A ceremony to mark the 85th anniversary of the liquidation of the Ponevezh ghetto was held in the northern Lithuanian city September 8 with a number of speakers and music.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said they had gathered both to honor the dead and keep memory of the Holocaust alive for future generations.

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Shelly Hugler Livne said 85 years is long time in human life but only an instant in terms of historical memory.

Lithuanian MP Ramūnas Vyžintas reiterated the need to safeguard historical memory.

Sister Leonora Kasiūlytė from the Congregation of the Sisters of God’s Providence told the story Marija Rusteikaitė, the nun from the Panevėžys area who rescued 15 Jews including children.

Students from the Vytautas Mikalauskas Gymnasium of the Arts performed music. A member of the Panevėžys Jewish Community performed the Yiddish song Oyfn Pripetshik about Jewish childhoods, families and communities destroyed.

Participants walked to the old Jewish cemetery on Memory Square, where kaddish was performed. A delegation later travelled to the mass murder site in the Žalioji Forest.