Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel chairman Arie Ben-Ari Grodzensky visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community last week where he learned about Community activities, met members and viewed archival documents. He noted progress in conserving and commemorating the Litvak heritage in Panevėžys.
Grodzensky was born and raised in Lithuania and also serves on the executive boards of the Goodwill Foundation and the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
A delegation of directors and students from the Leikund Yeshiva in New York City visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community recently. Most of them were members of the Frank family as well. They were interested in Litvak history and visited some of the mass murder sites. Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman told them about the history of the Jews of Panevėžys and about the Panevėžys Jewish Community’s activities. After visiting the Panevėžys Jewish Community the group went on to tour Jewish sites in Panevėžys including the Jewish cemetery, different locations in the city and Holocaust mass murder sites in the area.
Members and friends of the Šiauliai Jewish Community gathered at the Community building Monday to commemorate the late Sania Kerbelis who served as chairman for many years.
Special guest Rabbi Kalev Krelin provided a simple and enlightened exegesis of Torah as the basis for his eulogy of Sania and reminded those assembled that the best commemoration and compensation of loss is prayer and good works.
Community member Ričardas Pikelis recited his poem in memory of Kerbelis.
by Rabbi Moshe Martin Levin
Žilvinas Beliauskas WAS ALWAYS:
Tall and handsome;
Brilliant and articulate;
Talking in long sentences without taking a breath;
He always listened with both ears.
Always was an encyclopedia of so many subjects.
A true patriot who knew the shortcomings as well as the achievements of his homeland.
A husband in love with his wife Ieva.
According to diplomatic sources the Israeli leader’s visit to the three Baltic states had been planned for June.
“The dates of the visit have been adjusted due to the busy agenda of the Baltic leaders and the Israeli president,” press secretary for the president of Lithuania Ridas Jasulionis told BNS.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told BNS that she had canceled a trip several weeks ago after learning of the visit planned by the president of Israel. She added Herzog had planned to visit the Lost Shtetl Museum under construction in Šeduva, Lithuania. Herzog is the descendant of Litvaks with roots in Šeduva.
The summer Olympic Games opened in Paris Friday, and the Šiauliai Photography Museum hosted a presentation of an illustrated sports encyclopaedia called “Sportas Šiauliuose ir Lietuvoje (iki XX a. vidurio)” [Sport in Šiauliai and Lithuania (until the mid-20th century)] last Wednesday.
Author Jonas Nekrašius told the large audience the story of the birth of the genesis of the publication and thanked the collectors, museum specialists and other people who helped make the launch a success, giving copies of his book to them.
There was keen interest in the section of the book the on the history of the Šiauliai section of the Makabi Lithuanian Jewish sports and gymnastics society which operated between 1921 and 1940. The late chairman of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community Sania Kerbelis contributed heavily to that chapter of the book.
The Israel Antiquities Authority, Kultūros paveldo Išsaugojimo pajėgos, the Good Will Foundation, and the Jewish Community of Lithuania are pleased to announce the results of the fifth season of excavation at the Great Synagogue of Vilna (Vilnius) & the Shulhoyf.
On July 15 people gathered in Šiauliai to remember the liquidation of the ghetto there on July 15, 1944, when the surviving approximately 3,000 Jews imprisoned there were sent to Dachau and Stutthof for extermination.
Faina Kukliansky’s mother was imprisoned in the ghetto. She recalled: “I am here not just as the chairwoman of the the Lithuanian Jewish Community. I am the daughter of a female prisoner of the ghetto. My grandmother miraculously was able to save two of her daughters, but not the third one. I was named after her, Feigele, little bird.”
She said we were in the debt of the ghetto prisoners and the Jews who died for their concord and unity, and so their sacrifice will not have been in vain.
We report with deep sadness the death of Sania Kerbelis on July 11. He was born in 1963. His death followed his struggle with a chronic illness. Sania Kerbelis was the chairman of the Šiauliai District Jewish Community and the Šiauliai Jewish Religious Community. Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community extend our deepest condolences to his sons Doyvdas and Simonas and his many friends and family members. Baruch Dayan ha’Emet.
by Jurgita Šakienė, kauno.diena.lt
An international academic conference to mark the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto has begun at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. Called “Think about History, Understand Memory,” the conference includes researchers from Lithuania and abroad who will present Jewish life before and during the Holocaust through the lens of history, politics, social sciences, the theater and the arts.
“This anniversary is a powerful reminder of our collective responsibility to understand memory and to insure the lessons of the past inform our present and future,” Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein said during her speech opening the conference. Also giving welcome speeches were US ambassador Kara McDonald and Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas.
Germany’s ambassador Cornelius Zimmerman in his speech said, among other things, “It’s difficult to understand how these unspeakably brutal things could have happened. But they happened. I feel sadness, remorse and shame. It’s crucial to remember everything in order to prevent this from happening again.”
Full story in Lithuanian here.
July 15 is the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the liquidation of the Šiauliai ghetto in 1944 when the surviving 3,000 Jews were transported to Dachau and Stutthof concentration camps, condemned to die there instead. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and both Šiauliai Jewish Communities invite the public to remember and pay honor to the victims of the Šiauliai ghetto, the men, women, children and elderly who were murdered this July 15.
Program
11:30 A.M. Gathering at Šiauliai ghetto gate monument at the intersection of Trakų and Ežero streets to remember the victims;
12:00 noon procession to Chaim Frenkl villa at Vilnaius street no. 74 with stopover on Righteous Gentiles Square;
12:30 P.M. Commemoration of victims at Frenkl villa.
Transportation: there will be minibus to carry passengers to the event leaving from the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius at 8:15 A.M. on July 15. Passengers must register before the event (see below).
Registration: Those wishing to attend are asked to please register before 4:00 P.M. on July 12 by calling Liuba Šerienė at (+370) 5 261 3003 or by sending an email to office@lzb.lt.
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda presented Miša Jakobas the state award the Officer’s Cross “For Merit to Lithuania” at the Presidential Palace in Vilnius on Coronation of Mindaugas Day, July 6.
The long-serving principal of the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium was recognized for forging an education model for ethnic minority schools, for creating a school open to change with a modern educational environment and for providing bilingual education.
We are sad to report the death of Vitalijus Karakoskis. A long-standing member of the Community, an accomplished journalist, he was also the director of Menora, the Lithuanian state radio and television Jewish cultural affairs program which has been running weekly for decades. He was awarded the Stasys Lozoraitis prize by the Lithuanian Journalists Union for his work. Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and the entire Lithuanian Jewish Community extend our condolences to his wife Lilija, son Daniel and to his many family members and friends who knew and loved him.
Sonia Furman and husband visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community June 27. They live in Israel where Sonia’s husband served in the military as an airplane pilot.
Her mother Fryda was born in Panevėžys in 1919 and went to Memel/Klaipėda at the age of 14 for training for repatriation to Palestine. According to Israel statistics, 9.950 Jews from Lithuania did repatriate, but Fryda wasn’t one of them. She came back from the training course and moved to Šiauliai where she established a women’s clothing store. She married Yankel Furman from Šaukėnai in 1940 after the latter completed Lithuanian military service.
In August of 1941 the Šiauliai ghetto was established and Yankel and Fryda were imprisoned there. Sonia’s uncle Hershon was born in that ghetto in 1942 and was then murdered in the Kinder Aktion there.
Photo by George Kadish/Zvi Kadushin courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Museum.
The Kaunas Jewish Community invites you to a concert in memory of the victims of the Kaunas ghetto. The concert is free and open to the general public. Following the concert, a procession will make their way to the monument marking the former gates of the Kaunas ghetto at Linkuvos street no. 2.
Time: 3:00 P.M., Wednesday, July 10
Place: Great Hall at Vytautas Magnus University, Gimnazijos street no. 7, Kaunas
Dainius Žalimas served as the chief justice of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania from 2014 to 2021. He currently teaches. When protestors gathered to stop the city of Vilnius from taking down an illicit monument to wartime-era Lithuanian Nazi leader Kazys Škirpa, Lithuanian media went to Žalimas for commentary, because he had ruled in a case concerning Škirpa several years ago. The arrest of three protestors Sunday was followed by an unsanctioned but apparently announced protest in front of Vilnius City Hall Monday, where premade glossy posters were handed out to about 20 Škirpa fanatics, including one set of posters attacking Faina Kukliansky, the chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, for allegedly dictating political decisions to Vilnius mayor Valdas Benkunskas, who had called the Škirpa shrine, illegally installed on the Vilnius court building and former KGB palace, an act of “hooliganism,” which was later redacted by other members of the municipality to “vandalism.”
Dainius Žalimas posted to facebook regarding the legacy of Lithuanian Nazi leader Kazys Škirpa by quoting himself from an interview conducted by 15min.lt a year ago. This is an unofficial translation of his self-quote:
Some of us mark June 23 as a day of national pride and post photographs from that time of Lithuanian soldiers and residents joyfully greeting the Lithuanian insurgents and Germans, as well as photos of Soviet POWs being led through the streets. Yes, the Russian Bolshevik occupation had gone much too far for everyone. So there was no reason to feel pity for the occupiers. Under other circumstances we truly could’ve had something of which to be proud.
Journalist and writer Silvia Foti has visited Šiauliai for the second time to speak about her grandfather Jonas Noreika at the Šiauliai Jewish Community and his Holocaust crimes in Plungė, Telšiai and the Šiauliai district during World War II. She delivered a talk followed by a discussion and questions from the audience. We sincerely thank Silvia for making the visit and for her honesty and openness on this sensitive and very personal topic.
Lithuanian Jewish Community press release
Wantonly, without any sort of permission, representative of the National Unification Party (Lithuanian: partija Nacionalinis susivienijimas) Vytautas Sinica has initiated the installation of a plaque commemorating Kazys Škirpa on the façade of the Vilnius District Court building. This is both an administrative and moral crime.
The International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania has recognized the activities of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and the Provisional Government of Lithuania–both founded and led by Kazys Škirpa–as anti-Semitic.
“This is a monument to a man who led the organization which encouraged violence against Lithuanian citizens of a different ethnicity and fomented anti-Semitism. None of this is a subjective judgment or interpretation; these statements are confirmed by historical facts, sources and documents. The commemoration of this kind of person is a mistake and socially divisive,” the chairman of the Commission’s Nazi Crimes subcommittee and Millersville University professor emeritus Saulius Sužiedėlis said.
Other historians engaged in Holocaust research and international organizations are unanimous regarding the veracity of the aforementioned historical facts.
The Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania has issued as well an official finding of history which admits the actions of the LAF probably did encourage Lithuanians to become engaged in Holocaust crimes. The mass distribution of the LAF ideology led to the murder of 220,000 Jews living in Lithuania, or around 95% of the total Jewish population.
Heartfelt congratulations go to our young chess champion Daniel Ser from Šiauliai competing as part of the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club. He took silver in the European Union chess championship and met the rating requirements for FIDE to bestow the title of candidate chess master upon him and is now the youngest candidate for master in the three Baltic states. We are very proud of Daniel and his parents and wish him every continued success.
Lithuanian journalist Rimas Bružas has travelled to Germany to make a film about Lithuanian Jewish concentration camp inmates.
Currently he’s visiting Bergen-Belsen located about 65 kilometers from Hannover in Lower Saxony. Originally this concentration camp was intended for privileged victims including inmates from neutral countries and prisoners the Nazis were hoping to trade in prisoner swaps with the Allied countries.
In the fall of 1944 Bergen-Belsen began receiving transports from concentration and death camps such as Auschwitz and the inmate population grew from 7,300 in July of 1944 to about 15,000 by December, 1944. When British troops liberated the camp on April 15, 1945, there were about 60,000 prisoners there, almost all of them Jews. Anne Frank was among the 50,000 people murdered there.
The Bergen-Belsen memorial site continues to maintain memory stones inscribed by students from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius commemorating the victims of the Holocaust.
#WeRemember