Heritage – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Knife-Wielding Masked Teenagers Take Over Palace of Sports in Old Jewish Cemetery

Photo: Police at Palace of Sports by Paulius Skučas

A group of 50 masked, knife-wielding teenage boys has turned the crumbling Palace of Sports complex built on top of the old Jewish cemetery in Vilnius into their gang clubhouse and have threatened pedestrians in the area, including children, with their weapons, as well as attacking a lone security guard in charge of the site, according to Paulius Skučas, an LNK television reporter who posted on Instagram as well as did a Lithuanian state radio interview about the situation.

Skučas posted photos of the incident on Instagram with textual explanations:

This is how the Palace of Sports looked after the massive attack by teenagers this evening. Police and security stood guard for several hours. It seems the gang of teenagers are so uncontrollable and undetainable that all the residents of the surround neighborhoods and buildings have become hostages.

2024-10-042024-10-04

Šiauliai Jewish Community Remembers the Murdered Jews of Žagarė

Šiauliai Jewish Community members are planning to leave the Šiauliai Jewish Community building at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday, October 6, to reach the town square in Žagarė where a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust will be held. Everyone is invited to attend.

2024-09-30

Remembering the Holocaust Victims in Švenčionys

Traditionally there is a commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust in Švenčionys held the first Sunday in October. We remember the Jews tortured and murdered, and those imprisoned in the ghetto set up in the town square and later murdered at nearby Platumai village. You are invited to attend the commemoration this year on October 6.

Program:

11:00 A.M. – 11:30 A.M. Remembering the victims in a gathering at the Menorah statue in the central park

12:30 P.M. Paying respects to the victims at the mass murder site in Platumai village approximately 13 kilometers to the west of Švenčionys

2024-09-26

Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews Marked in Kupiškis

Photos by Miglė Zakarauskaitės and Aušra Jonušytė

Local residents and politicians commemorated Lithuania’s Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews September 23 at a monument to Holocaust victims at the Jewish cemetery there and visited an older Jewish cemetery in the once-thriving shtetl, laying stones gathered from streets in the town.

The same day the public library housed in the restored synagogue held a lesson on Jewish life in Kupiškis for students in grades 1 through 4.

2024-09-262024-09-26

Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews Marked at Ponar

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, Lithuanian politicians and foreign ambassadors marked the Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews September 23 at the Ponar Memorial Complex outside Vilnius.

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky spoke at the event, saying among other things: “I have several requests by the Lithuanian Jewish Community. First, I want to know the names of the people who were murdered here. And throughout Lithuania as well, where 400, 500, 600 Jews were murdered in every town. Where are their names? … The Lithuanian Jewish Community also wants to know the names of the murderers. Many years ago now we were promised they would be made public, but they remain unknown to us. I am convinced it has to be made very clear who was a murderer and who was a rescuer. So I would like to ask sincerely the lists of those are known now at least be made available to us.”

Also attending and speaking were Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein with Israeli embassy chargé-d’affaires Erez Golan, German ambassador Cornelius Zimmermann, US ambassador Kara McDonald, speaker of Lithuanian parliament Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė and others. Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom performed kaddish. Vilnius Religious Jewish Community chairman Simas Levinas also participated.

2024-09-252024-09-25

Holocaust Commemoration in Pabradė

A Holocaust commemoration was held September 23 in Pabradė, a town in eastern Lithuania on the border with Belarus. September 23 is Lithuania’s Day of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews. The event was held under the umbrella of the Memory Road civic initiative in cooperation with the Švenčionys Jewish Community, the Pabradė Municipal Culture Center, the Pabradė aldermanship and 6th, 7th and 8th graders from the Rytas Gymnasium in Pabradė under the tutelage of history teacher Danguolė Grincevičienė.

Participants walked the path along which Jews were marched to their deaths to the mass murder site there. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro and history teacher Danguolė Grincevičienė spoke to the students about the former Jewish community there.

2024-09-242024-09-24

Remembering the Holocaust in Nemenčinė

A ceremony was held in Nemenčinė (Nementchin, Niemenczyn) just north of Vilnius Friday at the site of the former synagogue to remember the approximately 500 Jews from that once-thriving shtetl murdered in the Holocaust.

Those attending the ceremony included Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israeli ambassador Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein, Tammy Nguyen representing the US embassy, Lithuanian MP Rita Tamašunienė and Vilnius regional administration mayor Robertas Duchnevičius, among others. Students from the Sholem Aleichem school in Vilnius staged brief presentations. The participants proceeded on to the mass murder site several kilometers away where Choral Synagogue cantor Shmuel Yaatom prayed for the victims.

2024-09-24

Evening to Remember Righteous Gentile Ona Šimaitė in Kaunas

The Kaunas Jewish Community invites you to an evening to remember Righteous Gentile Ona Šimaitė at the Vincas Kudirka Public Library, A. Mapu street no.18, Kaunas at 6:00 P.M. on Thursday, September 19.

Author of a biography in Lithuanian and researcher Rimantas Stankevičius will speak at the event hosted by the historian Linas Venclauskas. Rokas Makštutis will provide musical accompaniment.

2024-09-19

Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews in Panevėžys

You’re invited to attend a commemoration of the Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews to be held in in Panevėžys, Lithuania, starting at 1:00 P.M. on Monday, September 23.

Program:

1:00 P.M. Opening ceremony and wreath-laying at “Sad Jewish Mother” statue on Memory Square on Vasario 16-osios street.

1:30 P.M. Trip to mass murder site in Kurganava Forest.

2:00 P.M. Trip to Holocaust memorial site in Žalioji Forest.

3:30 P.M. Screening of Yad Vashem film about the Holocaust at Panevėžys Jewish Community

Please indicate your intention to attend by calling the chairman of the Panevėžys Jewish Community at 8 611 20882 or the administrator at 8 610 17608.

2024-09-192024-09-19

Mirages: A New Look at Old Shtetls

The Regional History Museum of the Jonava Culture Center has put on a new exhibit of photographs by Iveta Bajorinaitė called Mirages of the Shtetl accompanied by texts by the late Grigoriy Kanovich showcasing the Lithuanian town and Jewish shtetl then and now. Renowned Litvak writer Kanovich grew up in Jonava.

During the opening ceremony last week, Iveta Bajorinaitė spoke about her quest to locate and photograph locations in the current urban landscape which correspond to with archival photographs.

Šeduva Jewish History Museum aka the Lost Shtetl senior curator Milda Jakulytė-Vasil, Kėdainiai Regional History Museum director Rimantas Žirgulis and Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas continued the opening ceremony with a panel discussion called “How Do We Tell the Story of the Shtetls?” Among the other ideas shared, they agreed the most important answer to that question was taking the initiative and working steadfastly towards that goal. They shared their personal experiences in organizing exhibitions and events and utilizing urban spaces.

The Regional History Museum of the Jonava Culture Center’s project “Stories of the Shtetls” is financed by Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage Department and the Jonava regional administration with the Šeduva Jewish History Museum aka the Lost Shtetl as a partner in the project.

2024-09-17

Visitors to Panevėžys Jewish Community

Celesta and Harriet Sollod from San Francisco visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community recently. Their grandfather was Isaac Neviarsky who with his brother was Nathan and sister Yeta left Ponavezh in 1895 and travelled to Baltimore in the United States. Their father was Hirsh Aaron who was deported with other Jews from the Kovna guberniya during the First World War in 1915. He went to Petrograd where a maternal relative of the Semakovich family lived, becoming a renowned medical doctor to the Russian tsar.

Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman received the visitors and spoke to them about the history of the Jews of Panevėžys and the Community’s activities. The two women then went to view Jewish sites in the area including the Jewish cemetery and several Jewish mass murder sites.

2024-09-162024-09-16

Pathetic State of Jewish Cemetery in Panevėžys

The state of the old Jewish cemetery in the New Town section of Panevėžys requires emergency action, according to Panevėžys Jewish Community chairman Gennady Kofman.

The cemetery is thought to have been established for the burial of the first Jewish and Karaïte settlers in the northern Lithuanian city and surrounding areas.

The Panevėžys regional administration adopted a resolution for maintaining the old Jewish graveyard back in 2019 but hasn’t followed through on the ground. Time, disregard and the weather have since taken a greater toll, which prompted Kofman to seek additional redress from the Panevėžys regional administration.

“The main section of the old Jewish cemetery in the New Town neighborhood has been abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin, with fallen trees knocking over headstones, overgrown grass and shrubbery, felled trees and branches left unremoved. We would be grateful if administration staff could come, formulate a maintenance plan and finally care for this unique historic city location,” Kofman said.

2024-09-162024-09-16

Twelve Thousand Pivonija Holocaust Victims Remembered

People gathered at noon on the first Sunday in September for the annual commemoration of the approximately 12,000 Jews murdered in the Pivonija Forest outside Ukmergė (Vilkomir) this year as in years past. Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas began the ceremony with an address and Kaunas Jewish Community member Iseris Šreibergas said kaddish. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kuklianksy, members and heads of regional LJC affiliates, local politicians, local school children and ambassadors to Lithuania including Israel’s Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein attended the ceremony.

2024-09-10

Visitor to Panėvežys

Brendan Cohen from Melbourne, Australia, visited the Panėvežys Jewish Community August 30. He had sent genealogical documents to the Community before his trip. Cohen sought to learn which of his relatives had been murdered in the Holocaust in Panėvežys and surrounding areas. Chairman Gennady Kofman received the guest and shared the results of searches of the Community’s archives.

2024-09-10

Two Events Held in Honor of Chaim Frenkel

Last Sunday two events were held in honor of Chaim Frenkel in Šiauliai: a stele marking the first soccer stadium in Šiauliai was unveiled in the central part of the city and the fourth Chaim Frenkel soccer tournament was attended by 10 soccer teams including Šiauliai Makabi. Frenkel helped build the soccer stadium in the period between the two world wars..

2024-09-10

Dance Symphony from the Jeursalem of the North

A music and dance play based on Jievaras Jasinskis’s “Symphony from the Jerusalem of the North” is returning to the stage for two performances.

Time: 6:00 P.M., September 19
Place: Alytus Town Theater, Alytus, Lithuania

Time: 6:00 P.M., September 24
Place: Saulė Concert Hall, Šiauliai, Lithuania

2024-09-10

Gunman Killed in Munich near Israeli Consulate on Anniversary of Black September Massacre

BERLIN–Police in Munich say they thwarted a potential attack on Jewish targets Thursday after they shot and killed a man who was firing a rifle near the Israeli Consulate and a museum documenting Nazi Germany.

Police have not offered details on the suspect. Some German media outlets reported he was a juvenile from Austria police had previously investigated for alleged ties to Islamic extremism.

Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle verified the authenticity of cell-phone videos shared online which show a younger male carrying a rifle fitted with a bayonet before and during the shootout.

2024-09-062024-09-06

Visitors in Švenčionys

Mother and son Eudenta and Samull Virine from Canada visited the Nalšia Museum in Švenčionys on August 21 where Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro gave them a guided tour including viewing implements and artifacts from Jewish homes, the history of the region and a new exhibit on the fate of the Jews of Švenčionys. Eudenta’s mother was born in Švenčionys.

They sought archival information about the families of Leiba and Abraham Alperovitch and Mengel Bushkanietz with the help of historian and museum specialist Nadežda Spiridonovienė. The museum has very little information regarding these surnames but they are recorded as living in Švenčionys in a Russian Empire census conducted before World War I.

The two visitors also viewed the Menorah statue in the town’s central park. They went on to visit a Jewish mass murder site in nearby Švenčionėliai.

2024-09-05

European Day of Jewish Culture 2024

This year’s topic is family.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is celebrating the European Day of Jewish Culture this Sunday, September 1, with a full day’s program of events, lessons, workshops, discussions and exhibits. All events are free and open to the public, but registration is required for most of the events below.

Here’s the program:

11:00 A.M.-12:30 P.M. First Hebrew lesson for the whole family with Ruth Reches at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius. Ruth will soon be forming new classes for studying Hebrew. Register here: https://bit.ly/4g5jZbW

2024-08-29

Lithuanian Jewish Community Statement on Genocide Center’s Newest Report on Kazys Škirpa

The Lithuanian Jewish Community representing 32 Lithuanian and foreign Jewish organizations categorically rejects the latest report and conclusion by the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania regarding Kazys Škirpa.

We note that a ban on propagating totalitarian and authoritarian regimes and their ideologies has been in force in Lithuania since May of 2023. Under this law symbols of totalitarianism and authoritarianism–statues, street names, names of squares and other of other public locations–cannot be instituted, and those which are currently in existence must be removed from public space. The LJC is convinced Kazys Škirpa, whose publicly-made anti-Semitic statements and incitement to get rid of Jews gave rise to a wave of violence with such tragic results, should not be honored. Statues and commemorative plaques in his honor are a gigantic insult to the memory and relatives of the hundreds of thousands of Lithuanian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. All the more so bearing in mind that until now Lithuania has not established a national memorial commemorating the more than 200,000 victims of the Holocaust, our fellow citizens. Neither is there any monument paying honor to the heroism of Lithuania’s rescuers of Jews who risked their own lived and those of their families.

The International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania set up by the president of Lithuania has recognized the activities of the Lithuanian Activist Front and the Lithuanian Provisional Government, both led by Škirpa, as anti-Semitic. Chairman of the Commission’s Nazi Crimes Subcommittee Millersville University professor Saulius Sužiedelis stated: ” This is a statue to a man who led an organization which promoted violence against Lithuanian citizens of other ethnicity and which incited anti-Semitism. This is not a subjective judgment or interpretation, all of these statements are founded on historical facts, sources and documents.”

2024-08-262024-08-26

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