Photo: Joanne Fedler by Vilmantas Raupelis/LRT

Lithuanian state radio and television on their website LRT.lt featured Sydney-based writer Joanne Fedler’s visit to Žagarė, Lithuania, in spite of her family’s injunction never to set foot in Lithuania.

Fedler is the author of 17 books and teaches creative writing. She operates a small publishing house called Joanne Fedler Media. She was born and raised in South Africa to a family of Litvak immigrants before coming to Australia in 2001.

In fall of 2025 she was at a month-long writing workshop in Finland and decided the family hearth, Žagarė, was too close not to visit. She told LRT a dream of her grandfather as a young man was the sign for her which sealed the deal. She decided she would honor her family by travelling to Lithuania rather than avoiding it.

Fedler told LRT her grandmother Khaya’s family was exterminated in Lithuania. Khaya and her husband Solomon had emigrated to South Africa before the Holocaust. She believes her maternal great-grandparents Noah and Dvora and sister and brothers were murdered on October 2, 1914, on Yom Kippur eve, along with 3,000 other Jews, on the grounds of the Žagarė manor house. Fedler said the Jews went to their deaths led by town rabbis, reciting the Kol Nidrei prayers.

She told LRT her family warned her never to travel to Lithuania because it was a blood-soaked land full of anti-Semites who murder Jews. She thought she would do her duty by coming, then turn around and leave. Instead she fell in love with Žagarė, Lithuanian state media outlet LRT reports.

Full story in Lithuanian here.