Holocaust – Lithuanian Jewish Community

East German Town Bans Stumbling Stones

Photo: Stolperstein commemorating Nazi victim Paul Gröger embedded in the sidewalk in front of Heidenau City Hall. Robert Michael/picture alliance via Getty Images.

by Toby Axelrod, September 27

Transparent maneuver by AfD to suppress German commemorative culture, Jewish leader and Holocaust survivor says

A decision to bar the “stumbling stone” memorials to victims of the Nazis has touched a nerve in one small German town, and beyond.

At issue is a motion passed September 25 by the city council of Heidenau in the former East Germany [in Saxony] to stop installation of such memorials in local sidewalks, calling them disrespectful, and to use the town’s North Cemetery instead.

Set into the ground, the small, engraved brass Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, are meant to make pedestrians stop and think about the fate of former residents. There are currently some 116,000 stones laid in 1,860 municipalities across Europe, mostly in Germany, according to the project’s website.

2026-09-282026-09-28

Condolences

Alfonsas Bukontas died September 23. He was born Mordchelis Michnickis on September 11, 1941. Both his parents were murdered during the Holocaust in Lithuania and Bukontas was raised by Lithuanians. He was an accomplished poet, translator of German, Yiddish, Polish and even Sanskrit, and writer. He was a member of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Union of Former Ghetto Inmates. Our deepest condolences to his friends, family members and members of the Union of Former Ghetto Inmates. May his memory be a blessing.

2026-09-282026-09-28

Palanga Marks Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide

More than 150 students joined a Road of Memory procession as part of the Palanga Jewish Community’s commemoration of Holocaust victims on the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide on September 23. Road of Memory is the initiative of the International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania. A ceremony was held at the site of the reburial of Holocaust victims at the Palanga city cemetery.

Palanga Jewish Community chairman Vilius Gutmanas was one of the speakers, and said: “This isn’t just a date on the calendar for us. Behind the numbers and historical facts stand specific people: residents of Palanga, families, children, our loved ones and neighbors, whose lives were atrociously cut short. They were part of this city, so it’s very important their names, stories and remembrance remain alive. It is especially moving and significant to see so many young people here. My sincere gratitude to the students and their teachers who went on the Road of Memory. This gives hope that this history will not be forgotten and its memory will be passed on from generation to generation. As long as we remember these people, so long will we preserve this part of Palanga’s history, which can never be erased.”

2026-09-28

Šiauliai Marks Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide

The Šiauliai Jewish Community marked the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide September 23. Students from the Saulius Sondeckas Art Gymnasium in Šiauliai began the event with a musical performance.

Deputy mayor Justinas Švėgžda attended. After the ceremony a silent procession moved from the site of the gate of the first ghetto (Caucasus) to the monument marking the gate of the second ghetto (Trakai).

2026-09-282026-09-28

Road of Memory Procession in Pabradė

Last Tuesday, September 22, a Road of Memory event and procession took place in Pabradė in the Švenčionys region to mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide (actually on September 23). A group of students from the 7th and 8th grades, their teachers from Rytas school in Pabradė and members of the community walked to the Holocaust commemoration site in Pabradė.

The event was organized by the Pabradė Culture Center in concert with the Pabradė aldermanship and chairman Moshe Shapiro of the Švenčionys Jewish Community.

2026-09-282026-09-28

Holocaust Commemoration in Švenčionys

The Švenčionys Jewish Community invites the public to remember the victims of the Holocaust and to mark the anniversary of the liquidation of the Švenčionys ghetto on October 4. Community and friends will gather at 11:00 A.M. on Sunday, October 4 at the Menorah statue in the Švenčionys city park. At noon there will be a commemoration at the mass grave in Platumai village in the Švenčionėliai aldermanship.

2026-09-28

Panevėžys Jewish Community Marks Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide

Members of the Panevėžys Jewish Community including chairman Gennady Kofman marked the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide by attending a screening at the Menas Theater of the Lithuanian film Getas about the Vilnius ghetto. This special screening of the 2013 film was preceded by a performance called Shameful River in the theater’s courtyard.

2026-09-28

Voice of Departed Exhibit Closes November 30 in Klaipėda

The Klaipėda Jewish Community invites the general public to tour the exhibit Voices of the Departed before the exhibit ends November 30. The exhibit highlights the old Jewish cemetery in the Lithuanian port city, and the cemetery hosts the exhibit. It’s located at Žiedų alley no. 3, Klaipėda. Tours are available in Lithuanian, German and English. For more information, call 0 650 21335.

2026-09-28

Floor of Great Synagogue Inspires Art Exhibition

We know the Great Synagogue in Vilnius was mainly subterranean, because of Christian restrictions limiting the height of houses of prayer of other confessions. Until now, we only had period illustrations of the interior, lost when the shul damaged by Nazi bombardment was demolished by the Soviets in the 1950s. For about a decade now archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority in cooperation with Lithuanian archaeologists from the Department of Cultural Heritage have been excavating the Shulhoyf, and last year, directed by Jon Seligman of the Israel Antiquities Authority (there from 205) and Justinas Račas and Zenonas Baubonis of the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Salvage Group (at the dig since 2018), they reached the floor of the main hall and uncovered most of the meter-high bimah, the central point in the main hall.

Their discoveries have inspired an exhibit of artworks by Lithuanian Eglė Ridikaitė called Depositions at the St. George the Martyr Church, K. Sirvydo street no. 4, in Vilnius, which opened May 14 and runs till October 3. Admission is from 5 to 10 euros and is payable by card only.

“Eglė Ridikaitė’s exhibition, through an unexpected artistic gesture, weaves together sites of faith, painful historical experiences, and a sense of present vulnerability. With striking clarity, serenity, and simplicity, Depositions unfolds as a silent yet conceptually dense narrative about the city. It invites us to experience, simultaneously, the layered histories of prewar Jewish and Christian Vilnius, while tracing processes of survival and extinction, life and its erasure in memory.

2026-09-232026-09-28

Sabbath Table to Remember Jewish History Exhibit in Pabradė

The first Sabbath Table to Remember Jewish History exhibit as part of the Children of the Holocaust: Lighting Up the Shadows of Lithuanian History project took place at the Pabradė Culture Center last week. The exhibit will be a changeable one depending on the decisions and sensibilities of the designers and exhibit item creators. This time the Sabbath table was laden with pomegranates, figs, apples and challa.

Residents of Pabradė in eastern Lithuania, visitors and local students and teachers attended the event. Švenčionys Jewish Community chairman Moshe Shapiro welcomes the attendees, followed by a panel discussion moderated by Sholem Alechem ORT Gymnasium students, moderated by Algis Davidavičius, who discussed local history, memory and modern forms of commemoration. Then visitors learned about Sabbath traditions, sampled traditional dishes and attended a Jewish cloth-dying workshop.

The Sabbath Table to Remember Jewish History exhibition is the fruit of a two-year meaningful journey during which brave and knowledge-thirsty students from Vilnius and Palanga and their teachers dove into live research on local Jewish history. The young people conducted tours, creative workshops, celebrated Purim and Sabbath together, marked commemorative dates, visited synagogue and spoke with representatives from the Palanga, Vilnius, Darbėn and Israeli Jewish communities.

2026-09-22

Sabbath Times

The Sabbath begins at 7:28 P.M. on Friday, September 18, and concludes at 8:19 P.M. on Saturday in the Vilnius region. Sabbath candles should be lit and prayers recited by or before 7:10 P.M. and completed before sunset at 7:28 P.M. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins at sundown on Sunday. This Wednesday, September 23, is the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, a commemorative day on the Lithuanian calendar.

2026-09-172026-09-17

Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide at Ponar

The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide with us, remembering the more than 200,000 victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania, at the mass murder site in Ponar just outside Vilnius.

The LJC is providing transportation for those wishing to make the short trip. Please register by 12 noon on September 22 by sending an email to info@lzb.lt containing your full name and the purpose of the email. The bus will leave from the LJC at Pylimo street no. 4 in Vilnius at 11:45 A.M. sharp on September 23. If you arrive late you’ll miss the bus.

Time: 12:30 P.M., Wednesday, September 23
Place: Ponar Memorial Complex, Memorialo street no. 15 aka Agrastų street no. 15, Vilnius

2026-09-172026-09-17

Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide in Šiauliai

The Šiauliai District Jewish Community invites you to a ceremony to mark the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide at the site of the former first ghetto gates at 11:00 A.M. on Wednesday, September 23. There will then be a procession to the second ghetto gates.

Time: 11:00 A.M., Wednesday, September 23
Place: Memorial marking gates of first ghetto at the intersection of Traku and Ezero streets, Righteous Gentile Square, Šiauliai

2026-09-172026-09-17

Droga Dō Concert Series Remembers Jewish Escape Route to Japan

The Droga Dō chamber concert series is dedicated to the memory of the escape route Polish and Lithuanian Jews took to Japan during the Holocaust, and to Japanese ambassador and Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara who made it possible, saving thousands of Jews. Dō (Dou, Doo) means “way” in Japanese, as does droga in Polish.

Droga Dō will be performed at the Kaunas State Philharmonic on September 19 with works by Toru Takemitsu, Dai Fujikura, Kishio Kirao, Mieczysław Weinberg, Władysław Szpilman, Aleksander Tansman, Aleksandr Veprik, Joseph Achron and others. For more information, click here. For information in Lithuanian and to purchase tickets, click here.

Time: 5:00 P.M., Saturday, September 19
Place: Kaunas State Philharmonic, E. Ožeškienės no. 12, Kaunas

2026-09-16

Pivonija Memorial Desecrated

Vandals attacked the monument to one of the mass graves in the Pivonija Forest outside Ukmergė (Vilkomir) following a commemoration there on September 6. Local police say the desecration happened on September 6. The mass grave site has suffered vandalism including from four-wheel off-road vehicles before. Police said they will investigate fully the latest incident.

2026-09-10

Holocaust Commemoration in Vilkomir

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, Israeli ambassador Shelly Hugler Livne and members of the Šiauliai Jewish Community, the Ukmergė (Vilkomir) Jewish Community and Kaunas Jewish Community attended a ceremony to commemorate Holocaust victims at the memorial and mass grave site in the Pivonija Forest on September 6. The United States embassy’s deputy ambassador Dan Hunt and diplomat Emma Locatelli attended, as did Lithuania’s deputy minister for culture Lina Baublienė and others.

After the ceremony participants were invited to attend an exhibit of Righteous Gentiles at the Ukmergė Tolerance Center. Ukmergė Jewish Community chairman Artūras Taicas took the opportunity to announce a new initiative to create an internet archive of historical Jewish passports and identity documents.

2026-09-102026-09-10

Commemoration of 85th Anniversary of Liquidation of Panevėžys Ghetto

A ceremony to mark the 85th anniversary of the liquidation of the Ponevezh ghetto was held in the northern Lithuanian city September 8 with a number of speakers and music.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said they had gathered both to honor the dead and keep memory of the Holocaust alive for future generations.

Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania Shelly Hugler Livne said 85 years is long time in human life but only an instant in terms of historical memory.

Lithuanian MP Ramūnas Vyžintas reiterated the need to safeguard historical memory.

Sister Leonora Kasiūlytė from the Congregation of the Sisters of God’s Providence told the story Marija Rusteikaitė, the nun from the Panevėžys area who rescued 15 Jews including children.

2026-09-10

Litvak Delegation Visits Panevėžys

A delegation of about 30 Litvaks living in Israel are visiting the northern Lithuanian city Panevėžys, or Ponevezh, and have met with the mayor of the city, Loreta Masiliūnienė. For many of the visitors the trip is very personal, an opportunity to visit where their parents, grandparents and forefathers lived and died.

Association of Lithuanian Jews in Israel Grisha Deitch sat with mayor Masiliūnienė at city hall in front of the rest of the Israeli delegation and they discussed the history of the Ponevezh community, securing its future and ties with Litvaks abroad.

A memorial ceremony will be held at the monument marking the gates of the Panevėžys ghetto will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Tuesday, September 8, followed by a walking tour of Jewish sites. Later the delegation and others will visit the mass murder site in Kurganava Forest where about 8,000 Jews were murdered, and the mass murder site in Žalioji Forest, where about 5,000 Jews were murdered.

2026-09-07

Vilnius Jewish Public Library Showcases Encyclopedic Vilnius Book

Last week the Vilnius Jewish Public Library recognized Irina Guzenberg and Henrik Agranovski’s impressive and encyclopedic book Vilnius, the result of more than 30 years of research, published in English and Russian.

The book is both a short encyclopedia and a chronicle of Yerushalayim d’Lite, the Jerusalem of Lithuania, Vilnius. Israeli ambassador Shelly Hugler Livne, Lithuanian deputy foreign minister Kristupas Vaitiekūnas, a large contingent from Beit Vilna, Lithuanian Jewish Community members and academics from Lithuania, Israel and the USA attended to book presentation.

The book was previously published as a much shorter version of Jewish sites in Vilnius for tourists and others. The larger volume goes into much greater depth about the sites and histories.

2026-09-07

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