Leading tours of Jurbarkas, Nijolė Paulikienė tells tourists about Jews as well, because it is impossible to leave out the story of people who lived here for centuries. The guide gets her information from books and from Jurbarkas old-timers.

The large Jewish community who lived in Jurbarkas are now only commemorated on Kauno street, formerly called Didžioji and Vilniaus streets, where there are signs about genocide locations and graves. When Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon visited our town in June, Jurbarkas residents began to recall the legacy of the Jewish community more intently. At the end of October Israel Day events will be held at the public library, and there are plans for sites in the town to commemorate the memory of the Jews.

Guide and teacher Nijolė Paulikienė has much she can say about the Jews of Jurbarkas. She even dreams of setting up a Jewish museum there and is actively charting the vision for that museum. Individual old-timer residents of Jurbarkas still have memories of the Jews in the card-catalogs of their memories, as do the streets covered over in asphalt and the repainted façades of the Old Town. Before World War II Jews accounted for 42% of the population of Jurbarkas, but after the war only 76 were still alive.

Full story in Lithuanian here.