Merkinė Jewish school, ca. 1928-1930
by Mindaugas Černiauskas
“Decades have passed since I left you, Merkinė. You are always on my mind. Every day I walk your small crowded streets in my thoughts. I know it’s not real, but I haven’t learned to come to terms with the fact the terror of the Holocaust was also in my town.” –Dorit Blatshtein, refugee from Merkinė.
Exactly 78 years ago the Jews of Merkinė were marched to the sand pits in Kukumbalis forest and left there for the ages powerless and desecrated. The introduction of the book “Mano senelių ir prosenelių kaimynai žydai” [My Grandparents’ and Great-Granparents’ Jewish Neighbors] published in 2003 contains the line that “the destruction of the Jews of Lithuania was so blood-curdling and unexpected, so cynical and public, accomplished right here in view of all other residents, that it essentially touched in one way or another every member of society.”
It’s difficult not to agree with this, as it is difficult not to agree with the idea that traumatic experience is often pushed into the subconscious. It’s clear experience doesn’t disappear and can become a festering wound and neurosis, especially when we view history based on idealized versions of national history where we only want to see examples of goodness, beauty and harmony which make us proud.