Learning, History, Culture – Page 24 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Grosse Aktion Marked in Kaunas

Members of the Kaunas Jewish Community and the general public turned out on the last weekend in October to mark the anniversary of the Grossaktion, the mass murder operation during which around 10,000 Jews were taken from the Kaunas ghetto and murdered at the Ninth Fort in a 25-hour period on October 28 and 29, 1941.

The entire population of the Kaunas ghetto was assembled on Democrat Square inside the ghetto where Gestapo officer Helmut Rauca personally selected many of the victims. Rauca later found refuge in Canada, where he opened a holiday resort on a lake in Ontario. He was never tried.

2023-11-062023-11-06

British Columbia, Ontario Make Holocaust Education in Middle, High School Mandatory

Photo: Marilyn Sinclair’s Holocaust education group Liberation 75 is sending free copies of a middle school title To Hope and Back: The Journey of the St. Louis to 6th grade classrooms across Ontario as part of an initiative named for her father Ernie, a Holocaust survivor. Photo by Nazima Walji/CBC.

As Holocaust Education Becomes Compulsory in Some Provinces, Advocates Call for Wider Adoption

Curriculum changes in Ontario and British Columbia to take effect in 2025

by Jessica Wong, CBC News, November 6, 2023

Marilyn Sinclair says she’s feeling “pretty great” about Ontario’s new requirement that sixth-graders learn about the Holocaust.

Sinclair, founder of Holocaust education organization Liberation 75, is responding to more than 8,000 requests for copies of a book from 6h grade teachers across the province. Told from a child’s perspective, the book recounts the real-life story of the St. Louis, a ship filled with Jewish refugees that fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and was turned away from Cuba, the US and Canada.

The free books from Sinclair’s organization will also come with a toolkit of teaching resources, information about a forthcoming speaker series with the author,and links to an online book club where educators can trade teaching strategies.

“[The package] was our way of saying, ‘Don’t be scared, we’re here. We’re going to provide you with the resources you need,'” Sinclair said. “Teachers have a lot to teach in the curriculum. We want to make it as easy and as pleasant for them as possible.”

2023-11-062023-11-06

Jewish Cemetery Building Burned and Vandalized in Vienna

A building in the Jewish section of Vienna’s Central Cemetery was set ablaze and a swastika and inscription about Hitler were spray-painted on its outer walls on the night of October 31, according to multiple media sources. The fire consumer prayer books, Torah scrolls and pews. Over the weekend an Israeli flag was torn down at the entrance to the main synagogue in Vienna, the Stadttempel, without the removal of an Austrian flag flying next to it. The British-based Jewish charity Community Security Trust which monitors anti-Semitic attacks in Europe reports a 300% increase in Austria, a 240% increase in Germany and a 320% rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Great Britain since October 7. Attacks include the attempted fire-bombing of a synagogue in Berlin, the marking of Jewish homes and businesses with stars of David in Paris and the physical assault of at least one person carrying an Israeli flag by pro-Palestinian agitators in London, with Community Security Trust reporting 47 physical assaults in Europe overall between October 7 and November 3. November 10 to 11 is usually marked as the anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass or Kristallnacht when Nazis ransacked Jewish homes and businesses and assaulted and killed Jewish people people across Germany and Austria in 1938.

Latest report available here.
Jewish Chronicle report on attacks in Vienna here.

2023-11-062023-11-06

Simon Karczmar Exhibit Opens

Photo: Left: Simon Karczmar and wife

The Old Town Hall in Vilnius will open an exhibit of paintings by Litvak artist Simon Karczmar (1903-1982) at 6:00 P.M. on Monday, November 6. Originally from Dieveniškės, Lithuania, Karczmar moved to Jerusalem later. The exhibit runs till November 30.

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Target Shooting Competition

The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club will hold target shooting competitions in three age groups from 10: A.M. to 1:30 P.M. on Sunday, November 12, at the GSKA shooting range in Vilnius.

Age groups include 13 to 18, men 19 and above and women 19 and above. The competition is shooting targets at 10 meters with pistols including 6.35 mm, 7.6-7.65 mm, 9×18 mm (9 mm Para and 9 mm Luger) and 10×22 mm (.45 automatic). Pistols, ammunition and safety equipment will provided by the shooting range.

For more information and to register before midnight on November 10, send an email to info.maccabilt@gmail.com. The cost is 10 euros per participant.

2023-10-262023-11-14

Žemaitaitis Update

Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis came under fire last spring for posting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements on facebook. He was removed from his party and condemned by other political parties, but when he refused to apologize and continued to make similar posts, the ruling coalition sought to impeach and remove him as a member of parliament. The opposition were initially cool towards the idea, but warmed to it after Hamas attacked Israel two weeks ago. The ruling coalition and speaker of parliament filed a complaint with the prosecutor general alleging the MP was sowing ethnic discord against Jews in Lithuania. The prosecutor’s office is calling the MP a “special witness” because he enjoys parliamentary immunity from prosecution. Žemaitaitis says the impeachment commission was formed outside the bounds of parliamentary regulations and is unconstitutional. All sides agree the commission’s initial findings will have to be adjudicated by a court of law, most likely Lithuania’s Constitutional Court, before proceeding to the next stage in the process. This is the latest installment in the on-going saga.

Impeachment Commission No Longer Inviting Remigijus Žemaitaitis to Testify: MP Intentionally Avoiding Attending Meetings
by Gailė Jaruševičiūtė-Mockuvienė, Lrytas.lt, October 23

As Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis continues to fail to appear at meetings of a special interpellation commission, the commission resolved Monday not to send any more summons to the MP.

“We won’t undertake additional measures. We will simply send an access link to all meetings we hold in the future and will provide the member of parliament the chance to connect and explain his position,” commission chairman Arūnas Valinskas said during the commission meeting held Monday.

Valinskas said Remigijus Žemaitaitis’s refusal to present his own explanations could be interpreted as a conscious effort to discredit the commission’s actions, and might include using loop-holes in the parliamentary statute for that purpose.

2023-10-232023-10-25

Šiauliai Ghetto Doctor’s Testimony Recalls Drowning “Illegal” Newborns

Photo: Šiauliai ghetto territory in 1988, unknown photographer, courtesy Ninth Fort Museum.

by Kristina Tamelytė, LRT.lt, October 15, 2023

“A young girl had to be killed so we decided to drown her,” doctor Aharon Pitsk wrote in his diary in 1942. He died just before the Šiauliai [Shavl] ghetto was “liquidated” with surviving ghetto prisoners sent on to Dachau and Stutthof. Šiauliai had a Jewish population of over 8,000 people before the Holocaust and only a few hundred survived.

The Nazis issued an order it was illegal for Jews to procreate so a newborn was a danger to the family, the community and everyone. Unborn children also posed a danger so ghetto officials encouraged and demanded women get abortions. This was considered the lesser evil, the death of one person instead of several. The children who were born were subject to poisoning. This often wasn’t lethal so “a more effective method” was found.

Pitsk called Lithuania “my homeland” in his diary.

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Litvak Memorial Garden Remembers Fallen Israeli Police Officer from Lithuania

The Litvak Memorial Garden in Plungė has added a new metal apple to the sculptured metal apple orchard there to commemorate Martynas Kuzmickas, an Israeli police officer from Lithuania who was killed by Hamas in southern Israel two weeks ago.

2023-10-202023-10-20

Latest Bagel Shop Newsletter

The latest issue of the Bagel Shop Newsletter has appeared in print and here in .pdf format.

Beigelių krautuvėlė-EN (1)

2023-10-192023-10-19

Israeli Journalist to Speak about War at LJC

Russian-language journalist Avner Korin, the editor at haifaru.co.il and a frequent traveller between Lithuania and Israel who knows the Israeli/Palestinian situation very well, will speak at the Lithuanian Jewish Community about the before, during and aftermath of the Hamas attacks two weeks ago. His presentation is called “The Situation in Israel on the Eve of the Horrific Terrorist Attack and Now” which will be followed by a discussion and questions from the audience. It happens at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, October 22, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Registration is required by contacting Žana Skudovičienė by telephone at (+370) 678 81514 or by email at zanas@sc.lzb.lt.

2023-10-19

Quiz Series: Israeli Victories

This Sunday’s semi-regular quiz will be dedicated to hope. For the second week Israel is at war with the Hamas terrorist organization. Although many expect victory for Israel, many also expect it to be long in coming. This illustrates well the millennia-long history of the Jews which has been victorious but also very painful.

We invite everyone to come take part in the quiz, but also to spend some time together and talk. As usual, actor, writer and journalist Arkadijus Vinokuras will be master of ceremonies. The event will be streamed on facebook.

Time: 2:00 P.M., Sunday, October 22
Location: Bagel Shop Café

2023-10-19

Fayerlakh Fundraiser for Israel

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh invite you to a concert including performances by Rafailas Karpis with Darius Mažintas, Arkadijus Gotesmanas with Michailas Bolšunas and students from the Sholem Aleichem school.

All funds collected will go to Israeli victims of the brutal war underway through the agency of the Litvak community in Israel.

Time: 3:00 P.M., Sunday, October 29
Location: the dance theater at the Mykolas Konstantinas Čiurlionis Art School, Kosciuškos street no. 11, Vilnius

To register or find out more, contact Larisa Vyšniauskienė by calling+370 687 79309.

Direct donations for victims of the war in Israel may be made through the Lithuanian Jewish Community’s bank account LT097044060000907953 by indicating “MES KARTU” in the line or window for showing the purpose of the bank transfer.

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Kaunas Jews Deeply Worried about War in Israel

Photo from AFP

Kaunas resident Bella Shirin communicates with her relatives in Israel, which has turned into a kind of hell, day and night. She fears for her son, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who are now spending most of their time in a hiding place in their apartment.

Eyes without Pity

Shirin returned to Kaunas from Israel seven years ago after experiencing two wars in Israel. She says she has looked into the eyes of an Hamas close-up.

All she saw there, she says, was hatred for Jews.

2023-10-17

Statement by Lithuanian Jewish Community, All 32 Constituent Members, about the War in Israel and the Situation in Lithuania

When terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 the world witnessed acts of incomprehensible brutality where women, children, the disabled and the elderly were taken hostage and murdered, taken hostage and used as human shields, and publicly tortured and executed.

We say with no reservations at all that Israel is a sovereign state. No one has the right to attack Israel, to invade Israel’s territory and to murder the people of Israel. There can be no justification nor mercy of any kind for the murderers.

Today, 50 years later, the words of beloved Israeli prime minister Golda Meir sound prophetic: we had a secret weapon in the war: there was no alternative. Again Israel is fighting for survival.

This brutal war is especially painful to the members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, there is no Jewish family in Lithuania whose members haven’t been touched by these terrific events. Our close relatives are fighting on the front lines, healing the wounded, rescuing people buried in rubble, helping those who are stuck and who could die. We are extremely proud of them.

Our thoughts and hearts are with our parents, brothers, sisters, children, grandchildren and friends who remain in Israel. With every person fighting for our historical homeland. With everyone who is experiencing the horror and loss.

Unfortunately it isn’t just our relatives in Israel who have found themselves in danger, but also in Lithuania. In the country where we were born, grew up and work, the country which we love, whose citizens we are, anti-Semitism is spreading, not just on the social media and at protests, but from the podium at the Lithuanian parliament, and even children are being attacked: they are being threatened and hurt on purpose. Yesterday a Bolt taxi driver of dark complexion who didn’t speak Lithuanian asked a minor, a child, what his ethnicity was, and when he found out his passenger was Jewish, he refused to take him to school. This is certainly not the only and not the worst incident, but it’s very illustrative of the situation.

These kinds of incidents make our community feel unsafe, but we are concentrated and unified, we are unified both by our thousands of years of history, but also by the future.

We are inn close cooperation with the Lithuanian Police Department and other security structures. Ee are in continual contact with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lithuanian embassy to Israel and international Jewish organizations. We are exchanging information and sharing data.

Despite the shock of it all, we are striving to help Lithuanian citizens stranded in Israel as well, and to help Israeli citizens in Lithuania to fly home. We are providing information, consulting, helping to provide solutions to the unexpected problems which have come up all at once.

We thank Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda, speaker of parliament Viktorija Čmilyte-Nielsen and prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė for the firm support for Israel and the Lithuanian Jewish Community they have expressed. We are very encouraged Lithuania has condemned unequivocally the actions of the terrorists and has stood for the right and just side.

We are extraordinarily grateful to the people of Lithuania as well who have sent us their messages of condolence and support and who are praying for our brothers and sisters taken hostage by the terrorists. At the same time we caution people should assess critically the information they receive and only share news from official Israeli institutions and agencies.

Am Yisral khai. The people of Israel live.

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community

2023-10-162024-06-11

Lithuanian Parliament Adopts Resolution on Terrorist Attacks and Aggression against the State of Israel

During the morning sitting of the Lithuanian parliament on Tuesday, October 10, all 108 MPs present voted in favor of a resolution supporting Israel’s right to self-defense. Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein and the chargé d’affaires of the Israeli embassy in Vilnius were present for the discussion and poll.

Official press release:

Seimas adopts the Resolution on Terrorist Attacks and Aggression against the State of Israel

Press release
October 10, 2023

The Seimas has strongly condemned the recent bloody, unprovoked attacks carried out against the State of Israel by Hamas, an international terrorist group which is backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and which took over the Gaza Strip in 2005, and has extended its sincere condolences to the people of the State of Israel for the numerous victims.

2023-10-162023-10-16

Lithuanian Schools Closed Due to Bomb Threats

Schools, kindergartens and universities across Lithuania were closed in the early afternoon Friday as numerous emails in Russian and Lithuanian were received claiming bombs had been placed at these locations. This followed the same threats made to schools in Klaipėda Thursday as Lithuanian military and security forces were scheduled to carry out drills on the marine liquified natural gas terminal located there. Police spokesmen said the same threats were made in Latvia and Estonia over previous days. They said the threatening emails in Lithuania were in Russian with some in Lithuanian and contained two separate demands: ransom for “de-mining” the schools, and political demands Lithuania stop supporting the Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

The Sholem Aleichem ORT Gymnasium in Vilnius decided several days ago to cancel in-school classes Friday and to conduct lessons via internet instead because Hamas had called upon supporters to attack Jewish institutions around the world on October 13. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman told Lithuanian media the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius was closed and almost all staff at the LJC were working from home. All events and programs scheduled at the LJC have been cancelled for now, according to LJC executive director Michailas Segal. Chairwoman Kukliansky said the regional Jewish communities had all been apprised of growing security concerns.

Lithuanian police had started making regular patrols outside the Sholem Aleichem school and the Choral Synagogue since the Hamas attack on southern Israel last Saturday.

Update: Around 1,500 schools and educational institutions received bomb threats again on Monday, October 16.

2023-10-132023-10-16

Event to Mark 80th Anniversary of Kinder Aktion in Šiauliai Ghetto

On November 5, 1943, the Kinder Aktion, one of the most brutal Holocaust crimes perpetrated in Lithuania, was carried out in the Šiauliai ghetto. The mass murder operation aimed at Jewish children took 725 of them and they were sent to Auschwitz in cattle cars where they were murdered. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Šiauliai City and Šiauliai Regional Jewish Communities invite you to remember and commemorate the victims of this crime.

The event begins at 12:00 noon on November 5 at the stone monument on the corner of Trakų and Ežero streets marking the location of one of the former gates to the ghetto. At 12:30 P.M. a procession leads from there to the Chaim Frankel villa. At 1:00 P.M. there will be a ceremony at the villa to remember the children murdered. The villa is located at Vilniaus street no. 74 in Šiauliai. This will include the opening of a joint exhibition by the Šiauliai City Jewish Community and Yad Vashem museum of photographs of the child victims of the Kinder Aktion.

Please note: Those wishing to attend the commemoration on November 5 are asked to register by sending an e-mail to info@lzb.lt.

2023-10-12

We Stand with Israel Meeting in Šiauliai

Šiauliai Jewish Community chairman Sania Kerbelis said he was grateful so many people responded to the call to attend a gathering to show support for Israel on October 9, even though the meeting was only announced a few hours before it took place.

“We are all suffering, we all have relatives in Israel, many of us have relatives in the army who are engaged in combat. We are all worried about our loved ones and the cities are being shot up. The deaths are senseless. We are calling constantly and they keep trying to calm us down, but you know what is really going on. I was in Israel in May and we got caught in the fighting then, several hundred rockets were shot from Gaza. There were casualties but the [Iron] Dome protected many locations. But this time they also crossed the border, slaughtered people, slaughtered children. It associates in my mind that we’re preparing on November 5 to mark the Kinder Aktion. We keep saying ‘Never again.’ Usually other people, non-Jews, think subconsciously ‘never again’ [means ‘no more’] of something, but Jews subconsciously have it that after the Holocaust these kinds of things should be impossible in the civilized world now. Yet they are happening,” Sania Kerbelis said.

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