Police were called Wednesday to Ožeškienės street nos. 19 and 21 in Kaunas after construction workers prevented a man from destroying an art installation there with a hammer. Neighbors called the police and told the media the perpetrator is a citizen of the Republic of Ireland who teaches at Kaunas Techological University. They also said this isn’t the first time he’s vandalized the tribute to Lithuanian Jews and Jewish partisans from the Kaunas ghetto. This time he was caught on video, which was played on the national evening television news in Lithuania.
The Kiemo galerija, or Courtyard Gallery as it’s known began 12 years ago and was the brainchild of resident Vytenis Jakas. He started collecting stories from local oldtimers in both buildings who told him many of the residents were Jews before they were rounded up and murdered. One such couple was Juda Zupavičius and Dita Sperling-Zupavičienė. Dita’s brother Hirsh, their mother and Juda’s comrade Ika Grinberg, the son of the owner of the building, also lived there.
In the summer of 2014 Dita travelled from Tel Aviv to Lithuania with the hope of commemorating her husband Juda and his fellow members of the Kaunas ghetto resistance during the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the Kaunas ghetto.
Installation creator Vytenis Jakas unveiled frescoes of former residents and Kaunas ghetto heroes Juda Zupavičius and Ika Grinberg on September 22, 2014.
Since that time the Courtyard Gallery near the city municipality building has been listed as a tourist attraction by the city, was included in the Kaunas 2022 Capital of European Culture program and was included in other official events by the municipality. It has also started attracting larger numbers of tourists during the summer.
Jakas said the attack this time was on rules posted in Lithuanian and English, mirrors and QR codes next to exhibits.
Speaking to the Kauno Diena newspaper, Jakas said: “[My] neighbor smashed up the Courtyard Gallery rules attached to the wall. When the construction workers started asking him why he was doing this, the man went home, returned with a hammer and crowbar, and began smashing the installation’s mirrors, and finally the QR codes next to the works of art, and also the unique work with the Jewish woman Dita’s portrait and the unique inscription there. He said this art was illegal and they themselves get to decide how this wall should look. They want to paint over it. But there’s so much history here! It touches the entire city, because it tells the story of the Kaunas ghetto, of Dita who survived the Stutthof concentration camp and of the other Jews who lived here and their tragic fates. The old fountain where neighbors used to gather is also commemorated here. Kaunas should be proud to have such a courtyard with its history commemorated. Its destruction is the same thing as vandalism.”
Kauno Diena newspaper interviewed a neighbor called Darius who spoke to the university teacher just after the incident.
“I went up and asked him why he did that. He said he is a resident of the building undergoing renovation and he doesn’t like the drawings, that they’re illegal and will be destroyed because renovation has to be made,” he said.
The wall in question hosts the first entries in the gallery: a clown photographer character , then Dita and the others, Kauno Diena reported. One portrait shows Dita and her husband Juda who lived here from 1939 to 1941 when they were imprisoned in the Kaunas ghetto. The note Dita herself wrote under the photograph years later says Juda was one of the leaders of the underground in the Kaunas ghetto, that he was horribly tortured by the Nazis and yet refused to reveal where the remaining children were hiding in the ghetto, and that he was then shot. Dita was his fellow partisan. The same photo hangs in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Kauno Diena reported.
Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas told Kauno Diena the area had a high Jewish population in the past, and that “this is one of the most visited sites in Kaunas, group after group comes here, it’s a symbol of Kaunas, and for that reason alone the wall should be preserved.”
In an interview with the TV3 evening news broadcasted Thursday, Žakas said the offender said the installation would be removed and Christian crosses placed there instead. TV3 reported the Irish citizen, believed by many on social media to be James McGeever, formerly a resident of Manchester, has taught for 10 years at the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Faculty of Kaunas Technological University. KTU told TV3 they would wait for a conclusion from police before launching an internal investigation.
Kauno Diena spoke with one local resident who tried to speak to the man in English and confirmed the cross story, saying: “He demonstrated a cross here in front of the pictures of Jews and shouted nothing can stay here. You can see also some anti-Semitism in that.”
Dita Sperling and the Courtyard Gallery have featured in numerous reports here on the Lithuanian Jewish Community webpage in the past, including a 2017 article here. Dita is now well over 100 years old.