Kaunas: Inspired by Grandma’s Songs” at 5:00 P.M. on Sunday, November 27 at the Kaunas Artists’ House located at V. Putvinskio street no. 56 in Kaunas.

Alejandra Czarny of Argentina and more recently the United States with firm family roots in Kaunas will sing accompanied by Michel Gonzales on guitar, including Litvak Yiddish from different periods and Yiddish songs from Argentina and South America. Besides singing Yiddish her entire life, she also has her own radio program and is a cantor for synagogues located in South Florida, where she lives.

The concert is free and open to the public, but prior registration is required by filling out the form here:

https://forms.gle/nkT9Ww3oouyf1RyC8

Jewish Scouts Hike in Pilaitė Neighborhood of Vilnius

Jewish Scouts Hike in Pilaitė Neighborhood of Vilnius

The hike by Jewish scouts through the woods in the Pilaitė neighborhood of Vilnius took place as planned on Friday evening, November 18. The cold wasn’t able to dampen their spirits. Thank you to everyone who took part and weren’t driven off by the light snowfall, and to the organizers. Stay tuned for more scouting activities in the near future.

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LJC Celebrates Tolerance Day with Darna Event

LJC Celebrates Tolerance Day with Darna Event

The first Darna event was held in 2020 during the corona virus panic. Despite many restrictions that time we were able to do more than we had expected, creating an entire virtual festival to mark the International Day of Tolerance. We tried to show during that tough time what diverse and interesting things we have right here in Lithuania, and how these differences are not only interesting, but complement one another perfectly. Today we are very happy to announce we can continue this event for its third year in a row, only this time we can meet face-to-face at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Everyone of all religious, ethnic and other backgrounds and of all views is invited to come have a cup of tea or coffee, listen to live music and sample Israeli street food from our Cvi Park kiosk starting at 7:00 P.M. on Wednesday, November 16, at the LJC. Note: please disregard earlier announcements which stated the event would be held at the Choral Synagogue. It will be held on the third floor of the LJC at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius.

The event program is available here. Musical performers, cooking workshops and meaningful conversations from the first Darna festival can be found here. More information about this iteration of the celebration can be found here.

#InternationalDayOfTolerance

Litvaks Who Came Back: An Exhibit

Litvaks Who Came Back: An Exhibit

Kęstutis Grigaliūnas’s personal exhibit “Litvaks Who Came Back from the Nazi Concentration Camps” will open at the Museum of Photography in Šiauliai at 5:00 P.M. on November 10. Grigaliūnas is a recipient of Lithuania’s Culture and Art Prize.

Natalija Arlauskaitė is the curator of the exhibit. She’s a professor at the International Relations and Political Science Institute of Vilnius University.

The exhibit features photographs of 335 Lithuanian Jews who survived and returned from the concentration camps with brief bios. A book of the same name as the exhibit, actually the source of the exhibit, will be launched at the opening. The exhibit runs till December 18.

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A Very Happy Birthday to Arkadijus Vinokuras

A Very Happy Birthday to Arkadijus Vinokuras

We congratulate our famous journalist, actor, write and all-around good person Arkadijus Vinokuras on the occasion of his milestone birthday. We wish you great happiness and personal fulfillment, excellent health and continued creative success! Mazl tov. Bis 120!

World of Trakai Executed in Varnikai Forest: A Fancy Menorah, a Mad Mob and a Leather Briefcase

World of Trakai Executed in Varnikai Forest: A Fancy Menorah, a Mad Mob and a Leather Briefcase

Photo: Trakai in 1952. From the personal collection of Algimantas Dočkus courtesy LRT.

by Rasa Kalinauskaitė

“Sir, I report that while inventorying the Jewish property taken to the synagogue I discovered seven fur coats suitable for police service. Three of them are of a yellow and unlined falling to below the knees, four are lined with cloth material, coming down to the knees. I request an order these fur coats be seized for police officers to wear as they perform their duties.”–from report by chief of Trakai police department to chief of district police, October 17, 1941.

I and a contingent of Trakai residents as well as two people who came from further off went on a tour of the Trakai Old Town, visiting sites recalling the Jews who lived here before World War II, stopping at former Jewish homes which are still standing. We became fellow travellers, in that those who toured Trakai in earlier times have shared their memories from many decades ago in the photographs they took, which show a town which has now completely changed. I wanted to share this with those who were not able to come, so I will attempt to describe this trip.

This is a journey through memory, because that same day, September 30, was the day in 1941 when the Jews of Trakai, Aukštadvaris, Lentvaris, Rūdiškės, Onuškis and Žydkaimis, 1,446 people of whom 597 were children, were murdered in Varnikai Forest.

Full article in Lithuanian here.

Jewish Scout Meeting

Jewish Scout Meeting

The Lithuanian Jewish Community will host a Litvak scouting meet at 3:30 P.M. on Thursday, November 10 at the Ilan Club room at the Community building at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius under the direction of scout leader Adomas Kofman. We will continue to learn about the scouting movement and engage in edifying and fun activities. All young people aged 6 to 18 are invited. For more information, write skautai@lzb.lt.