The second season of archaeological excavations is under way at the site of the destroyed Great Synagogue in Vilnius and the surrounding Shulhoyf complex of Jewish buildings. A team of Israeli, Lithuanian and American volunteers began work on July 10 and will continue until July 21.
The objective is to continue last year’s work researching the water system of the complex developed in the 18th century and two mikvaot, ritual baths. Plans are to open “an area … probably near the entrance staircase descending into the synagogue and around the area of the bimah.”
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and the embassy of the United States of America in Vilnius kindly invite you to a screening of the documentary film “Holocaust Escape Tunnel” at the museum’s Tolerance Center (Naugarduko St. 10/2, Vilnius) on Tuesday, July 18, at 5:30 P.M. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the archaeologists featured in the film.
I entered Kaišiadorys in a pounding rain to see the Soviet monument the local residents want removed.
Visibility was perhaps 10 feet as I passed what seemed to be farmsteads and fields. Up ahead the road bisected a rather beautiful little lake. A weird light enveloped the scene, black clouds on one side and open blue sky on the other, with cattails, a bright green made neon against dark gray.
The monument appeared there on the other side of the lake right by the road, looking for all the world like a broken-down chimney of an abandoned factory, but surrounded by a natural idyll the summer squall was unable to diminish.
The monument itself has no inscription. It might have, once upon a time, but there was no evidence even of a stolen metal plaque, no holes for bolts, no tell-tale metal stains dripping down from an empty space anywhere on its face. The only thing close to an inscription was some faded graffiti, some message left in blue spray-paint but now illegible.
by Daiva Baronienė
daivabaro@lzinios.lt www.lzinios.lt
A survey of people living in Kaišiadorys, Lithuania, or hailing from there found the majority don’t want an obelisk commemorating Nazi victims, a Soviet relic. Photo: www.kaisiarodys.lt
A public opinion survey in Kaišiadorys determined the majority of residents and people from the town who are currently abroad or living abroad no longer want the obelisk to victims of the Nazis to stand at the entrance to the town.
Kaišiadorys regional administration head Vytenis Tomkus’s wish to greet the 100th anniversary of Lithuanian independence next year after having removed from the region sites and constructions which don’t correspond to the ideological values of today is gaining momentum. A poll of residents over the period of one month asking whether they need to monument to victims of the Nazis to remain standing in Kaišiadorys or not found that the majority of informants in the rather active survey are convinced the town does not need this sort of monument.
On Lithuanian Statehood Day, the Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club delegation carried the flags of the Republic of Lithuania and the Lithuanian Jewish Community at the 20th Maccabiah Games in Israel.
The “Jewish Olympics” opened Thursday, July 6, with 10,000 Jewish athletes from 80 countries. The opening ceremony at the Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem was watched by 30,000 fans in the stands.
This is the eighth Maccabiah Games to which the Lithuanian Makabi club has sent a delegation. Back in 1989, at the 13th Maccabiah Games, Lithuanian Makabi carried the flag of the Republic of Lithuania, which was only then beginning to break away from the Soviet Union. Club president Semionas Finkelšteinas and club athletes remember the event well.
Just before Sabbath on Friday, July 7, 2017, Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon hung a mezuzah on the doorway of the newly-restored white synagogue in Joniškis and he and members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community celebrated the beginning of Sabbath there together.
“There is no Europe without Jews,” Frans Timmermans, first vice-president of the European Commission, said during a meeting with Lithuanian Jewish leaders.
The first vice-president of the European Commission visited the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum July 3 and met with museum director Markas Zingeris, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky and others there. Arnoldas Pranckevičius, European Commission representative in Lithuania, was also present. Timmermans asked about anti-Semitism in Lithuania. Chairwoman Kukliansky explained Lithuanian Jews, having lived in Lithuania for 700 years, don’t consider themselves an ethnic minority, see themselves as citizens of the country in common with ethnic Lithuanians and aren’t seeking any legal protection as a minority. She also expressed apprehension over solutions to Lithuanian Jewish problems offered by the Government, because governments change and the new Government won’t necessarily support the policies of the former one, leading to a lack of continuity in decision-making regarding matters of importance to Lithuanian Jews.
Based on his long political experience, Timmermans said the only antidote to anti-Semitism is learning Jewish history.
“There is no Europe without Jews,” he said, and stressed the importance of education which provides the opportunity to learn more about and understand Jewish history. Living history, or people who remember the actual events and the Holocaust, are dying, and historians now provide the facts and their interpretation, he noted. He said nostalgia is a kind of new opium. People operate on what they heard as children from adults, and knowing it to be wrong, nonetheless are prone to doubt new facts, Timmermans said. He also said he believed good history curricula are a must.
The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community in great concern categorically stands against any plans to build new buildings on the remains of the foundations of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius.
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius was and is the holiest site for Lithuanian Jews. We consider any plans calling for new buildings to commemorate the supposedly non-extant temple blasphemy and the appearance of new buildings a desecration rather than a commemoration.
We consider it an expression of total disrespect that, without asking the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community and without regard to earlier public statements against this by the Lithuanian Jewish Community, certain organizations are undertaking initiatives whose implementation would, without doubt, offend Jewish religious sentiments and bring on criticism by the followers of the Vilna Gaon around the world. We hope organizations which are attempting to initiate construction projects at the Great Synagogue site will take into account the request made by the Vilnius Jewish Religious Community and give up the plans they have announced.
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius, destroyed by the Nazis and the Soviets, or more accurately its remains which are still being investigated by archaeologists, should be left in peace. At the same time, we note there is an abundance of heritage sites in Vilnius and throughout Lithuania which truly need greater attention.
The Vilnius Choral Synagogue, for example, needs greater attention. It still has no ritual bath or mikveh, and needs authentic restoration of its interior.
If something must be changed at the Great Synagogue site, we suggest the sign with incorrect information be replaced, and that the statue to the Vilna Gaon which looks like some sort of caricature be removed and given to some museum in the city. With all respect to the sculptor, it was made without any understanding of Judaic tradition.
We invite those organizations which want to undertake construction at the Great Synagogue site to take into account the real and urgent actual needs of religious Jews.
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius is important as a symbol of annihilated Jewish civilization. There are less ostentation, cultured and respectful ways to mark the site where it once stood, without earth-moving equipment and construction cranes.
Shmuel (Simas) Levinas, chairman
Vilnius Jewish Religious Community
The weird memory wars continue. Thank God they are being waged only in the virtual arena and, it seems to me, the atmosphere surrounding these memory gun-battles is becoming calmer and more on-topic.
Just last year after one large public event, the term “fellow citizens” began to be used very widely to refer to Jewish Holocaust victims. In one discussion where I objected that it wasn’t useful to underline the fact that “our fellow citizens” were murdered, because beyond the limits of this invitation to repentance remain many non-citizens of Lithuania who were victims of mass murder in Ponar and the Ninth Fort in Kaunas, I was presented with a rather unique argument, which goes something like this: by saying “our” fellow citizens were murdered, we make the victims “our own people,” meaning they become closer or dearer to us. Perhaps. I have noticed that even refined and let’s say modern nationalists who before now have not wanted even to mention the Holocaust, much less the victims, have begun gradually to get used to the idea, which becomes for them a kind of indulgence of forgiveness for saying anything at all on the topic. From among those modern and rather square nationalists you might overhear the following: “Well, since it was our ‘fellow citizens’ who were murdered, that’s a bad thing; killing Jewish ‘fellow citizens’ is unpatriotic.” This is the deconstruction of the nationalist’s reasoning having undergone, excuse the phrase, some degree of liberalization. But what about murdering non-citizens?
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me this constant emphasis–sincere or not–on Holocaust victims being Lithuanian citizens tends to undermine any sort of human compassion expressed, whether it be Christian, Jewish or Buddhist, undermining the moral dimension of regret, the feeling when you want to say simply and sincerely: I am sad for them, that shouldn’t have happened. And it doesn’t matter in which country those people held citizenship.
And for those whom the legal aspect is important: let them determine and count how many holders of Polish passports from occupied Vilnius, how many French nationals, how many citizens of independent or Soviet-occupied Lithuania lie buried in those pits. If someone is truly sorrowed for these people, it’s surely not because they were citizens of a certain country.
I was moved to write this by a photograph posted recently on social media; it seems there are people who still remember and remind others of the Lietūkis Garage massacre carried out on June 27, 1941. The photograph has in common with the massacres that it is from another future site of tragedy, the Kaunas ghetto. The photograph secretly taken by Kaunas ghetto inmate Zvi Kadushin (Hirsh (George) Kadish) is of two children. They will be murdered. As will be so many children, so many it seems pointless to write the number.
When we think about regret and repentance (if we are really thinking about it), do we need to note or be interested in the citizenship of these two souls?
Lithuanian Makabi team at 13th Maccabiah Games opening ceremony, Israel, 1989
The Lithuanian Makabi Athletics Club delegation is leaving for the 20th Maccabiah Games, held once every four years, in Israel, where more than 10,000 athletes from 80 countries will compete.
This will be the 8th Maccabiah Games attended by the Lithuanian team. In 1989 the team was the first to carry the Lithuanian national flag at the opening ceremonies as the country sought independence from the Soviet Union. Club president Semionas Finkelšteinas and club athletes remember well the event.
Semionas Finkelšteinas:
“The Lithuanian Makabi delegation will have 28 athletes in 8 sports: badminton, swimming, mini-soccer, judo, table tennis, tennis, chess and riding. A Canadian rider who has Litvak roots was accepted on the Lithuanian team since Canada didn’t send a team of riders this year. The Lithuanian team includes three former Maccabiah medal-winners: chess player Eduardas Rozentalis who took bronze in 1989, badminton player Alanas Plavinas who won silver in 2013 and Aleksas Molodeckis who took bronze in judo in 2013.
“It’s important to us to participate in the Maccabiah and we never miss a single Jewish Olympics. Whether our team is stronger or weaker, we have always participated and won medals. This time we have five young people, three of whom expect to win medals. We have three badminton players, and the swimmer and strong table tennis player Neta Alon who could be a medal winner. Markas Šamesas and Vitalija Movšovič are our badminton players who could come home with medals. Among the adult athletes the chess player E. Rozentalis, badminton player A. Plavinas, and judo martial artist A. Molodeckij have a good chance of winning medals. Salomėja Zaksaitė, an accomplished chess player, will be competing at the Maccabiah for the first time. Our soccer team is traveling there with their new trainer Arūnas Šteinas. Three of our strong soccer players are unable to attend for various reasons. Artūras Sobolis couldn’t take time off work, Danielius Gunevičius’s trainer won’t allow him to go and Romanas Buršteinas has to attend to family matters.
“All the young people will stay at the best hotel in Haifa. They will compete in the games after which they have a separate program of activities. The swimmers will compete at the Wingate sports complex. Athletes from 80 countries will attend Maccabiah opening ceremonies July 6 and global media always give large coverage to the event, the opening ceremony is covered outside Israel by CNN, BBC and other global televisions channels. The Jewish Olympics takes place once every four years and there is a broad cultural program arranged for all participants. This event is about more than just about sports.
During celebrations of Joniškis’s own city day next week the restored White Synagogue there is to host a re-opening ceremony. The synagogue was built in 1823 and its external face combines features of the late classicism and romantic styles.
Restoration of the synagogue was financed by European Economic Area grants allocated by the Republic of Lithuania, the state budget and the Joniškis regional administration for a total of 389,358.35 euros.
Larger Lithuanian cities but even smaller towns often featured two synagogues, built at different periods. Few double-synagogue complexes are still standing in Lithuania, only in Joniškis, Kalvarija and Kėdainiai.
The Joniškis synagogue complex is located on the eastern side of the town square. Two adjacent brick buildings, the White and the Red Synagogues, form the complex. They were built at different periods and have different architecture and interiors. Their location by the central town square but set back among other buildings is fairly typical. They are very visible from side streets but looking from the main street they are blocked by other buildings. Both synagogues have smaller one-storey and two-storey buildings surrounding them.
Jews settled in Joniškis around the middle of the 18th century when charter rights were granted the cities of Joniškis and Šiauliai. Jewish communal life was intimately connected with religion and the synagogues. In 1797 the Jews of Joniškis received permission to build a synagogue and acquire a piece of land for a Jewish cemetery. A synagogue is first mentioned in 1823. According to the inventory of the Šiauliai economy conducted in 1825 and 1826, there were 49 Jewish families in Joniškis. In the mid-1800s there were 1,042 Jews living there. A second synagogue is first mentioned in 1865, and in 1866 there are records of a third synagogue and a Jewish inn. By 1897 the Jewish population had grown to 2,277. The third synagogue located at Vilniaus street no. 8 was turned into a store and residential building in 1965 and 1966.
Vilnius, June 27, BNS—The Lithuanian Jewish Community is proposing the creation of a cultural museum in the former Vilnius ghetto. There are considerations to include an open-air section beyond a single building housing the museum using modern technology. The LJC presented these ideas to Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius Thursday.
Creative analyst Albinas Šimanauskas, one of the authors of the idea, said they hadn’t decided on a specific location for the museum yet, but there was a proposal to establish it near Rūdininkų square.
“Rūdininkų square, for example, where there is a statue commemorating Tsemakh Shabad, could be the site for a memorial to Righteous Gentiles. It’s a fine square which could host international events, concerts, thematic festivals… this would be a Vilnius Jewish cultural museum exhibiting historical events and cultural phenomena through living story-telling,” he told BNS.
Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said they are waiting for basic confirmation of the idea from the municipality and will decide on a location for the museum after that.
As of now, the Lithuanian Jewish Community is a member of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage, better known by the French acronym AEPJ. The AEPJ supports the preservation, appreciation and promotion of Jewish culture and heritage in Europe. The association is especially devoted to making Jewish cultural and heritage buildings and locations accessible to the public. To achieve that goal, the AEPJ conducts two main programs: the European Day of Jewish Culture and the European Jewish heritage tourism routes.
Vilnius, June 25, BNS—Archbishop Teofilius Matulionis, persecuted by the Soviets, was beatified and a ceremony was held to commemorate the event at Vilnius Cathedral Square Sunday.
The first-ever beatification ceremony held in Lithuania drew over 15,000 people where the Pope’s Franciscan envoy cardinal Angelo Amato made the announcement.
Matulionis was imprisoned for 16 years under the Soviets and he received his longest sentence in 1946 after refusing to collaborate with the Soviet regime in their demand he help squash the partisan movement in Lithuania and after criticizing the Communists for persecuting religious people. He was allowed to return to Soviet-occupied Lithuania after ten years of imprisonment. Although he was constantly followed, he was able to receive secret permission from the Vatican to consecrate bishop Vincentas Sladkevičius. Matulionis passed away in 1962 at the age of 89. Some believed he was poisoned by the KGB, although that hasn’t been demonstrated conclusively.
Matulionis becames the second person from Lithuania beatified. Bishop Jurgis Matulaitis’s beatification was announced in Rome in 1987. In order for Matulionis to be canonized, i.e., made a saint, evidence of a miracle must be presented, including those that occur posthumously, such as any which occur in invoking his name in a prayer to God.
Lithuania has a patron saint, Casimir, the grand duke of Poland and Lithuania who was canonized in 1602.
Teofilius Matulionis helped rescue a Jewish girl from the Holocaust. Dalia Epšteinaitė speaks about her childhood friend Estera Elinaitė whom he helped rescue.
by Martynas Užpelkis, LJC heritage protection specialist
An historical event! In recent days, almost a coincidence of sorts but more likely the result of dedicated and constant preparation, three historical Jewish community buildings in Vilnius have been repaired and restored at the same time. In spite of the temporary convenience, our thanks go out to everyone who contributed to the preservation of these Jewish historical heritage sites.
Renovation on the synagogue on Gėlių street in Vilnius, the Zavl Germaize and David Levinson Synagogue, continues, but work has been completed on the façade and floor, and new doors and windows in line with the traditional ones were installed. The Lithuanian Jewish Community owns the building. The role of contractor for renovation work was carried out by the public sector Lietuvos Paminklai [Monuments of Lithuania] enterprise and renovation was conducted by the Nivara company. This year as in the foregoing three reconstruction work was financed by the Lithuanian state and the Goodwill Foundation. In 2017 the Cultural Heritage Department under the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture allocated 120,000 euros and the LJC contributed 16,000 euros allocated by the Goodwill Foundation.
About 1.3% of members of the Lithuanian Jewish community were deported to the Soviet Union in 1941. This percentage of deportations is the highest for any ethnic group in Lithuania. The deportations failed, however, to extinguish Jewish nationalism, and Zionist groups operated underground, organizing Hebrew education and exerting all efforts to allow Jews to leave for Palestine. According to Jewish historiography, in June of 1941 alone about 3,000 Jewish activists from the right and the left and Jewish owners of large industrial concerns and factories were deported. It is a great shame Lithuanian society today has almost no understanding of these deportations, or has chosen to ignore them, designating deportation an exclusively ethnic Lithuanian tragedy.
Historian Solomon Atamuk found there were 16 Jewish daily newspapers, 30 weeklies and 13 intermittent periodicals along with about 20 collections of literature published in Lithuania before World War II. After the June 14, 1940, ultimatum by the Soviet Union to Lithuania and the occupation which quickly followed, the Jewish community bore the brunt of social and cultural repressions. All leftist and rightist Jewish newspapers were shut down. Even Folksblat, popular among Communists and the organ of the Jewish People’s Party, was banned. Beyond the ban on the Jewish newspapers, editors of Jewish publications were fired and the new regime undertook a complete reorganization and shutting down of existing academic institutions. YIVO was made to heel, employees were fired, various books, newspapers and collections were seized. Opportunities to read in Hebrew were systematically lessened and Jewish libraries were shut down.
Long-time member of the Šiauliai Jewish Community doctor Jokūbas Furmanas passed away at the age of 102 on June 14, 2017. He was born April 25, 1916.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends our sincere condolences to his entire circle of friends and relatives. The Šiauliai Jewish Community and the Lithuanian Jewish Community have lost a remarkable man, a real Shavl Jew, a doctor and an intellectual.
Furmanas’s life was inseparable from health care, to which he devoted five decades of his life, almost 45 of them as department head at the Šiauliai Municipal Sanitary Epidemiological Station (now Šiauliai department of the National Public Health Center under the Lithuanian Ministry of Healthcare). The station was established in 1944. Then it was constituted of one room on Vasario 16-osios street, with a microbiology lab at Pakalnės street no. 5. The lab conducted clinical bacteriological and serological tests for the entire region. Transportation was a cart and horse. Furmanas was appointed sanitary hygiene inspector in 1946. His job dealt with controlling infectious disease, including spotted fever, typhoid fever, Salmonella paratyphi B (paratyphoid fever), dysentery and others.
Welcome to the Lithuanian Jewish Community, welcome to Vilnius.
You will soon experience it for yourself. This isn’t a promotional film, it’s the reality, slightly beautified. Beautified, because you won’t see all the hard work that goes on every day and the people who do it.
I thank them. We work, we make mistakes, we fall down and we get back up and work harder. But we’re here. There are not so many of us, of course, and we are all different, and sometimes we argue, sometimes we embrace, but we are all here together and we are beautiful, able, talented, loving and dedicated. We’re the Lithuanian Jewish Community, the family of Lithuanian Jews, a part of our country. We have been here for six centuries now. We have experienced the greatest afflictions and disasters but we never gave up and we have remained.
We have to pass something on to our children and grandchildren. I personally want to pass on to them our Jewish identity, my story and deeds and those of my ancestors. I am trying to do this together with the community because I know that I alone will not succeed. I believe it is better to act and to make mistakes than to do nothing.
I wish everyone the greatest success. Let’s take pride in our Lithuanian Jewish Community.
Sincerely yours,
Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman
Lithuanian Jewish Community
§§§
The activities of the Lithuanian Jewish Community are broad-ranging and interesting, and the makers of the following film decided to include footage from just four days in the life of the LJC. To show more would require a series of films.
One of the most important goals of the Community is listening to and taking care of our members, children, adolescents and senior citizens. Care and aid from the Community’s Social Programs Department is allocated to Holocaust survivors, the ill, disabled and socially marginalized.
An important benchmark in our work recently was the restoration and protection of our country’s wooden synagogues, unique in Europe. The opening ceremony for the restored and reconsecrated synagogue in Pakrojis, Lithuania, is included in the film. Work was conducted with the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department under the Ministry of Culture and with local municipal and regional administrations.
If the film were continued, we would have included more young people, students, the young Jewish parents clubs, of course our regional Jewish communities and lots of fun moments from the different events and holidays put on by the Lithuanian Jewish Community.
One hundred and fourteen members of parliament have registered draft amendments to the law on citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania to provide for the preservation of Lithuanian citizenship for people who left the country for European Union and NATO countries after Lithuanian independence in 1990 and who acquired citizenship in those countries.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community is in favor of dual citizenship for Lithuanian citizens who have emigrated, LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said, “but we believe the rights of Lithuanians of Jewish origins should not be less than that of other Lithuanians. Lithuanians of Jewish origin who left Lithuania after independence for the historical homeland of Israel do not have less ties with Lithuania than those of an ethnic Lithuanian living in the European Union or the United States of America. The current draft amendments to the law on citizenship, however, would allow Lithuanians of Jewish descent who moved to the United States to hold dual citizenship, whereas Lithuanians of Jewish descent who moved to Israel after independence would not. For Litvaks in South Africa this doesn’t matter so much, because the majority of them left well before World War II,” the chairwoman commented.
“Nonetheless, there are a large number of people who left Lithuania after 1990. In light of the current geopolitical situation and current events, the geographical selection in the new draft amendment—EU and NATO countries—hardly seems rational or well-founded. This is especially true of an ethnic group which was one of the largest ethnic minorities in Lithuania but which was almost exterminated during World War II. In light of that and regarding these people, the law should make use of so-called positive discrimination instead, with the aim not of providing special rights or status to a specific group, in this case Lithuanians of Jewish ethnicity, but to redress their existing inequality with other subjects under law, in this case, other people of Lithuanian origin who left Lithuania after 1990. Criteria of concentration also apply: there is a large percentage of people in Israel who have connections and ties with Lithuania, and an interest and valid hope to hold Lithuanian citizenship,” chairwoman Kukliansky continued.
“The doctrine of Lithuanian citizenship since 1919 has lacked clarity and this continues now. The first law on Lithuanian citizenship appeared on January 9, 1919, and was amended and changed many times over. Debates as to whether the law conforms to the aspirations and hopes of the majority of Lithuanians are on-going right up to the present day,” she said.
“Currently preparations are underway to change article 7 of the law on citizenship. The draft language says a citizen of Lithuania may be a citizen of another country if he is a citizen of Lithuania and left Lithuania after March 11, 1990 and subsequently acquired citizenship in an EU or NATO member-state. In light of this geopolitical element in the language of the draft amendment, the Lithuanian Jewish Community wonders what values, principles and logic led the authors of the legislation to appreciate the Lithuanian-Israeli and partnership less than other partnerships, and to the interpretation that a Lithuanian of Jewish ethnicity living in Israel has less of a civic, social and historical relationship with Lithuania than, for example, someone who went to live in Ireland based on economic motivations,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky stated. She added it wasn’t fair Lithuanians of Jewish origin living in Israel have a lower legal status than that ofa compatriot living in an EU of NATO state.
Under Lithuanian law, a Lithuanian citizen is a person who has acquired or holds Lithuanian citizenship, which entails specific rights and duties and is based on a relationship with the state. The majority of Lithuanian Jewish community members have children or relatives who have gone to Israel since 1990, many of them Lithuanians of Jewish origin.
To date Fettle Animation, a Marsden-based company, have won a BAFTA and two Royal Television Society awards for their animated Holocaust documentaries. We wanted to know how they’re being used to help children understand this pivotal moment in history
From the Cold War to the bombing of Hiroshima, our children learn about important but traumatic moments in history while they’re at school. But although most of us are aware of the atrocities of the Holocaust, can anyone truly understand what it felt like to be a child in the concentration camps? It’s an emotionally complex scenario for anyone to comprehend. But a Marsden-based company, Fettle Animation, are leading the way with engaging and educative animated films for children. We spoke to their founder and Producer Kath Shackleton to find out more about this great company and their award-winning films.
Fettle Animation was created by Kath (a former art development officer) and her partner Zane Whittingham, who has over 25 years of experience working in animation. After the birth of their daughter, they decided to leave London and move back to Kath’s native Yorkshire, to set up in Marsden. “We set the company up hoping to get some work-life balance, but I think we’ve exploited ourselves far harder than any employer would in the end,” Kath jokes, “But it’s definitely worth it.”
Surrounded by rolling hills and the idyllic countryside, Kath and Zane have an enviable lifestyle. But both have they worked hard. In the five years since they set up their company, which specializes in the production of animated films from freehand drawings, they’ve flown all over the world appearing at prestigious film festivals and collecting awards. Alongside the Children’s BAFTA, and two Royal Television Society awards, they have countless other international commendations. They’re so popular that two awards that they’ve been nominated for recently, the Japan Prize in Tokyo and the Prix Europa in Berlin, are being presented on the same night. What to do?
