News – Page 108 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Lithuania and the Holocaust: Endless Seizures Instead of Healing Wounds (Part I)

part one

by Vytautas Bruveris

What are the methods for Lithuania as a country and society to demonstrate by deeds rather than words true solidarity with the country’s Jewish community, almost completely exterminated in the Holocaust, with the victims and with their descendants?

After all, this year has been declared not only the Year of the Vilna Gaon but also the Year of Litvak History at the highest level of state.

Moreover, this year Lithuania and the world mark the round anniversary of a date connected with World War II, Nazi crimes and the Holocaust.

At least two such methods have long been clear.

2020-05-072020-05-20

I’ve Been Staging the Same Play My Whole Life

I’VE STAGED THE SAME PLAY MY ENTIRE LIFE

by Markas Petuchauskas

The boy from Pažiobris village near Šiluva, unlike many future theater critics and actors, didn’t take part in amateur efforts, didn’t dream of becoming an actor and didn’t visit the theater keenly. The first play he saw was in the tenth grade. Instead, he loved prose: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and while he knew Shakespeare existed, he didn’t read him because “it wasn’t interesting then.” His older sister, an attorney who, her brother said, had “the true professional eye of a spectator,” and his teacher Bronius Burneckas, “a polyglot, a person of learning and a sort of Leonardo da Šiluva,” encouraged Nekrošius to enter the Conservatory. And so Eimuntas ended up in a course led by Vytautas Čibiras and Dalia Tamulevičiūtė. Two years later, bedazzled by these two wonderful directors, he matriculated at the GITIS in Moscow to study directing.

2020-05-072020-05-21

Condolences

Vitalina Timofeyeva passed away May 1. She was born in 1937. Our deepest condolences to her sons and loved ones.

2020-05-04

Happy Birthday to Rozeta Ramonienė

Rozeta Ramonienė, the chairwoman of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners, celebrated her birthday on May 1.

Happy birthday, dear Rozeta! As the fragrant buds of spring emerge, we wish you long life, a very happy birthday celebration, much happiness and many happy days to come!

Mazl tov! May you live to 120!

2020-05-042020-05-07

Big Thank You to Svetlana Who Found a Jewish Headstone in Her Garden

Vilnius resident Svetlana Šitelienė contacted the Lithuanian Jewish Community to report her discovery of what appears to be a Jewish headstone, or matzeva, on her farm.

Thank you, Svetlana.

We’ve reached Svetlana and thanked her, and sent her a box of matzo and the Vilnius ghetto diary of Yitzhak Rudasheviski translated into Lithuanian.

Studying the photographs she provided, it appears this might be an unfinished headstone made for someone named Esther, with the surname partially completed. Mrs. Šitelienė said the grave stone might have ended up in her yard 47 or more years ago, and according to relatives it came from the Jewish cemetery near the Palace of Marriage in Vilnius.

2020-05-042020-05-08

Yidishe Mama

Mother’s Day was on Sunday, May 3, in Lithuania. Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. You make the world possible.

2020-05-042020-05-04

Condolences

The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends its condolences to Arkadijus Gotesmanas on the death of his father, Burnitalis Arnoldas Gotesmanas, who passed away at the age of 90. The late Gotesmanas survived Auschwitz and Mauthausen. He died in Brooklyn and was buried there.

2020-05-04

Condolences

South African Litvak Denis Goldberg died of lung cancer just before midnight on April 29 at his home at Hout Bay in Cape Town. He was born April 11,1933. An anti-apartheid activist, Goldberg was tried with Neslon Mandela at the Rivonia trial and sentenced to 22 years in prison. Our deepest condolences to his many friends and family.

2020-05-012020-05-01

Israeli Ambassador Yossi Levi Gives Interview on Israeli Independence Day

2020-04-30

Greetings from Fayerlakh on Israeli Independence Day

2020-04-30

Yom haAtzma’ut Greetings from Israeli President Rivlin

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2020-04-30

Faina Kukliansky Interviewed by Lithuanian Media on Yom haAtzma’ut

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky was interviewed by Lithuanian publicist Donatas Puslys on Yom haAtzma’ut, Israeli independence day, and spoke about what the holiday means to Jews in Lithuania, to her personally and to Jews around the world. She also spoke about the Holocaust, Litvaks living in Israel, the promise Eretz Israel held out to Soviet Jews and the country’s progress over the last 72 years. The interview was conducted in Lithuanian but concludes with warm wishes in Yiddish.

2020-04-30

WJC President’s Letter to Israeli President on Yom haAtzma’ut

From: Ronald S. Lauder
Subject: My Letter to President Rivlin on Yom Ha’atzmaut
Date: 29 April 2020 at 17:09:53 EEST

To: WJC Affiliated Communities & Organizations, members of the WJC Executive Committee

From: Ronald S. Lauder, WJC president

Dear Friends,

I hope this message finds you all well and safe during this difficult time.

At no other time of the year is the dichotomy between joy and sadness, mourning and celebration more clear for Israelis and Jewish people around the world than the two days that we pause to observe Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut. During this period we honor those who laid down their lives for the establishment and protection of the Jewish State and revel in the achievement that is its independence.

Although this year’s public commemorations and gatherings have been severely limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I would like to share with you a letter I wrote on the eve of Yom Ha’atzmaut to Israeli president Reuven Rivlin on behalf of Jewish communities worldwide. I hope it will be of interest.

Please keep well and stay safe, and do not hesitate to let us know if there is anything at all that we can do to be of assistance to you or your community.

Best wishes,

Ronald

2020-04-30

Yom haAtzma’ut, Israeli Independence Day

Israelis began celebrating 72 years of statehood this year by greeting medical personnel. A torch-lighting ceremony began without an audience in honor of Israel’s doctors, nurses, care-givers, hospital staff and volunteers who have been fighting the Wuhan virus, with many fireworks displays and hospital fly-overs by the Israeli Air Force canceled.

Most Israelis marked Independence Day at home.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the nation in a video saying “We’ve never celebrated this kind of Independence Day. We are in a physical sense far from one another, but we’ve never been closer.” Praising hospital workers Netanyahu added “The day will come when embraces return… But we still can’t do this because the pandemic is still here.”

Knesset speaker Benny Gantz lit a torch on the eve of Independence Day and spoke of national unity, saying Israelis must prepare for even more difficult days, and called for creating “a new moral face of the country.”

2020-04-292020-05-07

Kaunas Jewish Community Distributing Sabbath Care Baskets

The Kaunas Jewish Community has redirected efforts under quarantine and is using the telephone and internet to make sure members, especially the elderly, don’t feel cut off from the world.

Many Community members celebrate Sabbath together and miss face-to-face interaction at the Sabbath table. While conditions aren’t allowing that to resume yet, the Kaunas Jewish Community, in the spirit of fellowship and keeping with tradition, is offering a free Sabbath care basket to members so that everyone can celebrate the Sabbath at home. Now members can break challa bread alone but at the same time together. The care baskets contain more than just challa, though, and include other traditional Sabbath dinner dishes.

KJC chairman Gercas Žakas is pleased this initiative has received the approval of the Goodwill Foundation and the interest and support of so many KJC members. One member said: “It really does feel as if you aren’t alone, but are celebrating Sabbath together with the entire community.” Look for the Jewish communities in other cities and towns to do the same thing, Žakas predicted.

2020-04-292020-05-04

Condolences

Moshe Kukliansky has died at the age of 97 in Israel. He was the head of the Kukliansky family and was the uncle of Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

Our deepest condolences to his children Alexander, Zinaida, Liliiana, niece Faina, the multitude of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and the entire family.

Moshe Kukliansky was a chemist, a witness to Litvak history and a Holocaust survivor. Faina recalls: “Our big family has lost a noble person who survived the Holocaust and was a great witness to Litvak history, a chemist and a just man filled with the law. That’s what he liked to call other people. After my grandmother Zinaida–the mother of Moshe, Samuel and Anna–was murdered and Moshe was forced to work for local farmers, when he came home my father Samuel used to grab his hands and kiss him. Moshe asked ‘What are you so happy about? Our mother is dead.’ My father, who was 11 then, replied ‘I’m happy you’re still here.’ For me, my children and grandchildren, Moshe was like a father and a grandfather, just as all my aunts and uncles were like parents to me, and cousins like brothers and sisters. It is very sad that our last family member of the older generation has passed away.”

Moshe Kukliansky’s telling of the dramatic story of the family’s survival during the Holocaust was immortalized several years back in a film called the Pit of Life and Torment (Gyvybės ir kančių duobė).

2020-04-292020-05-08

LJC Members Recall Israeli Military Service

Members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community have shared with us some of their thoughts about and memories of service in the Israeli armed forces.

Itzhak Solomon: “I hope Israel doesn’t experience new wars… I have many photographs from my life in the army.”

Itzhak Soliomon sent us photos from the Yom Kippur War in the Sinai Peninsula in October of 1973 where he saw combat.

On October 6, 1973, a military coalition of Egypt and Syria (formerly joined as one state in the United Arab Republic), attacked Israel during the holiday of Yom Kippur. They took the Sinai and retook the Golan Heights in Syria which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967. While the Syrians and Egyptians made inroads during the first 48 hours, Israel quickly seized the initiative.

By week two the Syrians had been completely routed from the Golan. In Sinai Israel attacked forces who had crossed the Suez canal, the former cease-fire line, and cut them off from resupply. After two weeks of hostilities, the US came to Israel’s aid supplying ammunition by airlift, and Israel pushed enemy forces back to their initial positions.

Itzhak Solomon hopes Israel won’t face new wars and remembers victory was bitter in the Yom Kippur War with so many young lives lost.

2020-04-282020-05-07

Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Memorial Day

Yom haZikaron is the day Israel marks to honor its fallen soldiers, victims of terrorism and all who have died defending the state of Israel. According to the Jewish reckoning of time, it began on the evening of April 27 this year at around 8:00 P.M. and lasts until the evening of the next day.

President Rivlin spoke in the square in front of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and said it was sad there couldn’t be a mass public commemoration because of the virus epidemic. He said while we can’t cry together, we still remember and give honor to the 23,861 soldiers and victims of terrorism.

In Israel the commemorative holiday begins with an air-raid siren. People simply stop whatever they are doing and give honor to the dead. Those driving pull over and get out of their cars. All commercial activity ceases and people at the dinner table stop eating and sit in silence.

2020-04-282020-05-04

Virtual Lectures: Escape from Ponar and Jacques Lipchitz’s Memories of Lithuania

Please note: the ZOOM platform used for the virtual lectures below is widely known to be unsafe and is considered spyware by competent observers, deployed most likely by China. It can usurp control of cameras and microphones on your computer and telephone. Its use is banned by the U.S. military and U.S. government organizations. The Lithuanian Jewish Community takes no responsibility for those infected by clicking the links below.

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The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum is sponsoring two virtual lectures called “Story of Escape from Ponar” and “Lithuania in Jacques Lipchitz’s Reminiscences.”

“I am a sculptor from Lithuania,” Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) used to say to introduce himself at openings of his works in museums and galleries around the world, even though Lithuania had disappeared from the world map when these shows took place. Sculpture and memorial heritage researcher Aušra Rožankevičiūtė talks about Lipchitz’s image of Lithuania and his contacts with Lithuanian artists and thinkers.

2020-04-27

Happy 100th Birthday to Eta Gurvčiūtė

Happy birthday to Eta Gurvčiūtė as she turns 100. Lithuanian Jewish Community member Eta Gurvčiūtė turned 100 April 27. Clear of mind, with no health complaints and her beautiful smile, she is busy receiving greetings and congratulations today. She was graduated from the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium before World War II.

Many of our other seniors remember Eta because she volunteered at the medical center of the LJC for so many years, later becoming a client herself. She spends her time these days at the Social Care House for Seniors in Vilnius now.

To celebrate her milestone, the LJC is planning a Fayerlakh concert for everyone at her senior citizens’ home. ALthough she’s celebrating her birthday under strict quarantine at the senior center, the Lithuanian Jewish Center tried to send her a present anyway. We managed to have a vase of flowers and a card delivered.

2020-04-272020-04-29