A presentation and ceremony to unveil a statue to commemorate Abraham Mapu will be held at 5:00 P.M. on May 3 in Kaunas. The ceremony will take place in the courtyard of the Ars et Mundus art gallery located at A. Mapu street no. 20 in Kaunas. The sculptor was Martynas Gaubas. The event will include Jewish music. Ars et Mundus is the author of the project and Artkomas and the Kaunas Jewish Community are partners.
Vilnius Ghetto Diary makes Top 7 List of Lithuanian Books for April
The Vilnius Ghetto Diary of Yitzhak Rudashevski was named as one of the top 7 books for April on the 15min.lt website’s monthly list. The diary was recently published in Lithuanian translation with the original Yiddish provided as the second half of the book. Other works recommended on the list included Lithuanian translations of Abraham B. Yehoshua’s Mar Mani [Mr. Mani], Isabel Allende’s Más allá del invierno [In the midst of Winter] and others, and original Lithuanian works such as Marius Burokas’s latest book of poetry Švarus buvimas [Clean Existence].
Vilnius Regional Jewish Community Established
Vilnius, April 26, BNS–A new Vilnius Regional Jewish Community is being established and will be headed by long-standing president of the Makabi Lithuanian Athletics Club Semionas Finkelšteinas.
Representatives of the association reported its establishment Thursday.
This has made more acute a conflict between Jewish organizations. Vilnius Jewish Community leader Simonas Gurevičius is angry not all who wanted were able to participate in the new organization’s establishment and said the new community is being established solely to support Lithuanian Jewish Community leader Faina Kukliansky.
A press release from the new organization Thursday said the Vilnius Regional Jewish Community “will actively bring together Jews of the Vilnius region who are in favor of working constructively” with the Lithuanian Jewish Community, regional Jewish communities and social organizations, and will also represent the social, cultural and political interests of Jews living in Vilnius and surrounding areas. The statement said the new organization will bring community old-timers and the powers of youth together for joint activity.
Monument to Jan Zwartendijk in Kaunas
Kaunas deputy mayor Simonas Kairys Thursday announced the plan to commemorate Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk who rescued Jews during World War II.
Following four years of work between partners in Lithuania and the Netherlands, the deputy mayor said: “This day is truly extraordinary. Kaunas is like an outdoor museum city with many strata and signs testifying to different time periods. I think Kaunas has demonstrated many times over the city is strong when its content is strong and when the city is able to show that content to others.
Honorable Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk issued so-called Curaçao end-visas to complement Japanese transit visas Chiune Sugihara issued Jews in Kaunas during the early days of World War II.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Old Užupis Jewish Cemetery Renovation Proposals
The Vilnius municipality is preparing proposals for renovating the old Užupis Jewish cemetery in Vilnius. The municipality’s planning agency Vilnius Plan has hired architect Victoria Sideraitė-Alon for this purpose and she has performed an examination of the territory and has provided proposals on how best to showcase fragments of headstones desecrated by the Soviets.
Sideraitė-Alon’s creative group (Samuel Bak is the author of the main symbol, A. Šimanauskas is the creator/designer, A. Perelmuter is the Israeli architect and consultant) has proposed a project called Arch, which was unanimously approved by an international advisory group on heritage issues established at the Lithuanian Jewish Community and by artists and intellectuals including P. Morkus, M. Ivaškevičius, S. Beržinis, S. Valius and by the Jewish Religious Community and the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.
The Arch project proposal has not received the approval of the Vilnius Plan agency, which instead proposed a different project to commemorate the road blazed through the cemetery during the Soviet era, actually more of a ditch, called Kirkuto alley, but without any monument carrying a deeper semantic or emotional content. Instead, the alternate proposal is for arranging the headstones and fragments, more or less appearing now as stairs, in an artificial layer of soil above the parking lot where they are now housed to create the effect of a small “Jewish” graveyard there.
Ukmergė Regional History Museum Exhibit on Interwar Jewish Photographers
The exhibit “The Fate of M. Levi and S. Bajer, Interwar Lithuanian Photographers” will open at 4:00 P.M. on May 18 and will run till July 1 at the Ukmergė Regional History Museum in Ukmergė, Lithuania.
More information is available in Lithuanian here.
Litvak Studios Exhibit
The Savickas Art School is opening another exhibit of works at 6:00 P.M. on April 27 at the Savickas Picture Gallery located at Basanavičiaus street no. 11/1. The latest exhibit is one in a series of exhibits called Stories, whose patron is MEP Petras Auštrevičius. This particular exhibit is called Litvak Studios and features some of the best work by students studying under Savickas at the LJC. This exhibit will run till May 22. The Savickas Art School has operated at the Lithuanian Jewish Community since 2015.
Vilnius Sholem Aleichem ORT Jewish Gymnasium Celebrates 70th Anniversary of State of Israel
The Sholem Aleichem ORT Jewish Gymnasium in Vilnius celebrated Israeli’s 70th birthday Thursday with pride and enthusiasm. Teachers, students and parents were joined by principal Miša Jakobas and Lithuanian prime minister Saulius Skvernelis. Also speaking were Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, leaders of regional Lithuanian Jewish communities, members of the Lithuanian parliament and Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius. Among other things, the speakers talked of Israel’s strength, achievements, discoveries and inventions of global significance and of Israel as an example for Lithuania to follow.
The event featured an orchestra and students from all grades performing song and dance. Teachers also sang and parents brought dishes for an outdoors potluck on the school’s playground and athletics field.
Memorial Plaque Unveiled on Ninth Fort Mass Murder Field
At the field of mass murder at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas a ceremony to unveil a memorial plaque took place April 13. The plaque commemorates the Jews deported from Frankfurt murdered on November 25, 1941, at the Ninth Fort.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon, deputy Lithuanian foreign minister Darius Skusevičius, Kaunas municipality deputy director of administration Nijolė Putrienė, Frankfurt Administration Cultural Department director Johannes Promnitz and representatives of the Brueder-Schoenfeld Forum participated. The memorial plaque was the result of cooperation between the Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum, the Kaunas municipality, the Brueder-Schoenfeld Forum organization and the Frankfurt municipality.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė Congratulates Israel on Independence Anniversary
Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė greeted Israeli president Reuven Rivlin on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence. She wished the State of Israel and all of its people peace, unity and success on the occasion of this important milestone.
“The head of state said Lithuania is proud of its active Jewish community and our shared history, human relations and growing mutual understanding.”
Full press release in English here.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Congratulates Israel on 70 Years of Independence
Lithuanian prime minister Saulius Skvernelis greeted Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and all the Israeli people on the 70th anniversary of Israeli independence.
“I wish the people of Israel peace, security, constant well-being and all manner of success. Lithuania highly esteems our partnership with Israel. The close ties between Israel and Lithuania have contributed to the comprehensively developing, very friendly and intense relations between our countries. We take great joy in the contribution Lithuanian Jews made to the founding of the State of Israel. I am certain our great cooperation–both bilaterally and at the international level–will continue to take place in a spirit of mutual understanding and will thus strengthen the ties between our people,” the Lithuanian PM said in his greeting.
PM Skvernelis also invited his Israeli counterpart to visit Lithuania which this year is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the restoration of her statehood.
Notice Concerning Mini-Maccabiah Games
The Makabi Lithuanian Athletics Club is an associate member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
Following the statement by four regional Jewish communities (Klaipėda, Vilnius, Šiauliai and Ukmergė) expressing lack of confidence in the leadership of the LJC, which may be understood additionally as a lack of confidence in the leaders of the athletics club, we are compelled to state that the position of the aforementioned four LJC members does not reflect the opinion of the majority of LJC association members, of which there are 28.
In light of the situation which has arisen, it would not be appropriate to hold the Mini-Maccabiah Games in Klaipėda, because this could give the wrong impression to Lithuanian Jews and could be misinterpreted as some sort of support of the position adopted by the Klaipėda Jewish Community.
We will announce a new date and venue for the Mini-Maccabiah Games in the near future.
Semionas Finkelšteinas, president
Makabi Lithuanian Athletics Club
Užupis Jewish Cemetery Commemorative Monument Proposal Approved by LJC Advisory Group
The heritage issues advisory group of the Lithuanian Jewish Community has learned of plans for renovating the Užupis Jewish cemetery tendered by the Vilnius municipality and a composition called Arch made of desecrated headstone fragments used as stairs during the Soviet era.
The international creative team behind the Arch are architect Viktorija Sideraitė Alon, creator/designer Albinas Šimanauskas and Israeli architect consultant Anna Perelmuter. The composition uses a symbol created by the Litvak American painter Samuel Bak.
The heritage issues advisory group of the Lithuanian Jewish Community helps solve outstanding Lithuanian Jewish heritage issues professionally and effectively. The group includes Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, POLIN Polish Jewish museum advisor to the director and senior curator of exhibits; Assumpció Hosta, general secretary of the AEPJ; writer Sergejus Kanovičius, founder of Maceva and the Šeduva Jewish Memorial Fund; professor James E. Young of University of Massachusetts, Near Eastern Studies, English, Judaism; Samuel Kassow, doctor of philosophy, POLIN senior researcher specializing in 19th century history and the history between the world wars; Lyudmila Sholokhova, PhD, YIVO director of archives and library; and Sergey Kravtsov, senior researcher, Jewish Art Center, Hebrew University.
Experts unanimously supported the artists’ idea for commemorating the Jewish cemetery and offered a number of useful suggestions and observations which will be taken into consideration.
This week members of the advisory group plan to discuss the project proposals with the mayor and city administration specialists.
Later the project ideas and visualizations will be presented to the public.
Film “My Vilnius” at the LJC
The Lithuanian Jewish Community began marking Yom haShoa with a screening of the documentary film “My Vilnius” about centuries-old Jewish Vilna life snuffed out in the Holocaust.
Directors Saulius Beržinis and Vytautas Gradeckas and photographer Rimantas Dichavičius attended the screening on April 10. The soundtrack featured works by composer Anatolijus Šenderovas. At the same event an exhibit of works by graphic designer Ovidijus Talijūnas was also launched. Called “Manologas,” each picture features a letter of the Yiddish alphabet and an interpretation of the letter’s meaning.
The images of a lost world on screen with all the people, buildings, cemeteries and synagogues reminded the audience Vilnius was the Jerusalem of Lithuania before the Holocaust, sometimes called the spiritual center of Jewry. With that in mind, we listened intently on the eve of Holocaust Day, Yom haShoa, to photographer Rimantas Dichavičius who managed to capture something of what left after the Holocaust in Vilnius, namely, the Jewish cemetery on Olandų street destroyed in 1965.
Headstones were used as construction material and over the decades the approximately 10-hectare territory was overgrown with bushes and trees. The territory is currently being put in order and should feature a monument soon.
LJC Holds Passover Camp
The Lithuanian Jewish Community offered children on school vacation the chance to attend a Passover camp. For three days boys and girls participated in events, under the supervision of camp counselors and teachers, including chemistry experiments, making Jewish souvenirs, dance classes, learning “Lego engineering” and a tour of Jewish sites in Vilnius.
Television personality Karina German and Nikita Jusupovas participated at the closing ceremony April 5.
Some of the thoughts among parents, children and camp counselors:
Viljamas: “It’s very good the community holds these kinds of camps during vacation. My children–I have two–enthusiastically participate in these programs. It’s important children get more information about their culture and traditions. I myself grew up in the community, and I think we see a continuity of events and activities, when children attend Jewish community camps. It’s very important for us to preserve our traditions and culture. I am a professional guide. My mission is to teach my children about history, heritage the culture of Lithuanian Jews. Today I told my children the story of ORT and we walked around Jewish Vilnius. The children liked it. I’m hoping they’ll want to learn more about the history of our city in the future as well.”
Yom haShoa Commemoration at the LJC
Holocaust Day or Yom haShoa was marked at the Lithuanian Jewish Community Thursday with the sound of a siren blaring and standing in silence in memory the victims.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky recalled the family members she lost to the Holocaust buried in Kaktiškės, Lithuania. She lit a candle and recited their names. Survivors Mina Frishman, Shapsai Kholem and Fania Brancovskaja also lit candles, as did Ruta Kaplinsky, the daughter of Shmuel Kaplinski who guided a group escaping the Vilnius ghetto through the sewer.
Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon lit a candle in honor of those who heroically opposed the Holocaust, those who rescued Jewish children and the brave fighters and partisans. The ambassador spoke of the Warsaw Uprising; Israeli president Reuven Rivlin was in Warsaw today to mark the 75th anniversary of the uprising.
About 240,000 Jews lived in Lithuania before the Holocaust. Almost every town and village had a Jewish community. There are about 250 Jewish mass murder and mass grave sites known in Lithuania.
Come Watch Meyn Vilne Film
You’re invited to a screening of the first part, “People and Stones,” of the documentary film “Meyn Vilne” at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, April 10, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius.
Kaunas Jewish Community Celebrates Passover
Armed with a festive mood members of the Kaunas Jewish Community met for one of the happiest times of the year to commemorate the liberation of the Jewish people from the Land of Egypt and to celebrate the coming of spring during Passover. There was a musical program and a quiz to test knowledge of holiday traditions. The winners–Filomena Jančiuvienė, Raja Verblinskienė and Robertas Baltusevičius–received health-care products as prizes. It was endlessly good to see how warmly members got along and how much fun we all had together, without regard to age.
Beloved and much-missed Fayerlakh musicians Michailas and Leonardas helped put the icing on the cake and seemed willing to play till dawn.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community Social Programs Department and the Goodwill Foundation financed the event.
Condolences
Sara Ginaitė-Rubinson died April 2. She was born March 17, 1924. She joined the underground resistance in the Kaunas ghetto, fought as a Jewish partisan, married a fellow partisan and was a professor of political science at Vilnius University after the war. She moved to Canada with her two daughters in 1983 following the death of her husband. She was the author of numerous books and was an outspoken proponent of Holocaust education in Lithuania. Her book “Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas, 1941–1944” was published in Canada and won the Canadian Jewish Book Award for Holocaust History in 2008. She wrote several books about the Holocaust and lost Lithuanian Jewish communities in Lithuanian, including “Žydų tautos tragedijos Lietuvoje pradžia” [The Beginning of the Tragedy of the Jewish People in Lithuania].
The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends its deepest condolences to Sara’s entire family in Canada and her many friends in Lithuania. Her deep commitment to the memory of those murdered lives on.
Lithuanian Jewish Community Responds to Proposed Legislation to Censor “Goods”
The Lithuanian Government has sent proposed amendments on the consumer-protection law to parliament for consideration which would ban sales of goods which “distort the historical facts of Lithuania or belittle Lithuania’s history, independence, territorial integrity and constitutional order.”
Proponents of the amendments say they’re needed to stop sales of toys which allegedly commemorate the incorporation of the Crimean Peninsula into the Russian Federation. Lithuanian legal, trade and consumer experts say the amendments aren’t specific and that anything which is sold is a “good,” meaning the law could be used to censor books.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky has made the following statement regarding the matter:
“These kinds of amendments without precise explanation raise well-founded concerns and recall the dark times of government censorship. History and the writing of annual chronicles are two different things. Historical memory, especially concerning our country’s greatest historical tragedy, the Holocaust, is still in its beginning stages and probably won’t ever be final. These sorts of foolish, misguided attempts by the Government to protect consumer rights have given rise to anger, with foundation, in the international Jewish community. In Europe, where anti-Semitism is on the rise, and especially in Central and Eastern Europe, where laws are being passed on the ‘appropriate’ interpretation of history, Lithuania must remain open and democratic. Freedom of speech and human rights must be insured in our country just as actively as the calls to fight for the protection of consumer rights through these amendments.”