from the newspaper Šiaulių kraštas

The Chaim Frenkl Villa of the Aušra Museum in Šiauliai hosted a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leiba Lipshitz on July 16. Lipshitz chronicled Jewish life in Šiauliai, researched regional history and was a well-known publix figure. People called him a walking encyclopedia. He survived the Stuthoff and Dachau concentration camps but lost his entire family in the Holocaust. He went back to his hometown and dedicated the rest of his life to documenting Jewish history and life in Šiauliai.

Historian Jonas Kiriliauskas delivered a presentation of Lipshitz and his views on life at the ceremony.

Lipshitz bequeathed his manuscript compilation called “The World of the Jews of Šiauliai Murdered from 1941 to 1944” to the Aušra Museum as he neared the end of life. This contains 24 case files consisting of more than 2,500 pages and over 300 photographs, along with different documents, corresponence, maps and fiagrams. It was divided into 1,321 chapters with selected documents in Lithuanian, Russian, German, English, Yiddish and Hebrew.

Lipshitz’s bequest covers Jewish history from the earliest times to the state of Israel today. Topics include the Holocaust, testimonies, statistics, lists of Jewish rescuers and information about Holocaust perpetrators.

Participants following the ceremony were invited to the Šiauliai Jewish Community to view a new exhibit of paintings there and to celebrate the birthday of Šiauliai Jewish Community member Rašelė Galinienė.