Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Netflix Hit Stranger Things Slammed for Nazi Prison

Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Netflix Hit Stranger Things Slammed for Nazi Prison

by Emma Myers

Netflix has come under fire for using the sites of past atrocities as locations or inspiration for its nostalgic hit show Stranger Things, including a plan to let fans book a themed cell in a former Holocaust prison on AirBnB.

Two of the locations in its fourth season–the final episodes of which were released last week–have dark roots in the real world.

Russian prison scenes were filmed in a former Lithuanian prison used by Nazis during the Holocaust while the show’s fictitious mental hospital was inspired by an infamous U.S. asylum with a similar name.

Mental health and Jewish advocates have criticized the streaming giant for what they see as exploitation of a brutal history. Both locations are also now tourist attractions.

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Sabbath Times

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 9:36 P.M. on Friday, July 8, and concludes at 11:19 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

In Petras Cvirka’s Place, Falafel

In Petras Cvirka’s Place, Falafel

The web-based Vilnius city guide 1323.lt (1323 is the nominal year of the founding of Vilnius) has reviewed the Cvi in the Park Israeli street food kiosk organized this year and last in the park across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community headquarters in Vilnius.

Their review is titled “In Petras Cvirka’s Place, Falafel,” a reference to the name of the park still used by almost all Vilnius residents despite the municipality’s decision a few months back to remove its trademark statue to Soviet-era Lithuanian poet Petras Cvirka.

“For the second season now the Cvi Parkas Jewish street food kiosk had been luring passers-by to have a snack (and not only that). It debuted last year when the statue to Petras Cvirka, which caused so much discussion, still stood by.

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Presidential Palace Reception on Coronation of Mindaugas Day

Presidential Palace Reception on Coronation of Mindaugas Day

Photo: Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and son Rafaelis attended the reception. Photo by J. Stasevičius courtesy Lithuanian State Radio and Television.

The Lithuanian president invited special guests to attend a reception at the presidential palace compound Wednesday to mark Coronation of Mindaugas Day, the day chosen by historians and others to celebrate the coronation Lithuania’s first and only king, Mindaugas, in A.D. 1253 with a crown sent by Pope Innocent IV.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Story of King Mindaugas in brief here.

New Condo Ad in Kaunas: “Lietūkis: A Building with History”

New Condo Ad in Kaunas: “Lietūkis: A Building with History”

A building built between the two world wars on Vytautas prospect in Kaunas is now undergoing renovation. The architect was Karolis Reisneris, the same architect who designed the Church of the Assumption in Kaunas. Advertisements to purchase apartments have caused controversy because of the phrase “Lietūkis: A Building with History,” recalling the Lietūkis garage massacre in Kaunas in late June of 1941.

Artist Paulina Eglė Pukytė spotted the advertisement on facebook and was surprised by it.

“If the ad campaign is mentioning history, then how can it ignore completely some of the blackest pages of 20th century history connected with the word Lietūkis? The advertisement suggests ‘touching history.’ How should we touch it, and which history?” she said to 15min.lt.

Between the two world wars the compound word “Lietūkis,” made up of Lietuva or Lithuania, shortened to Liet-, followed by ūkis, meaning economy, farm or household, was the name adopted by the Union of Lithuanian Agricultural Cooperatives, which operated in Kaunas from 1923 to 1940. Their headquarters were located at no. 43 on Vytautas prospect. The daylight pogrom and mass murder of Jews was perpetrated at the garage, actually an automobile service and repair station, located on Miško street in Kaunas and still known as the Lietūkis garage, despite abolition of the Lietūkis organization, the Union of Lithuanian Agricultural Cooperatives, prior to that.

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Free Tango Lessons at Israeli Street Food Kiosk

Free Tango Lessons at Israeli Street Food Kiosk

The Cvi in the Park Israeli street food kiosk is hosting free tango dancing lessons open to everyone at the park across the street from the Lithuanian Jewish Community at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 7:00 P.M. on July 5. The vocalist Eudardo will perform tango music from Latin America and the Argentine.

Program:

7:00 P.M. – 7:45 P.M. Public tango lesson
8:00 P.M. First portion of concert (Argentine and Latin American tango music)
8:30 P.M. Milonga (tango dances)
9:00 P.M. Second portion of concert
10:00 P.M. Finale.

Painted in Sound: An Interview with Samuel Bak

Painted in Sound: An Interview with Samuel Bak

by Karolis Vyšniauskas, photographs by Ieva Lygnugarytė, sound engineer Adomas Zubė

Samuel Bak is a miraculous survivor of Vilnius Ghetto. Now 88 at his studio in Massachusetts, the prolific painter recalls lost Jewish life in Vilnius for a NARA podcast.

For many decades Samuel Bak didn’t want to come back to Vilnius. It is the city where his father, grandparents and even his best friend, a child at the time, were killed.

But eventually through an initiative by local Lithuanians he returned to the place which formed his childhood memories. Now Vilnius hosts the Samuel Bak Museum, to which the painter has donated more than 50 of his works.

Full text and audio file of interview here.

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Happy Birthday to Mina Frišman

Happy Birthday to Mina Frišman

The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners wish Mina Frišman a very happy birthday. Our heartfelt wishes for her endless health and many happy days ahead with her children and grandchildren.

Lithuanian Makabi Preparing for 21st World Maccabiah Games

Lithuanian Makabi Preparing for 21st World Maccabiah Games

The Makabi Lithuanian athletics club is training intensively for taking part in the 21st World Maccabiah Games to take place between July 12 and July 26 in Israel. This will be the ninth World Maccabiah Games where the Lithuanian Makabi delegation will compete under the tutelage of president Semionas Finkelšteinas.

The delegation includes 23 people of whom 17 are athletes, 2 trainers (chess and swimming) and 4 coaches. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky is planning to attend the opening ceremony with the Lithuanian Makabi team. The entire team is expecting to make a good showing and to make new contacts and friends as well as learning about the country and culture in the host country, Israel.

Photos: The European Maccabi Games held in Dusseldorf from September 2 to 5, 2021, where all six Lithuanian Makabi competitors won medals.

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One Hundred and Seven Years Late for Dinner

One Hundred and Seven Years Late for Dinner

by Grant Gochin

When your grandmother’s last words make it clear that she’s not who you thought she was, you are willing to move all the mountains in Europe to get to the truth

Dinner between cousins was scheduled for Shabbat on Friday, May 14, 1915. How was I to know that the Shabbos meal never took place? Without warning, Russian forces launched a genocidal mass deportation of Baltic Jews deep into Russia. Families were torn apart, lives were destroyed and communities of Jews devastated.

The first inkling I had was on my grandmother’s deathbed. Her final lucid words to me were: “I wish I knew my name. I wish I knew who my family was.” We thought we knew her name–Bertha Lee Arenson. We were wrong.

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Fayerlakh Jewish Song and Dance Ensemble Celebrates 50th Birthday

Fayerlakh Jewish Song and Dance Ensemble Celebrates 50th Birthday

The Jewish song and dance ensemble Fayerlakh celebrated their 50th birthday on Sunday, June 19, at the Polish House of Culture in Vilnius with performances by musicians, singers and dancers.

The group formed back in the early 70s within the general milieu of Jewish, Lithuanian, Russian and Polish volunteer collectives, including the Yiddish-language People’s Theater. Many of the Jewish volunteer cultural groups–a choir, vocalists, a dance troupe, actors and personnel from the People’s Theater and a popular stage band–later immigrated to Israel and formed the Anakhnu Kan ensemble there. 1971 was also the year Jewish musician Yasha Magid founded a vocal and instrumental group. By 1972 this group had formed its core of enthusiastic musicians and the dance troupe, and held their first concert. That’s the story of how Fayerlakh, at the time the only Jewish song and dance ensemble throughout the Soviet Union, formed in Vilnius.

Kaunas Jewish Community to Commemorate Lietūkis Garage Victims

Kaunas Jewish Community to Commemorate Lietūkis Garage Victims

The Kaunas Jewish Community will commemorate the victims of the Lietūkis garage massacre at 4:30 P.M. on Monday, June 27, at the monument to the victims located at Miško street no. 3 in Kaunas. Following that commemoration participants will go on to the Vilijampolė (Slobodka) Jewish cemetery on Kalnų street and the Žaliakalnis Jewish cemetery on the Radvilėnų highway to commemorate Holocaust victims.

On June 27, 1941, around 50 Jewish men were tortured to death in front of crowd of on-lookers at the Lietūkis garage. The men were simply grabbed at random off the street for the public execution and included people from all walks of life. They were derided and brutally tortured with crow bars and high-pressure water from hoses. The names of most of the victims and executioners remain unknown, although one of the victims was Jurgis Štromas, who had been the director of the Industry and Trade Department at the Lithuanian Finance Ministry.

Vytautas Bruveris’s Presentation at Fifth World Litvak Congress

Vytautas Bruveris’s Presentation at Fifth World Litvak Congress

Lithuanian journalist Vytautas Bruveris gave a presentation at the Fifth World Litvak Congress held in Vilnius last month called “Jews in Lithuania: A Still-Undiscovered or an Already-Lost Shared History?”:

Many here have spoken about the war in the Ukraine. That’s natural, because it is continuation and horrific metastasis of the same story we are all talking about. I would like to talk about a different aspect, however, about empathy. Lithuanian society is showing they are very capable of human empathy and solidarity. We see that especially clearly in the huge and praise-worthy movement to receive war refugees from the Ukraine.

A question arises in this context, however, for me: is it not true that Lithuanian society are most able to feel empathy for those whom they understand as their own people, as participants of the same history?

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Sabbath Times

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 9:40 P.M. on Friday, June 17, and concludes at 11:31 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region.

Jews of Kaunas Honor Rescuers

Jews of Kaunas Honor Rescuers

On June 9 the Kaunas Jewish Community honored those who rescued Jews from the Holocaust and their family members at an informal gathering.

“When you save one person, you save an entire world,” Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas said.

Child Born in Basement

Several dozen people came to the dinner at the Višta Puode restaurant in Kaunas. They shared their thoughts and impressions and generally chatted. There were songs performed in Yiddish and Hebrew using the Lithuanian folk instrument the kanklės, saxophone and harpsichord. Juozas Straupis was there with his granddaughter Monika. He had only just turned 4 when his mother and father, Bronislava and Juozas, later named Righteous Gentiles, rescued 24 people. They took seven into their home and found safe places for the others among their neighbors. Priests and the community helped take care of these people.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Faina Kukliansky: June 14 Recalls Agony of All Lithuanian Citizens

Faina Kukliansky: June 14 Recalls Agony of All Lithuanian Citizens

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky participated in a commemoration at the Lithuanian parliament to mark the Day of Mourning and Hope and the Day of Occupation and Genocide, and also attended a ceremony at a memorial in Naujoji Vilnia.

“Lithuanian Jews didn’t just experience the tragedy of the Holocaust, but also the repressions of the Soviet regime. The system sought to do away with the Jewish national spirit and the values. All sorts of means were used to achieve this, including the deportations already mentioned, but also communal and personal property seizures, the monument at Ponar blown up because it bore an inscription in Yiddish, synagogues nationalized and the closure of the YIVO institute. The Sovietization of the educational system dealt a huge blow to Jews, with private and communal schools banned. Some of the Jewish schools were destroyed, others were made into state schools where Hebrew was no longer taught and the traditional ethnic curricula–Jewish curricula–formed over many years were abolished. In their place new subjects were introduced, including mandatory Russian language and classes on the constitution of the USSR. The goal was obvious: to erase and replace the identity of the Jewish people. So when we talk about these horrific days in June, we are talking about a tragedy for Lithuanian citizens, no matter what their ethnic identity,” chairwoman Kukliansky said.

June 14 to 18 are remembered in Lithuania as an especially brutal part of history which destroyed the lives of many people of Lithuania, including Lithuanians, Jews, Poles and Russians. There is a public misconception the deportations during those days in 1941 only affected ethnic Lithuanians. Actually more than 3,000 Jews from Lithuania were among the deportees. The Lithuanian Jewish Community marks this painful anniversary annually in common with all the people of Lithuania and we will not forget the pain inflicted on Lithuania during this period in 1941.