Gathered for 70th anniversary of concentration camp’s liberation, second-generation survivors born in DP camp discuss their unique shared identity.

BERGEN-BELSEN, GERMANY — “It’s called rote grütze. I remember eating it all the time here as a young child,” said Aviva Tal as she tucked into the German fruit pudding as brightly red-colored as her stylishly cropped hair. When she finished her first portion she got up to get more from the buffet table, bringing several little glasses of the pudding, topped with vanilla cream, for the others at her table to enjoy, as well.

Tal, a Bar-Ilan University Yiddish professor in her late 60s, was eating lunch with some close friends of similar age under a large tent next to the museum at the Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen (Bergen-Belsen Memorial Site) late last week.

They had all come to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. The lunch was a break during a full day of touring the concentration camp site, as well as the neighboring displaced persons camp (now a British NATO base) ahead of the official commemoration ceremonies that took place on April 26.

By Simon Rocker

World news Art cemeteries Lithuania Music Sport Talmud War Lithuania is to erect a monument to mark the site of a historic Jewish cemetery that was once the resting place of the Vilna Gaon.

Representatives of the London-based Committee of the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries recently met Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius to discuss the future of the old Shnipishok cemetery.

The Gaon, Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, acknowledged as one of the greatest talmudists, was buried there after his death in 1979.

30 April 2015

by Andrius Kulikauskas

Renovation of the ground floor of an art gallery in the town of Butrimonys, Lithuania has revealed the existence of an unusual cellar that was apparently a Jewish hideout during the Holocaust. Daina Nemeikštienė, the owner of the gallery, “Dainos galerija”, is moving forward with the renovation, which means that what remains of the cellar will be cemented over, at least for now. Could some day this hideout offer an opportunity for respecting, valuing, studying, preserving and highlighting Litvak and Lithuanian heritage? For now, it illustrates the challenges in honoring even the most heroic aspects of the Holocaust.

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Jewish perseverance, and more than a bit of chutzpah, lies at the heart of the Purim holiday we celebrate this week. It is one of the reasons we are instructed to mark this raucous holiday with boundless joy and why thousands of Ukrainian Jews, despite the odds they face, will join together across their country for Purim spiels and hamantaschen and to enjoy a much-needed respite from a conflict now simmering under a tenuous cease-fire.

These celebrations are but a momentary break from conditions facing thousands of Jews who remain in separatist controlled regions of Ukraine or who are internally displaced.

Fifty dollars. While in many parts of the world consumers regularly plunk down the sum on a nice pair of jeans, in Ukraine it can mean a month’s worth of food staples, said Jerusalem-based head of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Ukraine desk Oksana Galkevich.

This reality is a far cry from the headily optimistic days of February 2014 when Ukraine’s progressive Euromaidan Revolution forced a changeover in government from a corrupt pro-Russian head of state to a Ukrainian nationalist. But war came quickly: The Crimean peninsula was annexed by Russia in March 2014 and by April, 40,000 pro-Russian separatist forces entered the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, areas of Ukraine bordering Russia.

Though there are tenuous cease fire agreements — most recently in February — civil unrest continues on the eastern border where 6,000 have been killed and, as of March 2015, some 1,168,600 are displaced in this year of rebel fighting.

by Dovid Katz

The following is the written version of Dovid Katz’s presentation at the International Conference on Holocaust Education organized by Rūta Vanagaitė as part of a Europe for Citizens project, held at Vilnius City Hall on 17 April 2015. Conference program. Conference’s final press release. Projectwebsite.

Politics, Policy, and Lithuanian Holocaust Discourse

Good afternoon. Sincerest thanks to everyone who made today possible, above all to dear Rūta Vanagaitė for successfully bringing together folks from many sides of today’s issues here in Vilnius for the first time in the twenty-first century, in the fine spirit of openness and tolerance that is particularly important, now, when politics and current events can easily deflate freedom of opinion on history, the progress of civil discourse, and the dignity of education.

CEMETERIES DIGITIZED
(Any assitance with translations are appreciated)

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Thursday, April 23, Vilnius – President Dalia Grybauskaitė extended congratulations, on behalf of the Lithuanian people and on her own behalf, to President Reuven Rivlin of the State of Israel on the occasion of Israel’s national holiday – Independence Day.

A conference on Holocaust education was held at Vilnius city hall on 17 April. The conference was the final event in the “Being a Jew” project’s series of events this year marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The conference included participants from the United States, Poland, Romania and Israel, including recognized and esteemed Holocaust historians and Holocaust education specialists, among them Tomas Venclova, Saulius Sužiedėlis, Dovid Katz, Šarūnas Liekis and a prerecorded address given by Efraim Zuroff. Representative of the European Commission’s European Remembrance program Pavel Tychtl, Lithuanian Jewish Community chair Faina Kukliansky, Vilnius mayor Artūras Zuokas and Holocaust education experts from Poland and Lithuania spoke as well. No official representatives of the Lithuanian Parliament or Government attended.

I, your faithful correspondent from the Colonial Motherland, just spent six days in the other motherland – Lithuania, the place from which most of my ancestors came. Other than a return in the 1990’s by my Holocaust-survivor maternal grandmother, and a similarly timed visit by my paternal grandparents, none of my “nearby” extended family had been to Lithuania in about seventy years.

What drew me back? In part there is a certain enjoyment I have – despite my complaints about Ashkenormativity – in being a Litvak. Lita brings to my mind a certain sort of rootedness, as well as the rye bread, pickled herring, and peppery gefilte fish (certainly not sweet) my grandparents fed me as a child. There was also a sense of “this is where things started”: before one brave great-grandparent set out 120 years ago to South Africa, my ancestors had been in Lithuania for centuries. Part of me wanted to honor the relatives – including my mother’s half-sister – who had been decimated by the Shoah. Finally, I’ve been entangled in an increasingly drawn-out attempt to gain Lithuanian citizenship by descent, given a new law granting the descendants of Holocaust survivors citizenship of the country. (Obviously, I would keep my other passports.)