Dutch pianist Marcel Worms performed melodies by interwar Jewish composers at the Lithuanian Jewish Community on April 29, in the same hall where he played 11 years ago. Most of the composers were murdered in the Holocaust, and Worms said if their music was forgotten, they would die a second death.

Works by Rosy Wertheim, Erwin Schulhoff, Gideon Klein, Alexander Tansman, Szymon Laks, Anatolijus Šenderovas, Leo Smit, Dick Kattenburg and George Gershwin were performed. Anatolijus Šenderovas’s “Sonatina” lent a local flavor to the concert.

Concert-goers were got more than just wonderful music: the children of Dutch diplomat Jan Zwartendijk attended. Robert Zwartendijk and Edith Jes spoke about their father who helped rescue at least 2,000 Jews in Lithuania by issuing visas for the Dutch possession of Curaçao, a somewhat fictitious “end-visa” the Soviets demanded of holders of Sugihara’s transit visas through Japan. He and his sister Edith were glad their father was being commemorated and also happy to have a chance to visit Kaunas again, where the Zwartendijk family lived and which Edith, then 13, remembers well.

Dutch author Jan Brokken who is writing a book about the diplomat who rescued Jews also attended and spoke. His earlier works include “Baltische zielen” or “Baltic Souls,” which tells among other stories about the fates of talented Jewish artists and cultural figures from the Baltic states.

Ambassador of Japan to Lithuania Toyoei Shigeeda attended the concert with his wife and said the inspiring story of Jan Zwartendijk brings the Dutch, Jewish, Japanese and Lithuanian peoples closer together. The concert “Interwar Jewish Composers” was organized by the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Ambassador Bert van der Lingen and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky thanked all the guests for coming and emphasized the importance of remembering both the victims of the Holocaust and their rescuers.