Holocaust – Page 60 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

On Anti-Semitic Comments on the Internet Site www.lrytas.lt

May 7, 2020

To:

Evaldas Pašilis, prosecutor general, Republic of Lithuania
Renatas Požėla, commissar general, Police of the Republic of Lithuania

STATEMENT

On anti-Semitic comments on the internet site www.lrytas.lt

The Lithuanian Jewish Community (LJC) constantly investigates information about possible expressions of anti-Semitism and provides the corresponding information to international organizations battling anti-Semitism on expressions of anti-Semitism and reactions from state institutions to these.

Last week the internet webpage www.lrytas.lt published a three-part feature called “Lietuva ir Holokaustas: vietoj žaizdų gydymo – nesibaigiantys traukuliai” [Lithuania and the Holocaust: Endless Seizures Instead of Healing Wounds]. (URLs to these texts:

2020-05-072020-05-13

Lithuania and the Holocaust: Endless Seizures Instead of Healing Wounds (Part II)

part two

by Vytautas Bruveris

What are the methods for Lithuania as a country and society to demonstrate by deeds rather than words true solidarity with the country’s Jewish community, almost completely exterminated in the Holocaust, with the victims and with their descendants?

Why Is There No Basic Number?

So if there’s no national agreement on what should be considered contributing to the Holocaust and what criteria might define this, then does the determination of direct participation in the mass murder of Jews not raise any conceptual misunderstandings?

2020-05-072020-05-20

Lithuania and the Holocaust: Endless Seizures Instead of Healing Wounds (Part I)

part one

by Vytautas Bruveris

After all, this year has been declared not only the Year of the Vilna Gaon but also the Year of Litvak History at the highest level of state.

Moreover, this year Lithuania and the world mark the round anniversary of a date connected with World War II, Nazi crimes and the Holocaust.

At least two such methods have long been clear.

2020-05-072020-05-20

Condolences

Vitalina Timofeyeva passed away May 1. She was born in 1937. Our deepest condolences to her sons and loved ones.

2020-05-04

Happy Birthday to Rozeta Ramonienė

Rozeta Ramonienė, the chairwoman of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners, celebrated her birthday on May 1.

Happy birthday, dear Rozeta! As the fragrant buds of spring emerge, we wish you long life, a very happy birthday celebration, much happiness and many happy days to come!

Mazl tov! May you live to 120!

2020-05-042020-05-07

Big Thank You to Svetlana Who Found a Jewish Headstone in Her Garden

Vilnius resident Svetlana Šitelienė contacted the Lithuanian Jewish Community to report her discovery of what appears to be a Jewish headstone, or matzeva, on her farm.

Thank you, Svetlana.

We’ve reached Svetlana and thanked her, and sent her a box of matzo and the Vilnius ghetto diary of Yitzhak Rudasheviski translated into Lithuanian.

Studying the photographs she provided, it appears this might be an unfinished headstone made for someone named Esther, with the surname partially completed. Mrs. Šitelienė said the grave stone might have ended up in her yard 47 or more years ago, and according to relatives it came from the Jewish cemetery near the Palace of Marriage in Vilnius.

2020-05-042020-05-08

Musical Happy Birthday from the Kaunas Jewish Community

As spring finally arrives, the Kaunas Jewish Community sends birthday greetings to our beloved member Liuba Stulgaitienė.

Liuba is very active in Community events, a member of the Yiddish Club, a member of the Union of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners and a woman who always radiates positivity, optimism and joy. She smiles at the whole world despite all injuries experienced and the world answers her the same way.

Dear Liuba, keep being so young at heart, so energetic, so thirsty for knowledge and someone who is able to say the years are not a burden, but a rich experience.

Mazl tov! May you live to 120!

2020-05-04

Condolences

The Lithuanian Jewish Community sends its condolences to Arkadijus Gotesmanas on the death of his father, Burnitalis Arnoldas Gotesmanas, who passed away at the age of 90. The late Gotesmanas survived Auschwitz and Mauthausen. He died in Brooklyn and was buried there.

2020-05-04

Israeli Ambassador Yossi Levi Gives Interview on Israeli Independence Day

2020-04-30

Faina Kukliansky Interviewed by Lithuanian Media on Yom haAtzma’ut

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky was interviewed by Lithuanian publicist Donatas Puslys on Yom haAtzma’ut, Israeli independence day, and spoke about what the holiday means to Jews in Lithuania, to her personally and to Jews around the world. She also spoke about the Holocaust, Litvaks living in Israel, the promise Eretz Israel held out to Soviet Jews and the country’s progress over the last 72 years. The interview was conducted in Lithuanian but concludes with warm wishes in Yiddish.

2020-04-30

Yom haAtzma’ut, Israeli Independence Day

Israelis began celebrating 72 years of statehood this year by greeting medical personnel. A torch-lighting ceremony began without an audience in honor of Israel’s doctors, nurses, care-givers, hospital staff and volunteers who have been fighting the Wuhan virus, with many fireworks displays and hospital fly-overs by the Israeli Air Force canceled.

Most Israelis marked Independence Day at home.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the nation in a video saying “We’ve never celebrated this kind of Independence Day. We are in a physical sense far from one another, but we’ve never been closer.” Praising hospital workers Netanyahu added “The day will come when embraces return… But we still can’t do this because the pandemic is still here.”

Knesset speaker Benny Gantz lit a torch on the eve of Independence Day and spoke of national unity, saying Israelis must prepare for even more difficult days, and called for creating “a new moral face of the country.”

2020-04-292020-05-07

Condolences

Moshe Kukliansky has died at the age of 97 in Israel. He was the head of the Kukliansky family and was the uncle of Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community.

Our deepest condolences to his children Alexander, Zinaida, Liliiana, niece Faina, the multitude of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and the entire family.

Moshe Kukliansky was a chemist, a witness to Litvak history and a Holocaust survivor. Faina recalls: “Our big family has lost a noble person who survived the Holocaust and was a great witness to Litvak history, a chemist and a just man filled with the law. That’s what he liked to call other people. After my grandmother Zinaida–the mother of Moshe, Samuel and Anna–was murdered and Moshe was forced to work for local farmers, when he came home my father Samuel used to grab his hands and kiss him. Moshe asked ‘What are you so happy about? Our mother is dead.’ My father, who was 11 then, replied ‘I’m happy you’re still here.’ For me, my children and grandchildren, Moshe was like a father and a grandfather, just as all my aunts and uncles were like parents to me, and cousins like brothers and sisters. It is very sad that our last family member of the older generation has passed away.”

Moshe Kukliansky’s telling of the dramatic story of the family’s survival during the Holocaust was immortalized several years back in a film called the Pit of Life and Torment (Gyvybės ir kančių duobė).

2020-04-292020-05-08

Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Memorial Day

Yom haZikaron is the day Israel marks to honor its fallen soldiers, victims of terrorism and all who have died defending the state of Israel. According to the Jewish reckoning of time, it began on the evening of April 27 this year at around 8:00 P.M. and lasts until the evening of the next day.

President Rivlin spoke in the square in front of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and said it was sad there couldn’t be a mass public commemoration because of the virus epidemic. He said while we can’t cry together, we still remember and give honor to the 23,861 soldiers and victims of terrorism.

In Israel the commemorative holiday begins with an air-raid siren. People simply stop whatever they are doing and give honor to the dead. Those driving pull over and get out of their cars. All commercial activity ceases and people at the dinner table stop eating and sit in silence.

2020-04-282020-05-04

Virtual Lectures: Escape from Ponar and Jacques Lipchitz’s Memories of Lithuania

Please note: the ZOOM platform used for the virtual lectures below is widely known to be unsafe and is considered spyware by competent observers, deployed most likely by China. It can usurp control of cameras and microphones on your computer and telephone. Its use is banned by the U.S. military and U.S. government organizations. The Lithuanian Jewish Community takes no responsibility for those infected by clicking the links below.

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The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum is sponsoring two virtual lectures called “Story of Escape from Ponar” and “Lithuania in Jacques Lipchitz’s Reminiscences.”

“I am a sculptor from Lithuania,” Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) used to say to introduce himself at openings of his works in museums and galleries around the world, even though Lithuania had disappeared from the world map when these shows took place. Sculpture and memorial heritage researcher Aušra Rožankevičiūtė talks about Lipchitz’s image of Lithuania and his contacts with Lithuanian artists and thinkers.

2020-04-27

Happy 100th Birthday to Eta Gurvčiūtė

Happy birthday to Eta Gurvčiūtė as she turns 100. Lithuanian Jewish Community member Eta Gurvčiūtė turned 100 April 27. Clear of mind, with no health complaints and her beautiful smile, she is busy receiving greetings and congratulations today. She was graduated from the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium before World War II.

Many of our other seniors remember Eta because she volunteered at the medical center of the LJC for so many years, later becoming a client herself. She spends her time these days at the Social Care House for Seniors in Vilnius now.

To celebrate her milestone, the LJC is planning a Fayerlakh concert for everyone at her senior citizens’ home. ALthough she’s celebrating her birthday under strict quarantine at the senior center, the Lithuanian Jewish Center tried to send her a present anyway. We managed to have a vase of flowers and a card delivered.

2020-04-272020-04-29

True Meaning of Leonard Cohen’s Love Song

by Ruth Reches

Most people probably know the song “Dance Me to the End of Love” written in 1984 by Leonard Cohen. Many people consider it a love song with its up and down melody. Leonard Cohen, however, wrote the song as a hymn to death.

Consider the first line in the song: ”
Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin.”

When prisoners at some concentration camps were selected for and taken to be murdered, a group of prisoners played violins to mask the sounds of people being slaughtered. The classical music performed erased the border between beauty and the horrific, between life and death.

2020-04-232020-04-29

EBRD Awards Grigoriy Kanovich’s Book Devilspel European Literature Prize

From Noir Press:

PRESS RELEASE

April 22, 2020

Lithuanian author wins €20,000 Literature Prize from European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
The UK publishing house Noir Press is delighted Lithuanian Jewish author Grigory Kanovich has just won the €20,000 EBRD Literature Prize, a prestigious award celebrating literature in translation.

The prize, normally awarded at Bank headquarters in London, was awarded virtually this year because of the quarantine announced by the UK Government. The award was announced on Twitter on April 22.

Rosie Goldsmith, chairwoman of the panel of judges for this year’s prize, said the winning novel “is sincere, it is warm, it is generous. It has the feeling of a very great classic.”

2020-04-232020-04-28

Yom haShoah Holocaust Commemoration Day Marked around the World

The traditional air-raid siren will announce the beginning of the Jewish day and the beginning of Yom haShoah throughout Israel at 7:45 P.M. on April 20. Yom haShoah–the Day of the Shoah–is one of several days commemorating the victims of the Holocaust and the most important of the commemorative days in Israel.

At 10:00 A.M. on Tuesday, April 21, the Lithuanian Jewish Community invites all to visit the LJC facebook page to mark the day with us via internet. We are asking everyone to observe a minute of silence for the victims when the siren sounds. The LJC facebook page is here.

Yad Vashem is asking people to take part in international readings of the names of victims and to post video using the hashtags #RememberingFromHome and #ShoahNames. More information on the Yad Vashem initiative here.

March of the Living: the annual march from Auschwits to Birkenau is taking place this year at 7:00 P.M. Lithuanian time on April 21, 2020. It will include recollections by Holocaust victims and an address by Israeli president Reuven Rivlin. The event will be broadcast live here.

The Holocaust Center for Humanity, the Holocaust education center in Seattle, will hold a virtual event at 12 noon Pacific Daylight Time on April 21. More information here.

For more events around the world, see here.

2020-04-202020-04-24

Yom Ha’Shoah: Local EU Statement

Dear friends and colleagues,

On the occasion of Yom HaShoah, let me share with you the joint statement by the Ambassador of the European Union to the State of Israel and the Ambassadors of all European Union member states represented in Israel:

“The Delegation of the European Union (EU) to the State of Israel, together with the 26 Embassies of EU Member States present in Israel, remember and pay tribute to the six million Jews who were murdered, on European soil, more than seven decades ago.

We join Jewish communities worldwide in commemorating the individual lives that were lost in the unimaginable tragedy of the Shoah, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters; in cherishing the survivors among us so that their experiences are not forgotten. As Shimon Peres has said: “We are their eyes that remember. We are their voice that cries out.”

2020-04-20

Jewish Vilnius 1990

German TV, also shown on Israel Channel 2, captures the early days of the revival of the Jewish Community in Lithuania in 1990. First Jewish organizations. Grigory Kanovich’s “Jewish Daisy”: to stay or to leave.

2020-04-202020-04-20