Litvaks – Page 56 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Lithuania Faces Challenges Celebrating 2020 as Year of Vilna Gaon and Litvak History

Several months of silence have ensued since the publication of a shocking “explanation” with the features of gross Holocaust denial issued by a Lithuanian state institution, the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, published with no author attributed.

The “explanation” from this Lithuanian national historical research institution claims “the inhabitants of occupied Lithuania did not understand ghettos as part of the Holocaust” in attempting to vindicate Jonas Noreika’s culpability in establishing the Šiauliai (Shavel) ghetto, isolating Jews and seizing their property.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community not only believes these statements violate article 170-2 of the Lithuanian criminal code, but also desensitize the public to the Holocaust, and possibly intentionally and calculatedly encourage conflict in society and belittle and debase the memory of brave Lithuanians who rescued Jews from the Holocaust.

Just after marking the anniversary of the horrific Lietūkiis garage massacre and as we mark the 75th anniversaries of the destruction of the Kaunas and Šiauliai ghettos in coming days, we feel it is important to recall the roots and origins of the Holocaust in Lithuania.

2019-07-012019-08-08

Honorary Member of the Panevėžys Jewish Community

World War II began in 1939. Jews didn’t know this was the onset of hell for the entire world and especially for the Jews themselves. More than 60 million people died, and 6 million of them were Jews. Jews were shot and tortured to death in the concentration camps and ghettos.

Today the world community is grateful to those who saved Jews during the Holocaust.

Teresė Giedrikaitė is a frequent visitor to the Panevėžys Jewish Community. She is the daughter of Emilija and Juozas Giedrikas, who were awarded posthumously the Lithuanian order of the Life-Saver’s Cross. She is an honorable member of the Community. She was invited to attend the unveiling of the new Holocaust memorial in Biržai, Lithuania, but was unable to attend due to poor health. She spoke in an informal setting at the Community, telling the story of her parents who rescued Jews during the war.

She recalled painful memories lodged deep from childhood with tears in her eyes. She was four at the time. Neither time nor Soviet deportation has erased the painful recollections. Her parents hid a Jewish newlywed couple from Kaunas in their home in the small town of Vabalninkas.

2019-06-272019-07-01

The True State of the Jewish Cemeteries in Vilnius

The True State of the Jewish Cemeteries in Vilnius. Part of a Proud Past Which Must Be Protected

In the international sphere there has been no respite regarding preservation of the old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius (in the historical neighborhood of Piromont, now known as Šnipiškės): petitions are being circulated, the issue has even been raised in the United States Senate and there is the attempt being made to put a halt to plans to renovate the Palace of Sports building there. But are these disputes over the now-destroyed cemetery sufficiently well-founded?

The Soviet Era Destroyed the Šnipiškės Jewish Cemetery and Buried Its Memory

It’s important to look at the history of the Šnipiškės cemetery. The old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius established in 1592 or 1593 (although other sources say 1487) was for all intents and purposes closed in 1830, after which part of the cemetery was destroyed, with another part surviving to the end of World War II.

The Executive Committee of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted a resolution on October 15, 1948, to close the old Jewish cemetery. At that time it had an area of just over three hectares, a quarter of the size of the Užupis Jewish cemetery on Olandų street in Vilnius.

2019-06-262019-08-08

Remember Those Who Rescued Children from Druskininkai Summer Camp in 1941

When World War II came to Lithuania, the children were on summer vacation, many at Communist Youth and pioneer summer camps in Palanga, Kačerginė and Druskininkai. Stasys Sviderskis (1920-2011) was assigned leader of the youn pioneer camp in Druskininkai, where of the 150 or so children, 70 were Jewish.

Stasys was recognized a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem in 1997 and Lithuanian president Algirdas Brazauskas awarded him the Life-saver’s Cross. His elder brother Alfonsas saved Jews from the Kaunas ghetto and was named a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem in 1980.

When the war arrived on June 22, 1941, Stasys Sviderskis didn’t wait for instructions and collected all the children in his care to send them east away from hostilities. On the first day of war he managed to put the children on a train to Vilnius which continued a long journey to cities in the east in the Soviet Union. Despite the many dangers which confronted him, Sviderskis evacuated all of his wards out of Nazi-controlled territory and so all the Jewish children were saved. He was named a Righteous Gentile on October 6, 1997, with Yad Vashem also publishing a list of the children he rescued.

2019-06-252019-06-27

Yale University President Peter Salovey Visits Lithuanian Jewish Community

Yale University president Peter Salovey visited the Lithuanian Jewish Community on the last day of his visit to Lithuania on June 21.

Salovey, a descendant of the famous Soloveitchik family of rabbis who were followers of the Vilna Gaon, maintains close connection with his Litvak roots in Kaunas and Volozhin. One of his relatives was Max Soloveitchik, a Zionist who was a member of the first interwar Lithuanian parliament, an attorney and who actively fought for recognition of Lithuania’s independence at the Paris Peace Conference. He later became Lithuanian minister of Jewish affairs.

Peter Solovey is known for his theory of emotional intelligence. With John D. Mayer, he significantly expanded the scope of the concept and authored several of the field’s seminal papers, arguing people have widely ranging abilities pertaining to emotional control, reasoning, and perceptivity. In contrast to earlier theories of intelligence which held emotions in rivalry to reason, Salovey and Mayer claimed emotion could motivate productive outcomes when properly directed. He worked to develop models and tests of emotional intelligence such as the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. Salovey’s second area of research is in health psychology, where he applied social psychology principles to investigate the efficacy of information and education in promoting HIV risk reduction, early cancer detection and quitting smoking

2019-06-252019-07-01

Leonidas Donskis: When Will the Truth Finally Set Us Free?

Bernardinai.lt

In marking the anniversary of the June Uprising of 1941, let’s look at what the late Leonidas Donskis wrote in 2010.

I will admit that reading commentaries by political analyst Kęstutis Girnius on the Lithuanian Provisional Government and the Lithuanian Activist Front, and the allegedly small amount of academic research and documentation on these phenomena, I find myself hardly able to believe that a person whom I consider one of the soberest and keenest of our political commentators could write this. Without quoting from his earlier statements on radio and in print on this issue, I will present a link to a new comment by Kęstutis Girnius.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2019-06-25

Enchanting Pflaumen-Tzimmes

Bagel Shop Café cooks have been sharing some of the secrets of Litvak cooking this summer with the managers of a small restaurant in Merkinė, Lithuania, called Šilo kopa. They’ve been making bagels, herring and pflaumen-tzimmes together.

Pflaumen-tzimmes is a stew made of plums and beef often made for the Sabbath table and Rosh Hashanah.

Bagel Shop Café cook Riva remembers this dish well and still makes it according to a simple recipe: about 1.5 kilograms of beef (from the forequarter), bone, about 15 to 20 plums, about 1.5 kg of potatoes and 1 onion, which is later removed. Laurel leaves aren’t required, only salt. The flavor is enhanced by several tablespoons of caramelized sugar added at the end.

The beef is boiled with the onion for about 2 hours, the onion is removed, the plums are added for about an hour and later the potatoes. When everything has been boiled sufficiently, add 3 to 4 tablespoons of liquefied caramelized sugar.

2019-06-212019-06-21

Vilnius YIVO Headquarters Commemorative Plaque Ceremony Held

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invited guests and the public to a ceremony to unveil a plaque near the site of the former Vilnius headquarters of YIVO on Vivulskio street in Vilnius June 20. Those attending included deputy to the LJC chairwoman professor Leonidas Melnikas, the heads of YIVO, Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius, Lithuanian culture minister Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Jewish partisan Fania Brancovskaja and the mayor of Vilnius.

YIVO began in Vilnius in 1925 and was originally housed in the apartment of its founder and prime mover Max Weinreich on Basanavičiaus street (aka Pogulanskaya, Pogulnaka and Wielka Pohulanka street) in Vilnius. Dedicated to research on the language, literature, culture and history of Jews in Eastern Europe, the institute collected a large mass of documents and archive material from local Jewish communities before the Holocaust.

Architect and designer Victoria Sideraitė-Alon designed the new YIVO plaque.

Although much of YIVO’s material was lost during the war, some made its way to the provisional war-time headquarters in New York, which became world headquarters following the war.

2019-06-212019-06-26

Soloveitchik Family Exhibit Opens June 25 in Kaunas

Vytautas Magnus University pro-rector for international relations professor Ienta Dabašinskienė and Dr. Vilma Gradinskaitė are presenting a new exhibit about the famous Soloveitchik family of rabbis from Kaunas in Kaunas at the Valdas Adamkus Presidential Library located at Daukanto street no. 25 on June 25. Peter Salovey, an American psychologist, professor and president of Yale University, comes from this family and is scheduled to receive the regalia of an honorary doctorate at Vytautas Magnus University on June 20.

The Soloveitchik family is known for its many accomplished rabbis and Talmudic scholars. Their roots reach back to the early 18th century in Lithuania. They are Levites who are commanded by the Torah to sing in the Temple in Jerusalem. The surname comes from the diminutive of the Russian word for nightingale. The Kaunas branch of the family gave rise to the famous rabbinic dynasties in Volozhin and Brest-Litovsk.

The exhibit will run till the end of September.

2019-06-202019-06-26

Some Glimpses of the Unusual New Holocaust Memorial in Biržai

A ceremony to unveil the unusual new Holocaust memorial in the Pakamponys forest outside Biržai in northern Lithuania took place June 16 with over 50 people from around the world attending. Also attending were Lithuanian MPs, ambassadors, visitors from other towns and local residents and young people.

Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman, a member of the executive board of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, represented the LJC at the ceremony and presented a thank-you letter to Biržai regional administrator Vytas Jareckas. Sofia and Michael Tabakina of Israel, who arrived in Panevėžys on June 14 and who are frequent visitors, also attended the ceremony. Sofia’s family came from Panevėžys, Šiauliai and Biržai. Her ancestors were murdered in Biržai. As many Litvaks living in Israel do, every year Sofia Tabakina visits sites where her relatives were murdered in Lithuania.

2019-06-202019-07-01

Visitors Flock to Panevėžys Jewish Community for Summer

Achikam and Riva Shapira of Israel paid an unexpected visit to the Panevėžys Jewish Community on June 16 seeking information about their relatives, who previously lived in Kupiškis, then moved to Panevėžys with some relatives moving to South Africa. Achikam’s grandfather God Shapira and his wife Khana were born in Memel, which is now called Klaipėda and his grandfather’s brother David Shapira lived in Kupiškis and moved to Panevėžys.

Only migration saved the family from the Holocaust, except for the elder brother Mordechai Shapira who stayed in Lithuania and was murdered in Skuodas during the Holocaust. Family members still remember everything connected with their former life in Lithuania. Achikam donated some family photographs to the Panevėžys Jewish Community archives.

Sheryl Silber of the USA and Alin Silberg of Canada visited on June 17 after taking part in the unveiling of the new Holocaust memorial in Biržai, Lithuania. They told their family’s story. Their great-grandparents, Dora Dviera (née Zak, 1863-1932) and Harry Moishe Meirovitch were born in Panevėžys, as did their other great-grandparents Yakhvida and Liba Zak. Their great-great-grandparents moved to South Africa in 1906 while some of their relatives remained in Lithuania and died in the Holocaust. After viewing photographs at the Panevėžys Jewish Community, the two women expressed the desire to see Jewish heritage sites in city. The Panevėžys Jewish Community received new information about the Zak, Meirovitch and Silberg families.

2019-06-202019-06-25

Augustinas Savickas Memorial Plaque

The Augustinas Savickas Picture Gallery is pleased to invite you to a ceremony to unveil a plaque commemorating the late artist Augustinas Savickas. The ceremony will take place at the home where he lived and worked from 2008 to 2012, at Vytauto street no. 19 in Trakai, near Vilnius, at 12 noon on Tuesday, June 25. Participants include Lithuanian culture minister Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Trakai regional administrator Edita Rudelienė, actor Juozas Budraitis, sculptor Zigmas Buterlevičius, art historian Saulius Pilinkus and the son of the winner of the national prize for literature and art, Raimondas Savickas. At 12:30 P.M. the exhibit “I Love Trakai” of works from the plein air outdoor art workshop of the Savickas Art School will open at the Trakai regional administration.

Project supporters:

Savickas Picture Gallery, Basanavičiaus street no. 11/Teatro street no. 1, Vilnius

Raimondas Savickas: +370 699 63522, Birutė Savickienė: +370 685 62637

www.savickogalerija.lt

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2019-06-20

International Project Connects New York and Vilnius YIVO Archives

Lithuanian culture minister Dr. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas has met with YIVO director Jonathan Brent and YIVO head of archives Dr. Stefanie Halpern. In the meeting they discussed the implementation of YIVO’s Vilna project, a seven-year-long international effort to preserve, digitize and connect the pre-war YIVO archives in New York and Vilnius. The project aims at recreating the Strashun Library, one of the largest Jewish collections in Europe before the Holocaust.

The Lithuanian side expressed the hope that next year, when the Baltic country marks the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Litvak History, YIVO would loan the pinkas of the Vilna Gaon shul, a book of statistics kept by the Jewish community which is considered one of the most important documents testifying to the life and history of the Vilnius Jewish community.

Full story in Lithuanian on the Lithuanian Culture Ministry webpage here.

2019-06-192019-06-21

Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis Congratulates Writer Grigory Kanovich

Ministro Pirmininko sveikinimas Grigorijui Kanoviciui_EN

2019-06-142019-06-14

First Modern Litvak Scouting Summer Camp Starts July 28

Registration is underway for the first modern Litvak scouting summer camp called “History Continues”

When? July 28-August 2
Where? Kernavė forest (coordinates 54.857231, 24.868243)
Who? renginiai@lzb.lt, telephone 867216114

Lithuanian Jewish scouts will have their own sub-camp at the summer camp of the Kernavė group of Lithuanian scouts.

Cost:

First stage of registration (by July 7):

2019-06-142019-07-10

Lithuania Marks Day of Mourning and Hope June 14

Mass deportations to Stalin’s camps began on this day in 1941.

About 17,500 people were deported from Lithuania between June 14 and 18, 1941, (the fates of 16,246 have been determined so far), a number derived from the 4,663 arrested and 12, 832 people officially deported. The deportations were a huge loss and tragedy for Lithuania. Not all those deported were ethnic Lithuanians: about 3,000 Jews, according to various sources, were also deported and about 375 Jews died at the camps and in exile.

Jews deported to Siberia resisted the brutality and terror of the oppressive Soviet organs with a deep spirituality and faith. In 1941 about 1.3 percent of the total Lithuanian Jewish population were deported, and as a percentage constitute the largest group by ethnicity deported from Lithuania.

Santariškės Children’s Hospital doctor Rozalija Černakova tells the story of what happened to her grandfather and family. Her grandparents were deported with their families. Rozalija’s parents were still children when they were deported: her mother 11 and her mother’s brother 8. They were sent to the Altai region. That’s where Rozalija was born.

2019-06-142019-06-26

Lithuanian Supreme Court to Hear Noreika Appeal

Grant Gochin, an LA-resident Litvak as well as a Lithuanian citizen and a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, has reported the Lithuanian Supreme Court will hear his appeal of a lower court’s dismissal of his case against the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania regarding the latter’s finding WWII-era Lithuanian captain Jonas Noreika was not culpable in Holocaust crimes. As reported earlier, Gochin has been waging a battle for several years now to have the finding reversed and a commemorative plaque to Noreika removed from its location in central Vilnius. Following the earlier court’s finding Gochin didn’t have “standing,” the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania issued a non-attributed document which the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) said fell within its definition of anti-Semitism.

IHRA response here.

Gochin’s appeal here.

2019-06-132019-06-13

Commemorative Plaque to Mark Site of Former YIVO HQ in Vilnius

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite the public to attend an unveiling ceremony of a plaque to commemorate the site of the former headquarters of YIVO in Vilnius at 3:00 P.M. on June 20 at the building now located at Vivulskio street no. 18 in Vilnius. YIVO, the most significant center for the study of Jewish culture, history and languages in Eastern Europe, was located near this site from 1925 to 1941. Its founder moved its activities to New York which became world headquarters following the German invasion in 1941.

Participants at the ceremony are to include YIVO director Jonathan Brent and YIVO board of directors deputy chairwoman Irene Pletka.

2019-06-132019-06-20

Vilna Gaon Texts Placed on Lithuanian Memory of the World Registry

Lithuania’s Memory of the World registry now contains the manuscripts of the Vilna Gaon and a manuscript fragment by Simonas Daukantas, the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library reported.

The 18th century manuscripts of Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, the Vilna Gaon, are a collection of works published in different cities and countries of Europe between 1799 and 1940. They include several very rare publications and almost all of them exist as a single copy in Lithuania.

The library said the Vilna Gaon never published any of his texts, but his teaching was scrupulously written down and compiled by his students, sons and sons-in-law and were edited and published after his death.

2019-06-132019-06-19

Sabbath with Designer Agnė Kuzmickatė

For a number of years now the Lithuanian Jewish Community has been inviting artists and special guests to celebrate Sabbath with the community. Last Friday LJC executive director Renaldas Vaisbrodas presented Lithuanian designer Agnė Kuzmickatė to members. She holds a doctorate and is sometimes called butterfly queen because of her use of her butterflies in her designs.

Renaldas led the discussion and tendered questions to the famous young designer, starting with questions about her family. Her father is the philosopher Bronislovas Kuzmickas, PhD, who was a founding member of Sąjūdis, the Lithuanian independence movement, who went on to become a member of parliament, a signatory to the Lithuanian declaration of the restoration of independence and served as deputy to parliamentary speaker Vytautas Landsbergis.

Agnė Kuzmickatė’s grandmother Gita Jekentienė was at a children’s summer camp in Palanga, Lithuania, when World War II arrived. She and some of the other children were evacuated to safer locations in the Soviet Union. When she spoke of her family, Agnė Kuzmickatė repeatedly returned to her grandmother Gita’s experience and said she only know understood how her grandmother’s environment shaped her. She said she and her grandmother often spoke about Jewish identity, about the Yiddish language and the tragic loss of family, all of whom, except for her grandmother’s brother, were murdered at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas. Returning to Lithuania after the war, her grandmother experienced all sorts of bullying and name-calling because she was Jewish. Agnė Kuzmickatė said she had never experienced this and everyone at school respected her because of her father’s activities on behalf of independent Lithuania.

2019-06-112019-06-17