Survivor of the Kaunas ghetto and Ereda and Stuffhof concentration camps Dobrė Rozenbergienė has died. She was born in 1928. Our deepest condolences to her son, grandchildren, relatives and friends.
LCJ Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky’s Speech at Ponar
Honored guests,
I stand before you in order to deliver a speech, but this place and this sad occasion calls for concentrating and remaining silent. The reflection, respect and humble silence which meets every thinking and feeling person in this place cannot be confused with the silence of apathy, ignorance and fear. All of us have kept silent too long. Too long. We have kept quiet about what happened, where it happened and why. It was kept quiet for most of those eight decades we count since the beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania. Out of fear? Ignorance? Apathy?
Road of Memory Holocaust Commemoration in Panevėžys
The Panevėžys Jewish Community commemorated the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust in Lithuania on September 22 with a “Road of Memory” procession meeting at the Sad Jewish Mother statue and regrouping later at the former ghetto gates and the mass murder site in the Kurganava Forest were about 8,000 Jews were shot in 1941.
“Eighty years ago a black mark was made in the history of Lithuania, resulting in the taking of almost 200,000 lives and the lives of about six million Jews in Europe,” Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman said.
The largest mass murder sites near Panevėžys are in the Žalioji and Kurganava Forests, but the district has more than 30 mass murder sites in total.
Time Doesn’t Diminish the Horror of the Tragedy
by Daiva Savckienė
On the eve of the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, the Panevėžys Jewish Community and guests marked this date with a “Road of Memory” procession, meeting at the Sad Jewish Mother monument, then later at the monument at the intersection of Krekenavos and Klaipėdos streets marking the site of the ghetto the Nazis established in Panevėžys, and then in the Kurganava Forest where about 8,000 people were murdered in 1941.
Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman said: “The small towns and large cities are marking the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust with processions.”
It’s not just this tragedy and the innocent people murdered being remembered. All of Lithuania suffered.
Litvaks Who Came Back from the Concentration Camps
The Vilnius Photography Gallery located at Stiklių street no. 4 will open an exhibit by Kęstutis Grigaliūnas at 6:00 P.M. on September 22 called “Lithuanian Jews Who Came Back from the Nazi Concentration Camps.” The exhibit features 335 people who came back, with photographs and short biographies. It will also showcase the book “Lietuvos žydai grįžę iš nacių konclagerių” [Lithuanian Jews Who Came Back from the Nazi Concentration Camps] which contains 2,700 short bios and 335 portraits.
“The visualization of cases in this project becomes a space in which the violence of the Soviet state is examined and whose exhibiting under new spatial, media and institutional conditions allows for the execution of historical justice, and allows the eye and mind of the spectator to enter into intensive interaction with the past seen this way for the first time,” exhibit curator Natalija Arlauskaitė explained.
Kaunas Jewish Community and Ninth Fort Mark Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide
The Kaunas Jewish Community and the Ninth Fort Museum in Kaunas invite the public to attend a commemoration of Holocaust victims at 11:00 A.M. on Thursday, September 23, at the large statue to remember the victims of Naziism.
The commemorative program will last an hour and a half, to be followed by coffee in the museum’s administration building.
Program:
10:30 A.M. Registration
11:00 A.M. Commemoration begins, followed by an artistic reading of recollections by children who lived in ghettos, read by students from the Jonas Jablonskis Gymnasium, followed by a presentation of the “Ecce Homo: To Those Who Remain” project by the Ninth Fort Museum and the Kaunas 2022 organization including meeting the artists.
Sukkot Begins
Sukkot or Sukkos beings at 7:04 P.M. in Vilnius on Monday, September 21, 2021.
The Festival of Sukkot–literally meaning booths, tents, tabernacles–is celebrated for seven days in Israel and eight days in the Diaspora, starting on the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei. It is one of the three festivals during which Jewish men were required to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the times of the Holy Temple.
Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community Marks Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide with Several Events
The Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community is marking the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, September 23, with several events this year.
At 4:00 P.M. on September 22 an exhibit will open in the exhibit hall of the Cultural Center of the Šiauliai Regional Administration located at Ventos street no. 11A in Kuršėnai, Lithuania, an exhibit of photographs by Rolandas Parafinavičius called House Spirits and by photographer S. Zakasaitė who operated in the period between the two world wars, with the combined exhibit called “Jews Then and Now.” Righteous Gentiles Pranas Grigalaitis and Ona Bielskienė will also be honored during the opening ceremony. The exhibit will run till November 5. The Cultural Center is open from 10:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. on week days and during scheduled events.
Additional related exhibits include an exhibit of calendars called “The Jews of Lithuania: An Indivisible Part of Our Society” running from September 6 to October 1 in the exhibition space at the Kuršėnai manor estate in Kuršėnai, Lithuania; the “Don’t Turn Your Back on the Past” exhibit of publications running from September 20 to September 30 at the Augustinas Gricius Library in Gruzdžiai and “Memory Comes of Age through the Past…” running from September 20 till October 22 at the library in Meškuičiai.
Holocaust Commemoration at Ponar
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites the public to a Holocaust commemoration at the Ponar Memorial Complex located at Agrastų street no. 15A with a ceremony and speeches at 1:00 P.M. on September 23. Please register by sending an email to office@lzb.lt or by calling (8 5) 2613 003.
Genocide Day in Navarėnai, Lithuania
The Navarėnai Cultural Center, Navarėnai aldermanship, Navarėnai primary school and Navarėnai library located in the small town in the Telšiai district of northwest Lithuania invite the public to attend events marking the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide on September 23 this year. The commemoration begins at 1:00 P.M. at the Navarėnai Cultural Center, whence participants will travel to the Jewish mass murder site in the Šiliškė forest. The program includes the unveiling of a monument and speeches by guests with music dedicated to the memory of the dead performed by Valda Valužienė of the Viešvėnai Cultural Center.
Synagogue in Žiežmariai Opens Doors
The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Kaišiadorys city municipality invite the public to visit the restored synagogue in Žiežmariai, Lithuania, September 17.
As part of the European Days of Jewish Culture, the LJC is sponsoring the event in Žiežmariai to discuss the public utilization of Litvak heritage sites and the relationship between the local community and this synagogue specifically.
The event will be moderated by Martynas Užpelkis, the LJC’s heritage specialist.
Participants will include LJC chairwoman Faina, Kukliansky, Kaišiadorys mayor Vytenis Tomkus, Lithuanian heritage expert and historian Diana Varnaitė, Kaišiadorys Museum director Olijardas Lukoševičius and others.
The event begins at the synagogue at 2:00 P.M. on September 17.
Slovakia Condemns Jewish Code Adopted by Protectorate of Slovakia in 1941
President’s Office to Hold Concert Commemorating 80th Anniversary of Holocaust in Lithuania
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is pleased to announce a concert by St. Christopher chamber orchestra from Vilnius and other classical, jazz and folk performers to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in Lithuania.
Program:
Premiere of Symphony from the Jerusalem of the North by composer Jievaras Jasinskis
Special guest: Israeli multi-instrumentalist Yaron Cherniak
The concert begins at 7:00 P.M. on Thursday, September 23, in the courtyard of the President’s Office at Daukanto street no. 3 in Vilnius (gate opens at 6:00 P.M.).
Prior registration before September 20 and proof of vaccination(s) at the gate required. Register here.
Invitation to Remember and Honor the Large Jewish Community of Švenčionys Murdered in the Holocaust
It has become a tradition now to meet on the first Sunday in October at the Menorah in the park in Švenčionys to remember and honor the large Jewish community of Švenčionys who had their own culture and traditions, and to remember their tragic fate.
I am please to invite everyone to attend the Holocaust commemoration at the Menorah statue in the Švenčionys city park marking the boundary of the Švenčionys ghetto. The commemoration starts at 11:00 A.M. on October 3, 2021.
Program:
Courage of Rescuers Lesson to Us All
Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda held the annual ceremony at the President’s Office September 14 to award rescuers of Jews from the Holocaust and their descendants the Lithuanian Order of the Life-Saver’s Cross.
“Every September as we mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, we pay respect to memory of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens murdered during World War II. We also honor the rescuers of Jews, those people who dared oppose the occupational regime without regard to the mortal danger this posed to them and their families,” he said at the ceremony.
The Lithuanian president recalled the historical context in which these rescuers operated, with anti-Semitism dripping from the pages of the press, the mass murder of Jews underway. Despite this, they dared hide the condemned Jews and resist the occupational regime.
Pope Francis Expresses Shame over Slovakian Holocaust Victims
Photo: The Pope’s visit to Slovakia and meeting with members of the Jewish community was called historic.
“Here, in this place, the name of God was dishonored,” Pope Francis said at a Holocaust memorial in Bratislava. During World War II Slovakia was governed by a Nazi puppet regime headed by Catholic priest Jozef Tiso.
Pope Francis paid tribute on Monday to the thousands of Slovak Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.
The comments came during the pontiff’s official visit to Slovakia against the backdrop of accusations around the Catholic Church’s role in Holocaust atrocities in Slovakia.
What did the pope say?
Speaking at a former Jewish neighborhood in the capital Bratislava, Pope Francis sharply criticized “the frenzy of hatred” in World War II and continuing anti-Semitism.
Full story here.
Holocaust Commemoration in Krakės in Central Lithuania
Krakės, a small town in the Kėdainiai district in central Lithuania, marked the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust there on September 2. On that date in 1941 about 1,125 Jews from Krakės and the surrounding settlements Gudžiūnai, Pociūnėliai, Baisiogala, Grinkiškis and Dotnuva were murdered at Peštiniukai village near Krakės.
The commemoration included a march with local high school students and the reading of the names of the victims at the mass murder and mas grave site in Peštiniukai village.
Concerts Celebrate Litvak and Israeli Composers
Vilnius’s St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra has concerts scheduled for September 16 at St. Kortyna’s Church in Vilnius, September 17 at the renovated synagogue in Žiežmariai and September 18 at the Red Synagogue in Joniškis to showcase the music of Litvak and modern Israeli composers and their ties with Lithuania.
More information in Lithuanian available here.
Šiauliai Jewish Community to Commemorate Holocaust Victims at Vilkiaušis Forest
The Šiauliai Jewish Community has announced a program of Holocaust commemoration events scheduled for Sunday, September 12, beginning with a procession from the parking lot next to the Vilkiaušis Forest.
Program:
11:00 A.M. Meet at the parking lot next to Vilkiaušis Forest. Procession to the Jewish genocide site in the Vilkiaušis Forest. Ceremony to honor the victims.
12:30 P.M. Leave for Žagarė. Commemoration on market square.
2:00 P.M. Procession to Naryškinas Park.
4:00 P.M. Ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Jewish genocide in Lithuania.
4:20 P.M. Leave for Jewish cemetery in Žagarė.
5:00 P.M. Rafailas Karpis and Darius Mažintas’s artistic program “Kaddish for the Dead” at Jaunimo street no. 1 in Žagarė.
Alytus Marks 80th Anniversary of Onset of Holocaust
Wednesday the city of Alytus south of Vilnius marked the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust with a procession before noon from the Old Town to a mass murder site in the Vidzgirdas Forest.
A commemoration ceremony was held at the memorial at the Holocaust site.
Jewish community members from Kaunas and Vilnius, Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, MPs, local government officials, foreign ambassadors, students from schools in the area and local residents participated.
Following the ceremony the renovated synagogue building on Kauno street was opened as the new home of the Alytus Audio-Visual Arts Center with a concert by Rakija Klezmer Orkestar.