Lithuanian Jewish Community

The Co-Authors of Rūta Vanagaitė’s Book

by Sergejus Kanovičius

The noise generated as soon as an excerpt from Rūta Vanagaitė’s book “Mūsiškiai” was published was phenomenal in the true sense of the word. The passage released is almost certainly a transcription of an interview Saulius Beržinis conducted almost two and a half decades ago, one of many he did with Holocaust perpetrators. It says nothing about the book or its worth.

A bit later several interviews with the author and several responses to the facts recited in those interviews appeared. Writers, historians, publishers and known and unknown public figures began immediately discussing and judging the unread book, some even compared to a great work of literature and mused upon questions of metaphysical guilt and the effect of the Holocaust on society. For some of the non-readers it was enough that famous Holocaust historian and Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff attended the presentation of the book and participated in its creation: right-wing non-readers immediately christened the unread book a provocation by the Kremlin intended to sow ethnic discord. One long-time Conservative Party member even fretted the book would ruin Lithuania and Israel’s wonderful relations, although she was unable to explain exactly the connection between Lithuania’s inability to come to terms with its past and foreign policy.

2016-01-31

Jerusalem Post Reports on New Holocaust Book by Efraim Zuroff

In an addendum to a piece on International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations around the world, the Jerusalem Post reported the publication of a new book by Efraim Zuroff, “co-authored” by Lithuanian Rūta Vanagaitė:

“Also on Tuesday, Zuroff launched his new book ‘Our People: Journey with an Enemy’ in Lithuania. Co-authored with Ruta Vanagaite, the writers accuse the current Lithuanian government of trying to ‘hide or minimize the role of Lithuanian collaborators during the Holocaust.'”

Full text here.

2016-01-31

Wooden Synagogue Discovered under Brick Walls in Kulautuva, Lithuania

BNS–A wooden synagogue built between the two world wars was discovered as the brick walls of a building were torn down in Kulautuva, Lithuania.

The Kaunas section of the Cultural Heritage Department halted work at the site as consideration is given to what to do with the discovery, the newspaper Kauno Diena reported. Department employees said they learned of the demolition of the building over the weekend after photos were posted to facebook. Cultural heritage protection experts are mulling over the idea of making the synagogue a candidate for entry on the list of protected cultural treasures and even of moving the entire structure to the Lithuanian Folk-Life Museum in Rumšiškės outside Kaunas.

The synagogue was built in 1935 and its windows were boarded up and it was turned into storage space for the town after World War II. Major reconstruction work was performed on the building in 1967 and 1968.

2016-01-31

Students and Teachers Converge on Ariogala to Remember the Holocaust

Ingrida Vilkienė, education program coördinator of the International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania reports on the commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day at a conference held at the high school in Ariogala, Lithuania. Teachers and students from schools with tolerance education centers throughout Lithuania as well as many others came to the Lithuanian town January 27 to remember the dead and present student works about the Holocaust. Others at the conference included Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon, Lithuanian ambassador for special assignments Dainius Junevičius, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Žakas Gercas with community members, Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman, Raseiniai district administrative head Algirdas Gricius and a large number of people from the education department and other institutions in the Raseiniai district administration.

2016-01-31

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius with a minute of silence and a reading of the names of Holocaust victims. Cantor Shmuel Yaatov offered song and prayer for those who perished. Students from the Vilnius ORT Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium, Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon, deputy Lithuanian foreign minister M. Bekešius and may others took turns reading the names. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky addressed the audience, calling on them to pray for the Jews of Lithuania brutally murdered, and said there was a noticeable lack of an official reaction or even a minute of silence to remember the circumstances of the brutal mass murder of Jewish Lithuanian citizens by the leaders of the country.

Eye-witness Edmundas Zeligmanas, whose father was murdered as he watched by white armbanders, recalled the horrific mass murders in Šilalė during the first days of war in 1941. After his father’s murder, they murdered many members of the Jewish community the next day. The mass murders were so bloody and so swift there wasn’t time for the earth to absorb all the blood, and it flowed into a small stream which turned red.

2016-01-29

A Story of the Holocaust and the AIDS Epidemic: The Romance of an Indian Muslim Freedom Fighter and a Lithuanian Jewish Woman

by Kenneth X. Robbins and John Mcleod

In 1992 the editor of the Times of India telephoned one of Mumbai’s most prominent businessmen, Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied. The editor asked Hamied “as a Muslim leader” his opinion on the communal riots then taking place in the city. Hamied replied: “Why aren’t you asking me as an Indian Jew? Because my name is Hamied? My mother was Jewish!” His maternal grandparents perished in the Holocaust.

2016-01-29

They Survived the Holocaust

The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, has posted a set of testimonies by Holocaust survivors:

They Survived the Holocaust. Survivors’ Accounts

It is truly difficult to find words to describe the ultimate atrocities of the Holocaust. Therefore, the words of those who managed to survive the Genocide are all the more important. For the International Holocaust Remembrance Day we present the survivors’ accounts from the oral history collection of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Webpage here.

2016-01-29

Lithuanian Jewish Heritage Becoming Ever More Topical

A new cultural heritage site has been added to the Lithuanian registry of cultural treasures: the Simnas brick synagogue at Laisvės street no. 4 in Simnas, in the Alytus region. The synagogue’s outer form has survived almost intact to the present day. “Jewish cultural heritage has become ever more topical recently. Municipalities and regional administrations are striving to make surviving Jewish cultural heritage in their jurisdictions known, its value is being understood, and it is being made public and resurrected to live again. The number of positive examples keeps growing. Frequently more remote small towns are known in the world only because of the surviving Jewish cultural heritage and thus draw tourists,” Diana Varnaitė, director of the Cultural Heritage Department under the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-01-28

Panevėžys Jewish Community Marks International Holocaust Day

The Jewish community, students and general public gathered on a rainy and overcast January 26 in Panevėžys at the Sad Jewish Mother statue to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman spoke first, saying a lack of concern is the worst crime in the world and is responsible for innocent people dying. The genocide of the Jews of Lithuania is a global tragedy, as is the genocide of the Jews of Europe, which must never happen again, he said.

2016-01-28

Moshe Kantor Re-Elected for 3rd Term as European Jewish Congress President

Moshe Kantor re-elected as EJC president on January 26, 2016.

Russian businessman Moshe Kantor was re-elected Tuesday by the European Jewish Congress (EJC) General Assembly in Brussels to a third executive term as president of the leading European Jewish umbrella organization. Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, was elected as chairman of the EJC Council.

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder congratulated Kantor on his re-election and said he looked forward to “continuing the WJC’s cooperation with the EJC leadership on all levels.” The EJC is the regional affiliate of the WJC.

After his confirmation, Kantor declared: “I am delighted to have received a strong vote of confidence from the leadership of the European Jewish communities and it is a positive testament to the work we have done these last few years and the plan of action we have for the years ahead.

2016-01-28

Holocaust Remembrance Day: A New Generation of Rescuers?

by Ellen Cassedy, author of We Are Here

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, teachers and students in Lithuania will launch a project called “The Rescue of Another is the Highest Human Virtue.”

Across the country, high school students and community elders will work together to seek out untold stories of rescue. The goal is to “encourage the younger generation to understand that everyone is responsible for his or her actions, that good deeds and noble actions reveal a person’s moral and spiritual value,” organizers say.

The vast majority of Lithuania’s Jews perished during the Holocaust. Some Jews were saved by neighbors who smuggled them out of ghettos, pulled them out of death marches, concealed them in barns and cubbyholes, and secretly passed them from home to home.

2016-01-28

Lithuania Marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day

VILNIUS, January 27, BNS–Lithuania paid tribute to victims of the Holocaust Wednesday, reading names and recalling the stories of rescues of Jews during International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Vilnius synagogue is hosting a reading of the first and last names of Holocaust victims, followed by prayers and memories shared by Holocaust survivors.

Meanwhile, a gymnasium in Ariogala in the Raseniai district organized a national conference of school students to present dramatic rescue stories and share memories shared by representatives of Jewish communities from across Lithuania.

2016-01-27

Finally Telling It Like It Is

by Geoff Vasil

Rūta Vanagaitė presented her new book, Mūsiškiai [Our Own People], about Lithuanian Nazi collaborators, Holocaust complicity, Jewish victims and contemporary attempts to wriggle out of it to a packed room mainly filled with Lithuanian reporters Wednesday morning.

Rūta Vanagaitė (courtesy National Geographic Channel)

The venue was extremely strange: a small cafe called Submarine. Vanagaitė chose the location as the site where the murderous Ypatingasis būrys unit [Special Unit, often called simply Ypatingasis or Ypatingas in Holocaust literature in English] had their headquarters during the Holocaust. Vanagaitė said she would lead the audience up to the second floor after the book presentation to the main offices where Ypatingasis once planned the mass murder of the Jews of the region.

2016-01-26

Estera Klabinaitė Grobman, 95, Survivor of the Kaunas Ghetto and Stutthof Concetration Camp, Remembers Everything

photo by Milda Rūkaitė

Estera Klabinaitė Grobman was born in November of 1920 in Kaunas to a well-to-do Jewish family who lived in their own home on Vaisių street. She had two brothers and there were three generations living under one roof: grandparents, parents and children. Her grandfather often said he was the Golden Miller because he had light hair and owned a mill. The place where the mill stood was called Klabiniai, so the family’s name was Klabinas. Estera says it was close to Širvintos, Lithuania. She calls herself a Kaunas native and her mother and father owned a small bakery in Kaunas. Fresh-baked bread was delivered by horse each morning in covered containers. They baked delicious bread and the business thrived. They delivered to several shops in the city. Estera remembers her grandmother, the daughter of a rabbi who wrote very neatly. She can’t forget that she was never able to equal her grandmother. According to family tradition her father should have been a rabbi as well and he studied for the rabbinate, but as a child he used to secretly read secular books, and he read much, educating himself. Estera inherited her love of books from her father and to the present reads in four languages: Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian and German. She is interested in everything.

2016-01-262018-04-26

Europe Israel Public Affairs News

EIPA Update

John Kerry smoothed over last year’s diplomatic tensions between Israel and the US over the Iran deal this week by saying of prime minister Netanyahu: “I think he recognized that the fight’s over and we can move on.” His words on CNN were clear evidence that while the US and Israel might have disagreements from time to time, the hatchet can, must and always will be buried for the good of the relationship as a whole.

2016-01-25

Zionist Federation of Great Britain Staging Lobby Day for Israel on February 24th, 2016

Join hundreds of people from across the country who will be attending the ZF and Christian Friends of Israel Annual Lobby Day for Israel 2016. Held on February 24th, the Lobby Day gives Israel advocates the opportunity to meet with their MP and share their support for the Jewish state. During this time of heightened violence, it’s more important than ever to let our elected representatives know they have constituents who support Israel.

For further information, please see:
https://madmimi.com/p/08d037

2016-01-24

International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Choral Synagogue

We invite you to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day at 3:00 P.M. on January 27 at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius at Pylimo street no. 39.

There will be readings of the names of Holocaust victims, brief testimonies of survivors and a prayer for the dead.

January 27 was the date in 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated. On November 1, 2005, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution making January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The resolution condemned Holocaust denial and discrimination and violence based on religion and ethnicity.

2016-01-24

Oldest Man in the World Likely 112-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor

Yisrael Kristal, photo courtesy of family

The old phrase “may you live to 120” is becoming a real possibility for more and more people around the world, and one man, a Holocaust survivor, seems to be having the last laugh.

The Jerusalem Post reported last week the Gerontology Research Group reached out to a grandson of Yisrael Kristal this week following the death of Yasutaro Koide in Japan, who was also 112. According to the organization, Kristal is now the oldest living man on record, although this still has to be validated by his documentation.

He has in his possession his marriage certificate from the 1920s but it is unclear as yet if this will suffice to formally register him as the oldest man in the world.

Kristal was born in 1903 in the town of Zarnov in the Lodz province of what is now Poland to a religious family. His father was a Torah scholar and Kristal himself went to heder, or religious primary school until the age of 11.

Full story here.

2016-01-24

Hundredth Anniversary of Birth of Vladas Varčikas, Rescuer of Jews, Teacher, Violinist

The Kaunas Jewish Community and the Sugihara Foundation “Visas for Life” invited friends who knew Vladas Varčikas and all who wanted to pay their respects to this gigantic figure, a rescuer of Jews, humanitarian, teacher and violinist, to celebrate hsi 100th birthday with a concert in the Grand Hall at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. The hall was filled to capacity and overflowing despite the frozen weather.

Kaunas Jewish Community member Stasys Makštutis began to tell the story of Varčikas and the story was continued by his grandmother, Elena Andriuškevičienė, who was rescued from the Kaunas ghetto by Varčikas and survived to later become his colleague. Varčikas’s students, students of his students and their children performed music and shared their memories of the man. Actress Kristina Kazakevičiūtė, whose daughter was a student of Varčikas, read out director Kama Ginkas’s recollections of Varčikas, the man who saved him. She also read passages from Reinhard Kaiser’s book about Edwin Geist, whose compositions were rescued for posterity by Varčikas.

2016-01-22

A Special Experience on Gastronomical Tour: Sabbath Dinner in Israel

Sometimes it happens that you fall in love with a country at first sight. You want to go there every year, to discover new places and experiences and new tastes there. That’s what happened to the wife of Lithuanian ambassador to Israel Darius Degutis, the passionate cook Nida Degutienė. After her return from a recent culinary tour of her favorite country, Nida said this kind of tourism provides visitors with the opportunity of entering local homes, experiencing daily life firsthand, sitting down at the same table with hosts and listening to their stories.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-01-22