Learning, History, Culture – Page 104 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Holocaust Victims Commemorated at Ponar

Victims of the Holocaust were commemorated at Ponar outside Vilnius April 2 on Yom haSHoah or Holocaust Day.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon, members of the community and Holocaust survivors placed wreaths at the central monument there, offered up prayers and placed small stones at the edge of the killing pits.

Kukliansky said this year’s commemoration didn’t include a March of the Living from the Ponar railroad to the mass murder site and that Lithuanian politicians weren’t invited. She said there will be larger commemorations in Kaunas and Šiauliai in July.

“The anniversary of the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto will be held on July 14 and that of Šiauliai July 15, and there is the 23rd [of August?], observed nationally. We decided to do without speeches, we will just attend,” she said.

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Yom haShoah May 2

For members who want to attend the Yom haShoah Holocaust commemoration on Thursday, May 2, in Ponar, a bus will leave the Lithuanian Jewish Community at 11:00 A.M. Registration is not required but there are only 45 seats.

Everyone is invited to attend a memorial concert at 6:00 P.M. at the LJC. Julija Sadaunykaitė on paino and Paulius Gefenas on flute will perform works by Ravel, Šenderovas, Mendelssohn, Debussy and Ibert.

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Righteous Gentile Vladas Drupas Has Died

Photo: Drupas in his Zlin 326A airplane, 2015.

With deep sadness we report the death of Righteous Gentile Vladas Drupas who rescued Jews as a young man. He was a rescuer and a pilot who flew up until his last breath. Let him go to his reward together with the other Righteous Gentiles who have passed on.

Drupas never considered himself a hero for rescuing Jews during the Holocaust. It was like pulling teeth to get him to even talk about the events of 1943 and 1944 in Šiauliai and environs where a silent battled against the Nazis took place in hiding individual Jews and Jewish families.

Virginija Skučaitė wrote about Drupas in the Kauno Diena newspaper in 2016. It was one of the last publications about the courageous man:

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Winged Senior Saved Jewish Lives in Youth
by Virginija Skučaitė
October 3, 2016

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It’s Easier to Rig a Memorial Plaque Than to Fix Lithuania’s Broken Reputation

by Markas Zingeris

In the last few days the restored memorial plaque was quietly replaced on the outer wall of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences dedicated to Jonas Noreika. The mayor of Vilnius kept his promise. It’s not so simple, however, to piece back together the shards of memory about our complex past. I will admit that Noreika both repulses me and attracts me. Like a riddle which will never be solved. Such a mess has arisen over him between historians and journalists that it’s spilled over into the largest newspapers in the world (and also, by the way, as grist in the mill of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine; in March the Eurasia Daily reported on Stanislovas Tomas’s attach with a sledgehammer, claiming the alleged “law professor” lost his patience because a war criminal was being worshiped and grabbed a hammer). And I’m also left with a conflicted impression from that discussion between the blind and the deaf which in Lithuania is called a discussion by historians of our most painful issues of the past.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2019-04-30

Famous Russian Actress Elina Bystritskaya Has Died

Famous Russian actress Elina Bystritskaya died April 26 at the age of 91. From 1953 to 1958 she was an actress at the Russian Drama Theater in Vilnius. Her father was the military doctor Abraham Bystritsky and her mother was Ester. Both are buried at the Jewish cemetery in Vilnius.

She passed away following prolonged illness.

She was born April 4, 1928, in Kiev. Her father hoped she would become a doctor or teacher and she was graduated with a degree in medicine, later working as a midwife and gynecologist. After delivering 15 babies, she decided to go into drama instead, and matriculated at the Kiev Theater Institute. A great beauty, her friends nicknamed her the Blue Sock. Initially following graduation she wasn’t able to find work, but began working in Vilnius in 1953. Fame shone on her when she acted in the film adaption of And Quietly Flows the Down (released in parts in 1957 and 1958). She was sent to Moscow to act and did so on the stage and film.

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Harbinger of the Holocaust: The Jewish Pogrom in Vilnius 100 Years Ago

When we speak of the suffering of Jews from Vilnius, we usually remember the Holocaust, the mass murders in Ponar, the Vilnius ghetto and so on. But the first pogrom in Vilnius happened much earlier. It began April 19, 1919, exactly 100 years ago. According to different sources about 60 Jews were murdered, and the perpetrators were never punished.

15min.lt

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2019-04-29

Jews Confronted with Resurrection of Monument to Holocaust Perp on Passover

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, honoring the rule of law, has condemned the wanton vandalism which destroyed a memorial plaque owned by the Vilnius municipality honoring Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika.

Despite our condemnation of violence and vandalism, we are left wondering by what system of values Liberal Party Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius on the day before the Jewish holiday of liberation, Passover, has “greeted” Lithuanian Jews with an order to create a facsimile plaque honoring the man who established the Šiauliai ghetto and to place it at the same location.

It seems the placement of memorial plaques in the Lithuanian capital corresponds to Šimašius’s personal likes and dislikes. In February of 2018 Šimašius criticized a commemoration of interwar pro-Zionist Lithuanian president Antanas Smetona, saying: “Vilnius is a cosmopolitan and open city and must symbolize these ideas. I am truly not a fan of the Smetona statue.” Apparently mayor Šimašius believes the multicultural legacy of Vilnius is much better symbolized by honoring a Lithuanian Nazi.

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The Referendum and Legal Certitude: Vote on Preserving Citizenship Won’t Solve Deep Flaws in Existing Institution of Citizenship

In a referendum this May, Lithuanian citizens will vote on amendments to article 12 of the Lithuanian constitution, the highest law in the land, to allow for the preservation of Lithuanian citizenship:

“Citizenship in the Republic of Lithuania is acquired through birth and other paths laid down in constitutional law. A natural-born citizen of the Lithuanian Republic who acquires citizenship of a country meeting the European and trans-Atlantic criteria chosen and defined by the Republic of Lithuania does not lose citizenship in the Republic of Lithuania. In other cases a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania cannot at the same time be a citizen of a different country, except through exceptions laid down in constitutional law. Constitutional law determines the procedure for the acquisition and loss of citizenship.”

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Condolences

Nobel prize-winning Litvak and American neurologist Paul Greengard passed away April 13. Although he was born in New York City, he was descended from Jews from Virbalis, Lithuania. He won the Nobel prize for physiology and medicine in 2000. He was born December 11, 1925 and died at the age of 93.

His mother died in child-birth and his father Benjamin remarried an Episcopalian. While studying at MIT Paul helped develop warning systems for attacks by Japanese kamikaze pilots. After World War II he attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he was graduated in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics. He decided to forgo graduate school in physics because post-war physics research was predominantly about nuclear weapons, and became interested in biophysics. Greengard began work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 1953 he received his PhD and began postdoctoral work at the University of London, Cambridge University and the University of Amsterdam. In 2000 Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel prize for physiology and medicine for their discoveries made in chemical and electric signal transduction in the nervous system. Paul Greengard used his Nobel Prize honorarium to help fund the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, an award for women scientists named after his mother and established in 2004 to shine a spotlight on exceptional women in science. He is survived by two sons. Our deepest condolences to his family, friends and many colleagues.

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Was There a Different Kind of Holocaust in Lithuania?

Photo: Šiauliai Jews lined up before being taken to Kužiai to be shot, July, 1941. About 8,000 Jews from the Šiauliai ghetto were murdered in the Luponiai Forest near the village of Kužiai.

[Note: Lithuanian Jewish Community member Geršonas Taicas responds here to an “explanation” by the Lithuanian Genocide Center issued several weeks ago which claimed the Holocaust was different, the ghettos were different and the Nazi regime was different in Lithuania than they were in other European countries. That controversial “explanation” has been criticized by the LJC, the World Jewish Congress and the Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel, among others. Presumably Genocide Center director Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė makes the claim–we don’t know, the “explanation” is unsigned–in the official apologetica for Lithuania’s native Nazis that Lithuania was the only country which pinned its hopes on independence on a Nazi invasion, among other falsifications of history (see Slovakia, Croatia, Estonia et al.). –translator]

by Geršonas Taicas, member, Lithuanian Jewish Community

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Maceva Documenting and Cataloging Old Jewish Cemetery in Seirijai, Lithuania

The Litvak cemetery catalog organization Maceva (www.litvak-cemetery.info) began documenting the old Jewish cemetery in Seirijai, Lithuania, last year and the work is almost complete.

During an international summer camp held August 6 to 19 in 2018, all surviving headstones were cleaned, cataloged and digitized. A total of 692 were found. Maceva has issued a map of the cemetery following the intense clean-up and cataloging there. The Lithuanian Jewish Community has partially funded some of the cemetery renovation and digitization project.

2019-04-12

Rudashevski Diary Now Accessible for the Visually Impaired

The Vilnius ghetto diary of Yitzhak Rudashevski is now available as an audiobook in Lithuanian, read by Justinas Gapšys. According to the card catalog of the Lithuanian Library for the Blind in Vilnius, the insert in the CD includes a text in braille. The very limited-edition CD is available at 5 branches of the Lithuanian Library for the Blind around the country. The book itself is bilingual with excerpts from the diary in Yiddish starting from the back cover and moving inward. The audiobook does not contain a reading of the Yiddish section.

More information available in Lithuanian here.

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David Irving Not Welcome in Lithuania

Friends abroad have contacted the LJC regarding a visit planned by Holocaust revisionist David Irving to Lithuania, Poland and Latvia from September 1 to 9.

Irving is a notorious and convicted Holocaust denier, and the LJC would like to thank Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius for his firm statement against Irving’s visit. Linkevičius said he had asked the Lithuanian Migration Department to add the British resident to the list of personae non gratae for whom entry to Lithuania is barred.

Poland’s foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz said Poland would also bar Irving. ““Negation of the Holocaust is not allowed by Polish law, therefore he will not be welcome here in Poland if he wants to come and present his opinions,” the minister said Friday according to the Times of Israel and Reuters.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2019-04-12

Response to Statement by Genocide Center “On Accusations against Jonas Noreika”

A response to the statement of the Genocide and Resistance Research Centrer of Lithuania of March 27, 2019, “On Accusations against Jonas Noreika (General Vėtra)”

THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE CRIMES OF THE NAZI AND SOVIET OCCUPATION REGIMES IN LITHUANIA

The Sub-commission for Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi Occupation Regime and the Holocaust

April 10, 2019

A RESPONSE TO THE STATEMENT OF THE GENOCIDE AND RESISTANCE RESEARCH CENTER OF LITHUANIA OF MARCH 27, 2019, “ON THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST JONAS NOREIKA (GENERAL VĖTRA)

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Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Visits South African Litvak Community

Photo: Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky visits the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky is currently visiting the largest Litvak community in exile, the South African Jewish community, from April 8 to 13.

Although the Community and chairwoman Kukliansky have long maintained close ties with Litvaks in the Republic of South Africa, this is the first official visit by the LJC.

In meetings with South African Litvaks scheduled for the morning of April 10 at the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre, Kukliansky planned to discuss issues surrounding historical justice, restoration of Lithuanian citizenship and possible joint projects to celebrate 2020 as the Year of the Vilna Gaon and Jewish History in Lithuania.

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On Historical Begging

by Segejus Kanovičius

Beggars ask for all sorts of things–money, drugs, clothes. The average passer-by looks at the beggar trying to determine if he really is in need, and often passers-by pretend they haven’t seen him.

There is a category of beggar in Lithuania which everyone seems to see, and everyone seems to agree they are truly unfortunate, but these beggars only receive donations a few times during the year. From the microphone. And they get wreaths. These are the murdered Jews of Lithuania.

They have been asking for donations for a long time but they don’t ask for much, just historical justice. And it’s not they who should be ashamed, but those who are reluctant to offer historical justice. And stingily keep it from Jews and the public. When the living [Holocaust survivors] remind them the historical truth must be restored, they, those who keep the historical truth away from our eyes, immediately turn wild, and call the beggars, the living and the dead together, agents of the Kremlin. Even though no one serves the Kremlin better than in this way, by attempting to portray a lie as the truth, through avoidance and by presenting public arguments which don’t stand up to any criticism.

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On Tragic Characters and Armchair Murderers

by Sergei Kanovich, poet and essayist

I began to write about General Vėtra and collect signatures regarding him with 16 other people who were not reactionary and did not seek to annoy Lithuania about four years ago. As I attempted then to warn high-ranking Lithuanian officials (as did the late Leonidas Donskis), the little songs sung by the Genocide Center and their rewriting of history hands all the aces over to the Dugins of the Kremlin.

Therefore the preamble to the article about reactionary figures who are annoying Lithuania is not acceptable to me, because the causal relationship is being confused, since nothing compromises Lithuania more than the anonymous finding issued by the Genocide Center which basically denies the Holocaust.

About the title: let’s imagine a title in which some Soviet NKVD or MGB agent who has compiled a list of people to be deported is portrayed in this way: “Comrade X Was Not an Executioner, but Siberia Wasn’t a Health Resort.” It doesn’t really work.

2019-04-09

Vilnius University Recovering Memory Diplomas Presented

Vilnius University is continuing its Recovering Memory program to remember and honor members of the university community, both students and staff, who were driven out of the university because of actions by totalitarian regimes and local collaborators and who were prevented from receiving an education, from carrying out academic work and from teaching.

On April 2 memory diplomas were issued to 85 former VU students and staff who were forced out of the university by the Nazis or Soviets.

This included 47 Jews who were removed from the university because of their ethnicity in 1941.

Family of Icchokas Meras Sends Thank-You Note

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, the Jakovas Bunka welfare and support fund, the Lithuanian Jerusalem Vilnius Jewish Community and the Kelmė regional administration held a ceremony March 13 to unveil a monument to the Lithuanian writer and Litvak Icchokas Meras at Icchokas Meras Square in the town of Kelmė attended by local students and teachers, members of the local government, fans of Meras’s work and guests from Vilnius, Kaunas, Šiauliai and Panevėžys.

The LJC received a thank-you letter from Icchokas Meras’s family in Paris in April.

2019-04-09

Statement Regarding Destruction of Noreika Plaque

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, based on the principle that justice does not flow from injustice, favors constructive methods for the solution of problems and outstanding issues, and therefore does not condone the wanton and perhaps even criminal destruction of the plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika in Vilnius.

This act, perhaps criminal, does not solve the underlying problems concerning the recognition of historical truth and insuring the respect due Holocaust victims. The LJC completely rejects any connection to this event and will refrain from further comment upon it.

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