In sadness we report the death of Righteous Gentile Morta Kalendraitė Jakutienė at the age of 97.
My Grandfather’s Crimes against Humanity
Photo: Courtesy Silvia Foti
A family memoir gets surprising reactions from Lithuanians, Russians and Jews.
by Silvia Foti, Aug. 25, 2021 6:14 P.M. ET, wsj.com
I grew up the proud granddaughter of a Lithuanian war hero who fought against Communists. My grandfather Jonas Noreika has a school and streets named after him. When my mother on her deathbed in 2000 asked me to write a story about her heroic father, I enthusiastically agreed.
Unfortunately, as I dug deeper I discovered to my horror that my grandfather was also a Holocaust perpetrator involved in murdering at least 8,000 Jews. On my story’s release, Russians wanted to use me, Lithuanians vilified me and Jews embraced me.
My grandfather wrote an order on August 22, 1941, to send thousands of Jews to a ghetto in Žagerė where they were slaughtered. My family story has brought this to the forefront, toppling Lithuania’s image as an innocent bystander in the Holocaust.
Five Years On Molėtai Marches Again
Five years ago Marius Ivaškevičius wrote of the need to remember the exterminated Jewish community of Molėtai, a town about 60 miles north of Vilnius. His call to mobilize with a march through the town became the second-most popular item ever on this website (the most popular being a reprint of an article about the South African Jewish community which continues to attract hits years later). The march itself was a watershed moment in Lithuanian Holocaust consciousness, drawing ethnic Lithuanians from around the country and the world together with Lithuanian Jews and Jews from South Africa, Uruguay, Great Britain, the USA and other countries. Several thousand people turned up on the town square and listened to the different speeches before marching to the mass murder site across town there.
The march was covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Jerusalem Post and other publications.
The march is to be repeated this year. August 29 is the date all Jews from Molėtai were murdered. On that “Day of Wrath” they were marched under armed guard two kilometers from one of the synagogues to the killing ground.
Happy Birthday to Idelis Gurvičius
A very happy birthday to LJC member of long standing and active Seniors Club member Idelis Gurvičius who celebrated his 90th on August 23. Mazl tov. Bis 120!
Gesher Club Offers Tour
The Gesher Club at the Lithuanian Jewish Community is offering a two-day tour of the Panemunė castles and the Curonian Spit on August 28 and 29. The group will visit the Pažaislis monastery, the Raudondvaris manor estate, Vilkija, the Veliuona earth-mounds and the Raudonė and Panemunė castles. They will also visit the Holocaust memorial and Alley of Synagogues in Jurbarkas, with rest and an overnight stay in Klaipėda with an evening tour of the Klaipėda Old Town. Following breakfast on Sunday the group will move on to the Curonian Spit with visits to Juodkrantė, the Dead Dunes and Nida, followed by the return trip to Vilnius. The tour will be conducted by long-time LJC member and professional tour guide Markas Psonikas. For more information and to register, call+37067881514 or send an mail to zanas@sc.lzb.lt. For more about Markas’s tours, see here.
EJC Slams Polish President, Calls Anti-Restitution Law Undemocratic, Unjust, Immoral
Saturday, August 14, 2021–European Jewish Congress president Moshe Kantor slammed the ratification of a bill passed by the Polish parliament which will make it far harder for Jews to claim restitution on properties appropriated and stolen during the Holocaust era.
“This law is undemocratic, unjust and immoral,” Kantor said. “This is not bringing order to chaos as president Duda claims, it is making legal what should be illegal and is merely legalizing theft. The president had an opportunity to right the wrong created by the parliament. He could have shown moral clarity and leadership, but he chose not to.
“Moreover, this law will also further highlight Poland’s unique position as the only country in the region which makes Holocaust restitution impossible and runs counter to its international commitments. It is outrageous that someone who survived the Holocaust, who will be in their later years, will still be deprived justice by this cruel, illegitimate and discriminatory law.”
Condolences
The Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners is sad to announce the death today of former Minsk ghetto prisoner Markas Buslovich at the age of 84. Our deepest condolences to his sister Inesa, also a member of the Union.
Condolences
LJC member Mordche Rostovskis has passed away at the age of 86. He was born in 1936. We send our deepest condolences to his relatives and loved ones.
Polish Senate Approves Bill Limiting Holocaust Restitution
Photo: Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid lashes out at bill last June. Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images
The law would prevent Holocaust survivors from regaining property seized after World War II. It triggered sharp criticism from Israel and the United States.
Poland’s parliament late Wednesday passed legislation that would put an end to most legal claims for properties confiscated after World War II.
The bill states that administrative decisions can no longer be challenged in court after the expiration of a 30-year period, essentially preventing Jews from recovering property seized by Poland’s Communist-era authorities.
The legislation, which passed earlier in the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, still has to be signed by president Andrzej Duda before taking effect.
Full story here.
Lithuanian State Television Takes Offense at “Star of Covid” at Protest
Photo: Protestors at Lithuanian parliament and national library wear stars of David with poster saying “No ghetto for the unvaccinated.” Photographer J. Stacevičius, courtesy Lithuanian state radio and television broadcaster LRT.
Lithuanian state television LRT reported protestors against Lithuania’s so-called quarantine restrictions crossed the line and made light of the Holocaust, according to the people they talked to about Tuesday’s protest in front of the nation’s parliament where some donned yellow stars of David and called the government’s shutdown of economic and social life genocide.
The first secretary at the Israeli embassy to Lithuania also provided negative comments to LRT regarding the use of Holocaust symbols. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky cautioned the use of the star of David and other symbols isn’t in itself anti-Semitic, but added that it’s important to look at the context in which they are used.
“I’ve seen criminals sitting in court who put on a yellow star [of David], and saying you are a Jew is no justification for committing crimes or that you can’t be tried or convicted because you are a Jew. Everything depends on how the symbol is used. Still, people who do use this symbol should understand what it means in general and what it means to Jews. Often people fail to look more deeply into the meaning of this symbol,” LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told LRT state television.
Condolences
Moishe Gegužinskis passed away in Frankfurt at the age of 97 on June 7. He was born in Kaunas in 1924. He was part of the resistance in the Kaunas ghetto and was deported to Dachau. He came back to Lithuania after liberation and lived and worked in Vilnius. He published his memoirs in Yiddish called “My Memories: The Tragic and Tumultuous Life Path of a Litvak.” He went to live in Germany in 1997. Our deepest condolences to his immediate family and many friends and relatives.
Holocaust Procession in Biržai
Last Sunday a Road of Memory procession commemorated the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust in the northern Lithuanian town of Biržai.
Participants marched from the town’s Memory Square to the Pakamponys Forest where approximately 2,400 Jews including about 900 children were murdered in 1941.
Full announcement in Lithuanian here.
Ukmergė Regional Jewish Community to Mark 80th Anniversary of Holocaust
The Ukmergė Regional Jewish Community invites you to commemorate Holocaust victims on Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day at noon on September 5 in the Pivonija Forest in the Ukmergė district.
News from the Kaunas Jewish Community
I am endlessly grateful for the friendship and fruitful cooperation from the very beginning with the Kaunas 2022 team (and especially the Memory Bureau team) and I am thankful for the honor bestowed me as a member of the consultation committee for the Litvak Forum to take place in 2022.
I am so very glad because it is always pleasant to communicate with open, tolerant people who are hungry for knowledge and who are striving to insure our society might also become more open, more tolerant and more accepting.
I am glad because we are joined in a common goal: to encourage recognition of the multicultural history of our city and to appreciate what we have, while not averting our gaze from painful episodes.
Panevėžys Jewish Community Receives Visitors
With virus restrictions eased, the Panevėžys Jewish Community received some foreign visitors interested to learn more about their relatives, their biographies and their fate.
Yeir and his wife, both from Israel, visited us on July 25. He’s the great-grandson of famous Panevėžys rabbi Rabinovitch, the ilui who lived and worked here for more than 20 years. Yeir was keen to learn more about religious life in Panevėžys in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He experienced the city and visited Jewish heritage sites here.
According to archive documents from 1857, eight synagogues in Panevėžys are mentioned, with a few more synagogues located in private residences. Religious life in Panevėžys is the subject of a forthcoming book called “Žvilgsnis į praeitį: Panevėžio žydų istorija ir palikimas” [A Glimpse into the Past: The History and Legacy of the Jews of Panevėžys], already printed and soon to be launched.
Shalom, Akmenė
On August 4, 1941, the Jews of the Akmenė region who were being detained in the town of Akmenė were taken to Mažeikiai and murdered. An event called “Shalom, Akmenė” was organized and held to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust there on August 4. A new monument marking the site of the former synagogue in Klykoliai village was unveiled and the victims were remembered at the town square in Akmenė with a reading of names, sung prayers and kaddish. The ceremony there ended with a procession along Stoties and Viekšnių streets to the Akmenė town cemetery. Old Jewish cemeteries on the Tirkšliai-Mažeikiai highway were also visited.
Participants included members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community, Lithuanian MP Kasparas Adomaitis and others. Our gratitude goes to the organizers, Diana and Marijus Lopaitis and the Akmenė History Museum.
Remembering the Jews of Šeduva
Kupiškis Remembers Onset of Holocaust 80 Years Ago
On July 30 organizers and guests of the “Road of Memory 1941-2021” project and local residents assembled at the Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum where museum historian Aušra Jonušytė moderated events.
United States embassy to Lithuania representative Wartenberg welcomed visitors in the name of US ambassador Robert Gilchrist and Lithuanian Foreign Ministry ambassador Marius Janukonis and veteran Conservative Party politician, former minister and MEP Rasa Juknevičienė as well as others participated and spoke at the event whose main organizer was Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes, whose deputy director Ingrida Vilkienė also delivered an address to the audience. Kupiškis regional administration mayor Dainius Bardauskas also spoke.
A procession bearing banners and flags walked to the mass murder site at the Freethinkers’ Cemetery in Kupiškis with marchers bearing flowers, candles and stones inscribed with the names of the murdered. The commemoration included a reading of the names of the victims and descriptions of their lives and families.
Marking Roma Genocide Remembrance Day
August 2 is observed as the day of remembrance of the genocide committed against the Roma in Europe.
“Roma, as with Jews, the disabled, homosexuals and Communists, were considered unworthy to live by the German Nazi regime. They were persecuted, deported as forced labor and murdered. It is believed about one-half million Roma were murdered during the Holocaust. … Only in 2015 did the European Parliament adopt a resolution recognizing the genocide committed against the Roma during WWII and naming August 2 as the day of remembrance of the Roma genocide. In 2019 the Lithuanian parliament included August 2 on Lithuania’s list of observed commemorative days.”
Lithuania’s Roma Community Center can be found here.
Lithuanian Jewish Community Kids Enjoy Summer Camp
Two LJC children’s summer camps took place in July, full of activities and fun. Not only did the kids have a chance to shake off state restrictions for fighting the virus by getting a little wild, they also learned a lot. The LJC camps among other things taught Jewish history and tradition. The kids learned to make challa, visited the Ninth Fort Holocaust site in Kaunas and engaged in other learning activities.