[Note: The proposal Mr. Ivaškevičius makes in the following opinion piece in no way reflects the position of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. In fact, on several points it contradicts the positions of the LJC stated publicly in the past, namely, regarding the rebuilding of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius. Also, at least three Litvak museums, much like the one he proposes, are currently in the planning stage, two in Vilnius, and one scheduled to open in the shtetl of Šeduva in late 2017 or early 2018. The following translation is presented to our readers merely for the sake of information and the interest of our readers.]
by Marius Ivaškevičius
www.DELFI.lt
Yes, again, about Jews. Although, not really, this is perhaps more about us. About Vilnius, really, of which they were a part, and now we are. And this time not about repentance, guilt or about what we’ve lost, on the contrary, about what we can still get back. I want to propose a plan for how our dead Jews could still serve us.
About Vilnius
I love this city and I always tell my foreign friends it is a hidden pearl. When you need peace, it is peaceful. When you want noise and excitement, it has something to offer. The beauty here is obvious, brick-and-mortar and alive, the old architecture, the beautiful men and women, in a word, something to look at. For a long time my stories hit a polite wall of promises: “yes, of course, we will have to go there someday.” Someday, never. But suddenly it began to work. As if my foreign friends had made an agreement among themselves, they began to flood into Vilnius, asking what they should see first in this city.
So I got the opportunity to look at Vilnius not through the eyes of an insider living here, but through the eyes of someone who had just arrived. And I realized Vilnius doesn’t have anything to offer them. The Old Town, sure, it’s charming. But that charm wears off after a half day. You can spend the evening and night on the weekends in the bars. Then what? Then they want museums, but here these, it turns out, are each more boring than the last. Old armor, weapons and glazed tiles they have already seen, the picture galleries are only of local significance, there are no masterpieces and it takes a real fanatic, a tourist dedicated to art, to “consume” what is on offer.
The only thing which is truly not disappointing is the theater. The theaters of Vilnius are world-class and many drama enthusiasts come just for this, to see Nekrošius, Tuminas and Koršunovas in their hometown. Perhaps sometimes they murmur after the show about a lack of subtitles or translation, but essentially they’re satisfied. The plays fill their evenings, and during the day, seeking new experiences, they visit the Museum of Lithuanian Theater and Cinema, certain that it will be of the same high caliber as our theater which it represents. But they find that same museum boredom instead. A stoppage of time and museum women knitting.
About Monuments
We know (we have experienced) with what facile hands totalitarian regimes celebrate their past. And we have seen (or collided with) how difficult that is to accomplish in a free society: to speak in monuments and museums without causing oneself shame and the outsider to yawn. How do you commemorate freedom, really? To erect a separate statue to it in the town square or give it flesh in the city itself, in its bricks, streets, parks and people? In my view so far the Frank Zappa statue is our most successful expression of our freedom. Or the kiss between Putin and Trump. But with Basanavičius there has been a failure. Because it is difficult to reconcile the declining authority of the patriarch of the nation with modernity. If you picture him conservatively, there isn’t much difference between him and all those Soviet idols which crowded Vilnius. And the majority of the nation who still have traditional tastes still won’t allow him to be portrayed with the freedom and courage required for free and artistic expression.
And probably some of the defenders of the sculptures on the Green Bridge weren’t so much concerned about the fate of the statues themselves as frightened by the void which would appear when they were removed. Vases with flowers are only a temporary solution, after all. What should be put in their place? I don’t know and I cannot imagine. Perhaps the bridge should be removed entirely and a new one built in its place?
And we aren’t the only ones who have come up on this post-Soviet dilemma: what to put in the emptied squares and parks (and on the bridges) which would be tasteful, aesthetic and accomplished in a spirit of freedom. We discussed this a year ago in Kharkov. One of the westerners posed a provocative question to the local artists, asking what they would put in the place of the Lenin statue just pulled down. For a time everyone was silent, until one Ukrainian woman said she wasn’t sure where she had heard that in one of the capitals of the Baltic states, “in Riga I think,” the former Lenin Square had been turned into a field of rye. And of course I jumped to correct her: not in Riga, but in Vilnius. And to share with them that extraordinary sensation, the complete mixture of the senses which takes place inside you when in the middle of a great city you suddenly smell rye. And then you go over to that patch, rye is growing right in the center of your city. Everyone was so impressed that I even hid the truth, that this was only a temporary living installation. Until a solution could be found for what to do with that square.
But of course the Eiffel Tower was also supposed to be temporary until it became the symbol of Paris. And sometimes we also lack the self-confidence, or perhaps taste and perspective, to see and appreciate the masterpiece we ourselves have created, and not to hurry to replace it with a heavy monument of dubious artistic and touristic value. So I am sorry for that rye, but that’s not what I want to talk about here.
About Vilnius the Great
I think there is another matter here which makes it so difficult for us to succeed in decorating Vilnius, to find for ourselves the correct way to commemorate the city. We are newcomers here. It’s hard to find a Vilnius resident whose roots in this city extend back before even the post-war period. There are some, but not many. That’s why, no matter how much we love the city, no matter how enchanted we are by its spirit, we don’t fully comprehend it. We are residents of a small, cozy European capital and, if we want to understand that other, grand in its time Vilnius, we have to dig deeper, send roots down into its past. And we find it is a Vilnius of completely different dimensions, of different import and significance: the center of a vast state, the only true city in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
And even after the partitions and the Russian occupation, it remained the center for a long time. Regardless of the new administrative division into guberniyas, in the mind of average Russians “Litva” lay just beyond Vitebsk. And stretched to Białystok or Brest-Litovsk (Lithuanian Brest) in the west. Never mind the Lithuanians who lived here (us), or the Litvini (today’s Belarusians) or the Litvaks (the Jews of the Grand Duchy), for them Lithuania remained where it had been, as did its center, Vilnius. And all of that can be ignored by the first and second generation of newcomers, but the third and fourth are no longer able to ignore it. Their urban roots have grown under the cobblestones and they no longer feel as if they were planted here artificially. They hold this city to be their own, even if they feel something is missing in it, that something has been suppressed here.
About Jews
So what does this have to do with our Jews? I will attempt to explain and finish snapping these legos together.
We can consider last year a great breakthrough, an explosion in Lithuanian consciousness: we found the strength to turn around and look at our Jews. Well, just at their graves, and at what still remains, but still… It was courageous and remarkable and the atmosphere in Lithuania truly did become more vital. On the other hand, we did what was long expected of us, that is, what a free country which respects itself and celebrates justice must do: to pay respect to its dead (or murdered) citizens. Actually we haven’t done that yet, we have only moved in that direction. We still must name the murderers and those who incited mass murder, to remove some of them from the pedestal, to cleanse the partisan movement of them so that a few criminals among them don’t cast a shadow over the entire Lithuanian post-war resistance–only then will justice be fulfilled. I believe this will happen soon because these are unavoidable steps on the road to western values. But we could go even further, surprising the world and ourselves: to do that which no one expects us to do.
I’m finally read to say it: Vilnius needs a large, modern Jewish museum. Not just about the Jews of Vilnius, but all the Jews of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, all Litvaks, a museum of their history and life. The same sort Warsaw and Berlin have. These are a completely new kind of museum, museums as works of art, many works of art in one, extraordinarily interactive using the very latest technology. It’s no surprise they’re flooded with visitors, both locals and tourists. And it isn’t just a gesture of repentance, a tribute to the Jews and their suffering. In these cities these museums have become some of the most visited sites, and often people travel to Berlin and Warsaw just to visit them. That means visitors have to stay somewhere, to spend the night, to shop, to eat–this is pragmatic and far-sighted.
Of course this is a commemoration as well. The best which could be. And a reminder of the catastrophe which happened. Whatever else, these are museums about the life and death of the Jews in those countries. But the strange, the strangest feeling comes over you when you enter the area which tells of the Holocaust, a terrible jealousy arises. And respect for these nations, for the Germans and the Poles, because they talk about it, openly and using extraordinarily effective means. And not just about their Jews.
The most difficult thing is to view photographs from our Ponar executions there. You wonder why they’re there and not in Vilnius. You feel as if someone will unmask you, recognize you as a Lithuanian and push you up against the wall and ask, so why are you so silent here? Where is your museum built with that same inspiration and enthusiasm with which you murdered the Jews?
Of course these are only fears. No one will ever dare say that. Except for us ourselves. Nonetheless the mass murders are a karmic affair and that karma must be satisfied. This is what I’m talking about: Warsaw and Berlin having these museums appear much cleaner than we do, we who do not have such a museum. And don’t go bleating right away that Vilnius today is too small, that Lithuania is too poor, too weak to shoulder the burden of constructing such a museum. Lithuania doesn’t have to bear the burden alone. The world not only has fantastically famous Litvaks, but fantastically rich Litvaks as well, who would consider supporting such a museum not only an honor, but a lifelong duty. A museum telling the story of their ancestors and located on the ground where they lived and died. Right in the center of that land. Yes, right in the center, that was my first thought when I was thinking where it could be located: where once upon a time the Great Synagogue of Vilnius stood.
Of course I am speaking so confidently here because I am a dilettante, a dreamer, and I don’t even know if it’s possible to cram such a museum into that courtyard in the Old Town. And if it suddenly became clear it is too narrow or crowded there for this museum, we could think about an open area in the center. Perhaps by the Palace of Sports as well, where the old Jewish cemetery was located. Or where once we planned to put the Guggenheim Museum. To invite in world-class architects which, incidentally, includes many Litvaks, and to erect such a modern masterpiece of architecture that over time it might even become Vilnius’s calling card, as with the famous Sydney Opera, the Burj of Dubai, the London Gherkin or the Guggenheim in Bilbao. But first we must agree in general that we need such a museum. A museum which tells through the history of the Jews the story of Vilnius the Great and the entire Grand Duchy of Lithuania–that mysterious vanished kingdom whose population was constituted of three tribes, the Lithuanians, the Litvini and the Litvaks. the fate of the latter was the most tragic: they are gone from here, they vanished, and so first it must tell of them. And after, about the others who remain.
It’s sad I’m only a writer instead of some sort of magnate, because in my mind’s eye those vast halls with the legacy of famous Litvaks stretch out before me: the manuscripts of Romain Gary, several paintings by Marc Chagall donated to the museum, the writings of Dr. Zamenhof as he was creating the Esperanto language, the story of the Vilna Gaon, perhaps the most famous Vilnius resident ever. And from everywhere music is heard. At one end there’s Bob Dylan, at the other Leonard Cohen, and somewhere the violin of Jascha Heifetz. And right there, the entire history of the Jews of Lithuania, when and how they appeared here, how they lived, what they believed, what they ate. The ability to travel virtually to any small town or shtetl in Lithuania and Belarus and experience it, then on to the museum restaurant where you can really try Litvak cuisine. Utopia? I don’t think so. If this has become flesh in Warsaw and Berlin, why are we worse than they are? I don’t believe we can’t.
Over the brief period of freedom we have built so many shopping centers and entertainment arenas, so maybe the time has come to have one museum as well. But one which would turn heads. Which would make people say “wow!” when they see it. But you are still cool. Lithuanians! We didn’t expect it. For so long we dreamed of Lithuania as the regional leader. And here’s our chance, to take moral leadership into our own hands. In the final analysis it’s also economics: a new Lithuanian image attracting investment. Lithuania with such a museum would appear completely different to the world powers. Because it’s more than a museum. It’s more than a monument. It’s a new position.
So far this is only a dream, an idea floating in the air. There are no funds, interests or monies allocated for this museum. This means it belongs to no one, and at the same time to anyone who is infected by this dream. So everyone who has ideas, and especially those who have decision-making power and the power to form the Lithuanian brand, take this idea and build it. Because without this museum Vilnius will remain forever unfulfilled. Unfinished. Unclaimed. Our Jews didn’t just live here, they together with others built and created this city, so whether we like it or not, their cut roots will always rise to the surface. The only solution is for us to cultivate those roots for ourselves. That doesn’t mean we will become Jews, we will simply stand more firmly, more deeply and more consciously, no longer as newcomers.
And then this will become no longer a museum for Them. It will be a museum for Us. In other words, for the residents of Vilnius, the current residents witnessing to the former residents.
Full text in Lithuanian here.