Eugene Smotkin, 72, currently lives in Puerto Rico and works in renewable energy. He and wife Linda recently visited Panevėžys whence his family comes, and visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community where they were warmly received by chairman Gennady Kofman. They visited the mass murder sites in the Žalioji Forest and Kurganava Forest together.

Eugene Smotkin said his father Morris was 16 when his uncle, Rabbi Meyer Kimmel, arrived in Ponevezh. He took Morris to New York where he entered yeshiva, then enlisted in the army. Morris knew five languages and during his service he interrogated captured SS officers, collecting intelligence on Nazi Germany.