Litvaks – Page 46 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel Sends Open Letter to Lithuanian Ambassador

To the honorable Lithuanian Ambassador to Israel Mrs. Lina Antanavičienė
12 Aba Hillel Silver Street, 17th Floor
Ramat Gan 5250606

Re: Republic of Lithuania Independence celebration

Dear Ambassador Antanvicienė,

Thank you for the ”save the date” to the Lithuania Independence Day celebration to be held on March 16, 2020. Unfortunately, we shall not attend. The Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel made a decision within its board of directors meeting of February 20, 2020, not to participate in the festivities until we have a sound solution to the proposed resolution to the Seimas by Mr. Gumuliauskas to absolve Lithuania and Lithuanians of their active participation in the Holocaust and in the murder of Jews during the period of World War II.

We have cooperated fully with the restored Independent Republic of Lithuania regimes in combating anti-Semitism and promoting historical recognition of that dark period of World War II between the years 1941-1945.

2020-02-242020-02-27

The Truth Heals: Grigoriy Kanovitch Interviewed by Son Sergejus

As the Vilnius Book Fair ramps up this year, Grigoriy Kanovitch’s “Miestelio romansas” (the Lithuanian translation of his “Shtetl Love Song”] is reappearing on bookshop shelves. The novel tells the stories of people in small-town Lithuania, including Jews, Lithuanians, Poles and Russians, in the period between 1920 and 1941. Kanovitch’s son Sergejus, also an accomplished author, interviewed him in a press release for the book fair.

How does Shtetl Love Song fit in the context of your entire corupus? How important is it that the Lithuanian edition has gone into its second printing?

Shtetl Love Song is my most personal book. It’s the most biographical. I wouldn’t say I’m spoiled by second editions. Of course there have been some. But I should consider the additional publication of Shtetl Love Song the most important. News of this made me extraordinarily happy.

2020-02-192020-02-27

Book about Samuelis Kukliansky Presented at Vilnius Book Fair

An autobiography in Lithuanian by noted Lithuanian attorney Samuelis Kukliansky who miraculously survived the Holocaust is available at the Vilnius Book Fair. His story is about maintaining human dignity and keeping alive that core of humanity in every person. The book “Samuelis Kuklianskis- teisininkas” [Samuelis Kuklianskis, Attorney] is for sale at the Vilnius Book Fair at the Adrena booth, booth no. 5D01, in hall 5.

2020-02-192020-02-27

Interesting Discussions at Vilnius Book Fair

This year’s annual Vilnius Book Fair will feature some interesting presentations involving Jewish topics.

At 3:00 P.M. on Thursday, February 20, Moi Ver’s “Ghetto Lane in Wilna” album will be presented by Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Lolita Jablonskienė, Nissan N. Perez, Yossi Raviv and Sigutė Chlebinskaitė in Hall 3. The discussion will be held in Lithuanian and English.

At 12 noon on Friday, February 21, Matilda Olkinaitė’s book “Atrakintas dienoraštis” will be presented by editor Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas with Dr. Irena Veisaitė, Laima Vincė and Neringa Danienė participating.

At 6:00 P.M. on Friday, February 21, Dr. Lara Lempertienė, Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas and Rimantas will present “Dešimt eilėraščių/Ten Poems,” a selection of poems by Abraham Sutzkever, at the Writers’ Corner.

At 3:00 P.M. on Saturday, February 22, the book “Žydų kultūra paveikslėlių knygose: Karaliaus Motiejuko karalystė (pagal Januszą Korzcaką)” will be presented by Anna Czerwińska and Iwona Chmielewska at conference hall 5.3. The discussion will be held in Polish and English.

2020-02-18

LJC Members Who Received National Awards Recognized on February 16

The executive board of the Lithuanian Jewish Community congratulated Community members who had received state awards on the eve of February 16, the pre-war Lithuanian Independence Day.

Vocalist Rafailas Karpis, named soloist of the year by the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theater and Linas Vildžiūnas, editor of the Seven Days of Art weekly newspaper and recipient of the Leonidas Donskis prize, were recognized. Daumantas Levas Todesas, an active cultural figure, supporter of culture and long-time member of the LJC, who was elected chairman of the Ethnic Communities Service for the term between 2020 and 2024, was also recognized.

Journalist and public figure Eugenijus Bunka, named Tolerant Person of the Year, was also recognized and sent a greeting to the audience on the eve of February 16. His brief address follows.

2020-02-18

New Exhibit Opens in Dulbin to Mark Lithuania’s Year of the VIlna Gaon and Litvak History

Information from the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry, URM.lt

A new exhibit called “Lithuanian and Irish Jewish History” opened in Dublin February 3 to mark 2020, the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon, declared the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Lithuanian Jewish History by the Lithuanian parliament.

The exhibit covers Jewish life in Lithuania from settlement in the Lithuanian Grand Duchy in the 14th century to the present and the history of Lithuanian Jews in Ireland.

Lithuanian ambassador to the Republic of Ireland Egidijus Meilūnas said at the opening ceremony next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations between the two republics, although Litvaks had brought the two countries together 150 years ago.

The event attracted a large audience, including members of the diplomatic corps, representatives of the Irish and Lithuanian Jewish communities, politicians, cultural and academic figures and reporters.

2020-02-18

Righteous Gentile, Librarian and Local Legend Ona Šimaitė Commemorated at Former Workplace

A commemorative event was held in honor of Righteous Gentile Ona Šimaitė February 12 in the Vilnius University library where she once worked.

As a librarian, Šimaitė carried books back and forth into and out of the Vilnius ghetto, and also messages. She also hid Jews and Jewish cultural treasures. Risking her life every day to help others, she was eventually discovered, arrested and tortured, but survived. She was one of the first Lithuanians to receive Yad Vashem’s Righteous among the Nations award in 1966.

Those attending the commemoration included Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Julija Šukys, poet, writer and translator Marius Burokas, editor Saulius Repečka, Judaica Studies Center director Dr. Lara Lempert, poetess Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, writer Saulius Stankevičius, literary critic Virginija Cibarauskaitė, members of the Jewish community and numerous others. Modestas Saukaitis, who does art restoration professionally, unveiled his own portrait of Šimaitė in the antechamber of the Lithuanian Studies Reading Room at Vilnius University during the commemoration.

2020-02-132020-02-27

Eugenijus Bunka Named Tolerant Person of the Year

Eugenijus Bunka was named Tolerant Person of the Year February 2 in Kaunas. Bunka is the creator of the Litvak Memorial Garden, a regional historian, writer and journalist. At the awards ceremony he said he was carrying on the work of his father, Jakovas Bunka. The Bunka welfare and support fund finances children’s camps, meetings at schools and other events.

The award comes from the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life, which has been giving the award since 2001. They said Bunka received the distinction for his many years directing the Jakovas Bunka fund and carrying out civic and educational initiatives, commemorating the Jews of Plungė, Žemaitija and Lithuania both in his own region and around the world.

The foundation said Bunka in 2019 undertook active educational work, refuting the wartime and postwar stereotype of Jews as Communists specifically in the administration in Plungė using arguments and facts. They also noted his research into Louis Armstrong’s Litvak foster parents in America, Leiba and Tilė Karnovskiai from Vilkija, Lithuania.

2020-02-122020-02-12

Donskis Prize Winner Linas Vildžiūnas’s Acceptance Speech

LRT.lt

The Leonidas Donskis prize was awarded this year to Linas Vildžiūnas, the director of the “7 meno dienos” [Seven Days of Art] weekly newspaper, by the board of directors of the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life and Jolanta Donskienė.

On February 2 the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life announced their annual award for Tolerant Person of the Year at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. This year that person was Eugenijus Bunka. They also awarded the Donskis prize to Linas Vildžiūnas. Leonidas Donskis was a philosopher, professor, the author of numerous books, a television personality, an advisor to the Lithuanian president and an important voice in the modern Republic of Lithuania.

Vildžiūnas was awarded the distinction “for his meaningful presence on the cultural scene which was unaffected by regime changes and fashion, and for his continuous reminder culture is a fundamental value whose quality is enriched by supporting dialogue and discussion. [And] for his long-time battle against forgetfulness, reminding us that only the maintenance of memory, however uncomfortable it might be, strengthens dialogue and empathy, that the memories of our grandparents and great-grandparents is of value for the younger generation rather than a fading memory. [And] for his belief and the example he set, showing that a strong civic attitude is able to withstand tendentious attacks, manipulations and efforts to ‘nationalize’ it.”

This is the speech Linas Vildžiūnas gave on acceptance of the Donskis prize:

§§§

Dear Mrs. Jolanta Donskienė, honored members of the board of directors of the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life, ladies and gentlemen,

In accepting from your hands this honorable award in recognition of my humble efforts, I am deeply moved and at the same time disturbed. The Leonidas Donskis prize set a very high standard, bearing in mind his irreplaceable role in our public life and academic discourse and his novel insights which have added to our lexicon of philosophy and sociology (take just for example his and Zygmunt Bauman’s idea of “liquid evil” in the final book coauthored by both thinkers). We all feel that void which appeared in public life on the loss of Leonidas Donskis, who was the most remarkable and sometimes the only voice of our intellectual elite.

2020-02-112020-02-20

Jewish Quarter of Vilnius: From Grand Duke’s Privilege to Soviet Demolition

Photo: Antokolskio street, 1940/Mečys Brazaitis

The spacious square by Žydų (Jewish) Street in central Vilnius now contains little else than a children’s playground, parking lots and a derelict kindergarten, but it was densely packed with houses before World War Two. Most of the houses were occupied by Jews and the area was the center of the city’s Jewish quarter.

Lithuania has dedicated the year 2020 to the Vilna Gaon and the History of the Jews of Lithuania. LRT English together with Vilnius University and Jewish Heritage Lithuania bring you a series of stories exploring Litvak history.

The official beginnings of the Jewish quarter of Vilnius date back to the 17th century when king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania Wladyslaw Vasa granted a privilege [charter] to the Jews to reside in this quarter. Jewish Street had this name even before that, so it is likely Jewish residents already lived there.

Full story here.

2020-02-11

Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community Commemorates Holocaust Victims

Local Jews and others gathered to commemorate International Holocaust Day on January 27 at a monument marking the ghetto gate at the intersections of Trakų and Ežero istreets n Šiauliai.

Members of local Jewish organizations, representatives of the Šiauliai municipal and regional administrations, students and non-Jewish local residents participated. Among those attending were Holocaust survivors Ida Vileikienė and Romualda Každailienė, former inmates in the Šiauliai ghetto.

Participants lit candles and laid rocks and flowers at the ghetto gate marker, and took photos for the #WeRemember International Holocaust Day campaign.

2020-02-10

LJC Members Gather to CommemorateInternational Holocaust Day

In 2005 the UN General Assembly proclaimed January 27 the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. On that day in 1945 the Red Army liberated the prisoners at the Auschqitz-Birkenau death camp.

All survivors were invited to invited to come to the commemoration at the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

An exhibit of paintings by Levas Saksonovas called Holocaust was unveiled on the third floor of the LJC, at the initiative of active LJC member, doctor and photo artists Robertas Skalskis and social programs director Žana Skudovičienė. The artist’s son Danilias and art historian and researched Vera Kalmykova presented the exhibit.

2020-02-10

Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Commemorates Holocaust Victims

On January 28 the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry and the Lithuanian Jewish Community held a commemoration of International Holocaust Day at the ministry.

“The Holocaust is a horrid scar on humanity, on the face of Lithuania. It is a wound which likely will never heal. Let’s hope and try so that humanity never experiences this again. We are endlessly grateful to all the survivors of the Holocaust who are with us here today. In celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon, we hope Vilnius will again become a center of gravity for the Jews of the entire world, as the Jerusalem of Lithuania once was,” foreign minister Linas Linkevičius said after presenting red roses to Holocaust survivors attending the event.

A student choir from the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium performed three songs in Yiddish and Lithuanian.

2020-02-102020-02-10

Israeli Litvaks Protest Lithuanian MP Gumuliauskas in Tel Aviv

Photos: Dr. Andrejus Aron from Vilnius, resident in Israel

Litvaks held a protest January 24 at the Lithuanian embassy to Israel in Ramat Gan, a neighborhood of Tel Aviv.

The Association of Lithuanian Jews Living in Israel under the leadership of former Vilnius resident Arie Ben-Ari Grodzenskis sponsored the protest, which was mainly attended by elderly Litvaks, most of whom were born after the war, their grandparents having been murdered in Lithuania in the Holocaust.

Despite cold weather and rain, they gathered to remember the 220,000 Jews who lived in Lithuania before the Holocaust and built the Jerusalem of Lithuania.

The picket was aimed specifically against Lithuanian MP Arūnas Gumuliauskas, the chairman of the Lithuanian parliament’s Battles for Freedom and State Historical Memory Commission who announced in mid-December he was drafting a parliamentary resolution proclaiming the Lithuanian state and nation innocent of participating in the Holocaust, because the state and the people were under occupation, first by the Soviets and then by the Nazis.

One of the signs at the protest read: “Gumuliauskas: no law can wash away Jewish blood.”

2020-02-072020-02-19

Lithuania’s Holocaust Memory: “Reliable” or “Unreliable?”

by Grant Gochin

Many South African Jews are descended from an immigration wave from Lithuania in the 1920s. Our grandparents seldom explained the context; here it is.

During World War 1 when the current territory of Lithuania was part of Russia, the Tsarist army conducted a mass ethnic cleansing of Jews. During that period, especially in the spring of 1915, a number of Lithuanians took an active part in murdering old Jewish men, women, and even children, and plundering Jewish assets. Lithuania claims the Russians were entirely responsible for the actions of ethnic Lithuanians. Lithuanians retained the stolen Jewish property.

Betrayal after betrayal followed and Jews began to leave for greener pastures. It was the lesser-educated and unemployed Jews who left Lithuania, while the intelligentsia stayed on, hoping life would improve. Instead, they were slaughtered.

The world knows of the genocide perpetrated in Lithuania in 1941 in which Jonas Noreika was responsible for the murder of about 14,500 out of the 200,000 murder victims (including my own family). The sharing of Jewish property was widespread and once again Lithuanians were enriched by Jewish property.

2020-02-07

Speech by Markas Petuchauskas at Commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry and the Lithuanian Jewish Community held a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 28. Markas Petuchauskas, the noted theater expert, art historian and professor as well as Holocaust survivor, spoke. Here is a translation of the speech he delivered to the overflow audience of Foreign Ministry staff, diplomats and members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community at the hall at the Foreign Ministry.

Perhaps the smallest of all is small group of former Vilnius ghetto inmates who survived. As a member of that group, I thought it would be best here today to share with those gather how I feel today and how I sense things. I feel good now. Because here prevails the solid principles of foreign minister Linas Linkevičius and his great spirit of courage. Linkevičius has never bent with the changing “line”…

Five years ago the Foreign Ministry, not the Culture Ministry, hosted the presentation my book in English, “Price of Concord.” From here it spread to the largest public and prestigious university libraries across Europe and all the continents. Beginning in North and South America and ending in the Republic of South Africa and Japan… Last spring the German translation was launched at the Leipzig International Book Fair and then it was presented in Berlin, again, at our embassy there. I’m not saying this to brag. The book preserves for the future the heroic spiritual resistance of many famous Litvak artists who ended up in the Vilnius ghetto. They opposed Hitler in their artistic work and his desire to tread upon the human dignity of the ghetto inmates.

2020-02-032020-02-19

Miša Jakobas Retires

Miša Jakobas has retired as principal of the Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius. Lithuanian public radio and television conducted the following in-depth interview with him about education, life and his thoughts about the future.

Miša Jakobas Talks about Problems in Lithuanian Education after Leaving Jewish Gymnasium

by Aida Murauskaitė, LRT.lt

At the beginning of January the former Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium principal and mathematics teacher took on a new job having nothing in common with the school, except that it does have something in common with Jews and math. He is now the executive director of the Lithuanian-Israeli Chamber of Commerce.

After half of a century you have left your job as teacher and the gymnasium which you yourself established three decades ago. How did you come to this decision?

2020-01-232020-01-27

Lithuania and Russia: Two Peas in a Pod?

President Nausėda of Lithuania has announced that he will NOT attend the World Holocaust Forum on January 23. He objects to Russia being a speaker at the forum while he wasn’t invited to speak. Lithuania accuses Russia of distorting history, so let us examine Lithuania.

Christmas of 2019 presented bountiful gifts for Lithuanian fascists and Holocaust deniers. The Lithuanian Government presented a false report that Jonas Noreika had not murdered Jews; rather, he was a rescuer. It published this fairy tale through Baltic News Service. The story is as credible as Santa coming down the chimney with gifts.

Father Jonas Borevičius was a friend of the Noreika family in Lithuania while Jonas Noreika was perpetrating his war crimes. When the Soviets entered Lithuania and put a stop to the murders of Jews, Noreika’s wife, sister and daughter fled. The USA declined them visas, so instead they went to Argentina because Noreika’s older brother Stasys was living there on a farm. (Argentina was also openly accepting other Holocaust perpetrators and their families at the close of WWII). The Noreikas remained in Argentina for seven years until Father Borevičius was able to assist them in obtaining visas to enter the USA, possibly even as their immigration sponsor. He was a devoted friend to Mrs. Noreika and accompanied her to Lithuanian social events in Chicago.

Full text here.

2020-01-21

Lithuanian President Talks about What He Thinks about the Holocaust

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda visited the Litvak Memorial Garden in the Žemaitija National Park last Thursday and said we can only wonder how many generations the country lost because of the Holocaust.

“Today there might not be many people still alive who experienced the Holocaust and we can only wonder how much we have lost, how many generations we have lost who didn’t live after that, because all of them could have contributed to Lithuanian and world development,” he said at the park, adding the Litvak garden is a unique idea brilliantly executed and commemorates the Jewish communities who lived in Lithuania. “It is a unique idea, brilliantly implemented, commemorating the Jewish communities who lived in Lithuania, and it also demonstrates how much they gave us. Of those people who came from Lithuanian, I look to the left now, I see David Wolfson, who gave the name to Israel’s currency, because, as the caretaker of the garden explained to me, the membership dues of the Zionist organization was called the shekel, and when the state of Israel was founded it took over this name,” the Lithuanian president said.

“Hermann Kallenbach was Gandhi’s friend from Rusnė. Again, a person who had great influence over Gandhi,” president Nausėda said, continuing: “Truly an extraordinary community to whom I bow my head, and with whom I feel sorry, although there is probably no right word, I just feel saddened and suffer this tragedy with happened many years ago, but which perhaps today is also still like an open, bleeding wound.”

He also said Litvaks should be given greater opportunity to engage in Lithuanian life.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

2020-01-212020-01-21

The Vilna Gaon: The Central Figure Who Made Vilnius the Jerusalem of the North

by Mindaugas Klusas, LRT.lt

The Vilna Gaon, the 18th-century sage from the Jerusalem of the North, has left behind a significant legacy of Jewish scholarship as well as many legends about his erudition and idiosyncratic devotion to the study of religious texts.

Lithuania designated 2020 the Year of the History of Jews of Lithuania, and 2020 is also the 300th anniversary of the Vilna Gaon. Lara Lempertienė, an historian and the head of the Judaica Department at the Lithuanian National Library, spoke with LRT.lt about the 18th-century sage from Vilnius.

While other nations are proud of battles and glorious buildings, Jewish history is about writing and books, Lempertienė quoted a modern rabbi. The Vilna Gaon and his town Vilnius, often dubbed the Jerusalem of the North, played a crucial role in this history.

Full text here.

2020-01-202020-01-21