The Vincas Kudirka Public Library in Kaunas invites the public to a series of tours in a project called Jewish Heritage in Kaunas. The tours will be conducted on September 6, 8 and 10 and will cover modern architecture, the Old Town, Slobodka and major achievements by Litvaks. Registration required. Call (37) 22 23 57 or send an email to renginiai@kaunas.mvb.lt
The guided tour on September 10 begins at 6:00 P.M. and will be led by local guide Asia Gutermanaitė.
Thursday evening a plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika was erected on the outer wall of the Vrublevskiai Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in central Vilnius. A number of police observed the scene.
This is a wanton act by a mob. It demonstrates the attitude of the organizers of this event, of those who hung the plaque, towards the law and obeying the law.
We saw the organizers took the path of force, pushing their belief as the only correct one. We saw that before in Lithuania in 1941.
Despite the LJC’s critical view of Noreika’s actions during the Nazi occupation, it never occured to us over those 22 years the plaque stood there to come and simply take it down. We respect the laws of Lithuania.
I have no doubt that the events of Thursday evening have done harm to the nation’s reputation. High-lvel delegations from the United States are due to arrive in September alone and we will mark the day of remembrance of the genocide of the Jews of Lithuania on September 23. And will this plaque look on from its central perch as we mark the Year of the Vilna Gaon and of Litvak History declared in 2020?
It is crucial that the leaders of the Lithuanian state express their views and a principled position, and that the appropriate Lithuanian institutions take all necessary measures.
The only consolation seems to be that today, Thursday evening, as I watched this so-called action, I saw only a small group of people who truly do not represent the whole of Lithuania. There were no young people, no intellectuals on hand, whose voices have been lacking in this.
What we are demanding is very simple: 1) stop denying the Holocaust, 2) stop portraying Holocaust perpetrators as heroes, 3) honor the victims of the Holocaust and 4) follow the IHRA definition of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism adopted by Lithuania last year. If the IHRA definition isn’t followed it’s meaningless for Lithuania to remain a signatory to it or a member of IHRA.
I would like to remind the public again that my relatives were imprisoned in the Šiauliai ghetto, from which they never returned. I would like to quote the famous writer Sholem Aleichem, in whose honor a school is named in Vilnius. One of his works begins with the words: “How good it is that I am an orphan…” I would also like to say: “How good it is that I am an orphan and that my parents aren’t around to see the man who condemned their entire family to death in the Šiauliai ghetto celebrated and lionized.”
You’re invited to take part in the March of the Living procession in Ponar at 1:00 P.M. on September 23, 2019. The march begins at the Ponar railroad station and concludes at the main memorial in the Ponar Memorial Complex, where a commemoration ceremony to remember the genocide of the Jews of Lithuania will begin at 1:15.
A bus will offer transport from the LJC to the memorial complex leaving at 12 noon. Registration begins September 16. To register, call 8 5 261 3003.
On Wednesday Kaunas Holocaust survivor Dita Zupavičienė-Šperlingienė spoke at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library and presented a home movie.
The silent film was a series of street scenes from Vilnius, Riga and Lvov before the war. Zupavičienė-Šperlingienė explained how her uncle Hanon, a medical student in Paris, used to come visit the family. In bed for over a week with scarlet fever, the young Dita was overjoyed when her physician uncle told the family she could get up and do things around the house without making it worse. Dita said she jumped out of bed at the first opportunity and from that time on Hanon became her favorite uncle.
Hanon was an amateur filmmaker and used an 8 mm camera on some of his travels. As the Nazis drew closer to Paris, he grabbed a bicycle and rode south, to Vichy France. Zupavičienė-Šperlingienė said he soon discovered life was dangerous for a Jew there, as well. After the Holocaust Hanon continued to live in Paris. Dita made it to Israel where it turned out she was, for whatever reason, one of the few Jews able to teach the German language. In the early 1970s she had the opportunity to improve her German teaching skills in West Germany, and visited Hanon in Paris during that trip. That’s when he mentioned he still had some of the footage he had taken before the Holocaust.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community held a reception for Israel’s new ambassador to Lithuania Yossi Avni Levy and her team last week. Chairmen of the regional Lithuanian Jewish communities attended the event. LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky welcomed the new ambassador’s arrival and introduced him to members of the Community at the event.
Levy is an Israeli writer and diplomat. He has held various posts at Israeli embassies in Bonn, Berlin, Belgrade and Warsaw. His literary work has received the prize of the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Born in 1962, Levy’s mother has roots in Iran and his father in Afghanistan. He was graduated with honors by Hebrew University in Jerusalem in history of the Middle East and Arabic in 1983.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community celebrated the 20th European Day of Jewish Culture in the traditional Jewish Quarter of Vilnius September 1 with song, dance and food. The weather was beautiful. Restaurants in the Vilnius Old Town feature Jewish foods with traditional breakfast served at the Bagel Shop Café, restaurants and cafés on Žydų and Stiklių streets and other locations. DJs RafRaf, Akvilina and Marius Šmitas provided dance music with a 10-hour musical program at the Amadeus Bar.
LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky greeted celebrants and Vidmantas Bezaras, director of the Cultural Heritage Deparment, and Vida Montvydaitė, director of the Department of Ethnic Minorities, also spoke, noting there is no town or village in Lithuania without some sign of a Jewish presence. Vida Montvydaitė said this isn’t just Jewish heritage, it’s Lithuania’s legacy, and protecting it is becoming ever more important.
The writer Kristina Sabaliauskaitė spoke about her childhood memories of the Jews who still lived in central Vilnius then and with whom she made lasting friendships. She says interpersonal relationships are still one of the most important things in life to her.
The Vilnius, Jerusalem of Lithuania Jewish Community invites the public to attend a meeting with Dita Zupavičienė-Šperlingienė, a living legend, a survivor of the Kaunas ghetto, the Stutthof concentration camp and other concentration camps and of the final death march. The meeting will include a presentation of unique footage from Kaunas in 1929, filmed by Dita’s uncle Honon who came for a short visit before going on to Riga and Lvov, which also feature in the film. Members of Dita’s family look at us through time and Dita will tell their stories and how the film itself made it through the war and came to her.
The meeting will take place at 6:00 P.M. on September 4 at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library.
by Evaldas Labanauskas 15min.lt
When you put “Sergejus Kanovičius” into a search engine, it comes back with “poet, essayist, translation…” There are also references to Grigoriy Kanovich, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday. The latter is a Writer with a capital W, and Sergejus also talks about his Father (also capitalized).
When I read one of your father’s works, “Žydų parkas” [Jewish Park], I got the impression that it was a monument to Litvak culture and civilization, spanning 700 years but now dead. What is the current situation of Litvaks in Lithuania? Do you think this culture/civilization is being reborn?
There are people who express the opinion there are certain parallels between the project which I lead and my father’s work. If one is a material monument to the culture of the Jews of Lithuania, then my father’s work is a literary monument to an extinct ethnos. I think the Jewish community in Lithuania is experiencing a period of transformation. The word “reborn” might be more appropriate if we were talking about what happened 30 years ago, when there were 20,000 Jews in Lithuania, but today there are barely 3,000 Jews in Lithuania. Any sort of activity is encouraging, but claiming there is some kind of very bright future–I, as a revolutionary pessimist, would refrain from that sort of evaluation. Honestly, I am very glad about what is happening, and as much as I’m able I contribute to the activities of the Jewish community, but… while there is a lot of action, there is the question: is there a future?
Members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community spent the day of August 20 touring the Akmenė visiting sites with once populous Jewish communities. The tour began in Šiauliai and continued on in Papilė, where wood carver, traveller, naturalist and geographer Steponas Adomavičius met the group and gave them a guided tour of Jewish residences from before the Holocaust. Members visited the old Jewish cemetery in Papilė, a cemetery which features a commemorative stone and which Adomavičius himself maintains without remuneration. He cuts the grass and hedges and plants small trees. A grateful Jewish man living in America installed a bench bearing Steponas Adomavičius’s name in the cemetery in order to thank him.
The group was unable to reach the Jewish mass murder site in the woods of the Papilė aldermanship because there was no path through the forest at all. Adomavičius spoke about new projects he’s doing in connection with preserving the memory of the Jewish people.
From Papilė the group went on towards Akmenė, where the teacher Rita Ringienė met them and imparted much important information. Some Jewish structures survive in Akmenė. The teacher and pupils from her higher classes have done a study called “Inscriptions on Headstones in the Akmenė Jewish Cemetery and Their Translation to Lithuanian.” The group visited the old Jewish cemetery in Akmenė.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to come celebrate the 20th annual European Day of Jewish Culture, “Sabbath in the Jewish Quarter,” in the Vilnius Old Town on September 1.
World-renowned writer Chaim Grade called the Vilnius Old Town the Jewish Quarter ca. 1930, and wrote: “Long Fridays of Summer. The housewives go to the bakery to shop for Saturday: they buy dry bagels, dark cookies and pastries with poppy seeds, small little cakes with powdered sugar…” (from his Der shtumer minyen, or Silent Minyan).
On Sunday, September 1, restaurants and cafés located in the Vilnius Jewish Quarter will present a menu of Jewish dishes, Jewish music will play and there will be lectures and tours. LJC chairman Faina Kukliansky will open ceremonies with a welcome speech at 12 noon. Saulius Pilinkus will MC and new Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yossi Avni Levy, Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department head Vidmantas Bezaras and Lithuanian Ethnic Minorities Department director Vida Montvydaitė will also welcome participants.
A letter from the prosecutor of the Defense of the Public Interest Section of the Vilnius district Prosecutor Office has been posted on the webpage of the Lithuanian Prosecutor’s Office regarding complaints over the take-down of a plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika and the renaming of a street honoring Kazys Škirpa in Vilnius. Both men were complicit in Holocaust crimes during World War II.
Investigation Performed for the Defense of the Public Interest on the Removal of the Commemorative Plaque and the Renaming of the Alley in Vilnius
August 28, 2019
After considering statements by members of parliament Audronis Ažubalis and Laurynas Kasčiūnas, the Union of Volunteer Founders of the Lithuanian Military, the Lithuanian Defense of Human Rights Association and other parties on the possibly illegitimate removal of the plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika/General Storm from the outer wall of the Vrublevskiai Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and the renaming of K. Škirpa Alley, the Vilnius district Prosecutor’s Office adopted a decision to decline to apply measures for the defense of the public interest. In adopting this decision, the Prosecutor’s Office looked at information from the Vilnius municipality, the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department, the Lithuanian Government representative for the Vilnius and Alytus districts and other information pertinent to the investigation. This decision only presents a legal and not an historical assessment.
A concert will be held at the Kaunas State Philharmonic at 7:00 P.M. on September 5 to celebrate the 125th birthday of doctor and rescuer of Jews Ona Jablonskytė-Landsbergienė.
Performers include Keiko Borjeson doing lyrics and playing piano, Arvydas Joffe on percussion, Tomas Botyrius on sax and Mykolas Bazaras on bass.
The concert is free and open to the public.
As part of the 20th annual European Day of Jewish Culture, the Lithuanian Jewish Community invites the public to visit the former Jewish Quarter of Vilnius. Recently several frescoes appeared on the walls there. The creators will lead a tour and talk about their surprising project The Walls Remember on September 1. Project author Lina Šlipavičiutė-Černiauskienė describes it this way:
“Vilnius had one of the largest and most active Jewish communities in our region. The horrors of World War II almost completely destroyed this community and this is without doubt one of the most painful losses for Lithuania and especially Vilnius. We don’t have the right to forget these people, and we do not forget them.
“But we forget too much the time when the people of Vilnius were simply happy. These bright memories should be visible: how these people worked, grew up, created families and grew old… How they shaped their lives in Vilnius whose streets we walk today, the same town we the current inhabitants of Vilnius love.
On May 21, teacher Nijolė Teišerskienė taught students about the history of the Šiauliai ghetto. Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community member Ida Vileikienė survived that ghetto and told the children her story, including how she was rescued by the Staškas family, how she lived in hiding and what she did after the war. She invited the children to learn to respect one another as a general life lesson.
On May 23 Inga Kvedariene of the Šiauliai territorial medical system met with community members and talked about the payment system hospitals use and which services are free to those who have social insurance. She then fielded questions from the audience.
On June 14 members of the Šiauliai Regional Jewish Community visited the site of the former Lithuanian shtetl Zhagar (Žagarė) beginning with tours of the Žagarė Regional Park and the Naryškinas manor estate. Land management specialist Giedrė Rakštienė spoke authoritatively on the Jewish population of Zhagar and many community members learned new things about Jewish life there. Žagarė gymnasium geography teacher Alma Kančelskienė led the tour which included still-standing Jewish buildings which used to be synagogues, the house of the rabbi and a school, and members also visited the site of the former mikvah there. Members also visited the home of E. Vaičiulis. He is the owner now of the site of the former Jewish textile factory on the banks of the Švėtė river and of a wooden Jewish house where he now lives. Under several layers of wallpaper there are parts of old Jewish newspapers on his walls which the former owners glued there once upon a time. He has preserved the original exterior and the interior is decorated with period pots and dishes. Surrounded by a stone wall, Vaičiulis’s collection is a veritable museum of the former time when Jewish life was front and center in what is now a Lithuanian town. Pride of place is occupied by a Torah scroll discovered in Zhagar. Members also visited the Jewish cemetery and mass murder sites in and around the town.
Boy London clothing is being linked with Nazi symbols (photo: SCANPIX and Alfa.lt)
The store Aprangos galerija at the Panorama shopping mall in Vilnius is selling clothes from Boy London from Great Britain with a symbol which appears identical to the stylized eagle of the Third Reich.
Boy London clothing, long known and criticized around the world for using Nazi symbols, began sales in Lithuania a year ago.
Full story in Lithuanian here.
Culminating a series of letters back and forth between LA-based Litvak Grant Gochin and the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania–Lithuania’s state-sponsored arbiter of all historical truth–the Genocide Center posted a notice on their website saying Gochin’s questions to them might be criminal and in violation of the Lithuanian constitution.
The Genocide Center neglected to post Gochin’s actual letters and independent historical research, content to post only answers to the questions they cherry-picked and deemed worthy of refutation.
Note that Gochin himself says he never brought up Telšiai archbishop Vincentas Borisevičius and that the Genocide Center inserted him into their notification out of the blue.
Here is a translation of their notification with a link at the end to the original text in Lithuanian:
The town of Merkinė, Lithuania, held a big celebration August 17 and 18, marking the 660th anniversary of the first mention of the town in the historical sources and the 450th anniversary of the town receiving autonomous Magdeburg charter rights. The Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Fayerlakh group were invited to the celebration.
The project “Doors Are Opening” was dedicated to commemorating life in Merkinė during the period between the two world wars, when the majority of the population was Jewish. Before the Holocaust Jews accounted for about 80% of inhabitants. The old Jewish doors were donated for the celebration.
“It’s normal not to want to talk about the painful past, but it’s abnormal if we try to live our lives as if none of those experiences ever even existed,” Mindaugas Černiauskas, the director of the Merkinė Regional History Museum, said.
Merkinė Jewish school, ca. 1928-1930
by Mindaugas Černiauskas
“Decades have passed since I left you, Merkinė. You are always on my mind. Every day I walk your small crowded streets in my thoughts. I know it’s not real, but I haven’t learned to come to terms with the fact the terror of the Holocaust was also in my town.” –Dorit Blatshtein, refugee from Merkinė.
Exactly 78 years ago the Jews of Merkinė were marched to the sand pits in Kukumbalis forest and left there for the ages powerless and desecrated. The introduction of the book “Mano senelių ir prosenelių kaimynai žydai” [My Grandparents’ and Great-Granparents’ Jewish Neighbors] published in 2003 contains the line that “the destruction of the Jews of Lithuania was so blood-curdling and unexpected, so cynical and public, accomplished right here in view of all other residents, that it essentially touched in one way or another every member of society.”
It’s difficult not to agree with this, as it is difficult not to agree with the idea that traumatic experience is often pushed into the subconscious. It’s clear experience doesn’t disappear and can become a festering wound and neurosis, especially when we view history based on idealized versions of national history where we only want to see examples of goodness, beauty and harmony which make us proud.
by Grant Arthur Gochin
How did it come to this? Professor Vytautas Landsbergis, first head of dtate of Lithuania after liberation from the Soviet Union and founding father of the country’s Conservative Party (Homeland Union), putting himself squarely at the forefront of defending the hero status of Holocaust perpetrators and Nazi collaborators in Lithuania?
Landsbergis has gone on record calling Vilnius mayor Remigijus Simasius delusional for removing a plaque honoring the Holocaust perpetrator Jonas Noreika from the library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, a step called for years ago by a broad coalition of public intellectuals which included member of the European Parliament Leonidas Donskis, rector of Vilnius University Arturas Zukauskas and others (were they also all “delusional?”). Serving the Nazis as head of Siauliai district during World War II, Noreika signed orders forcing Jews into a ghetto and plundering their property (clearly they weren’t expected to come back).
Noreika’s granddaughter Silvia Foti, after discovering the truth, has courageously spoken out against the honoring of her grandfather. In what can only be described as an unstatesmanlike tirade, Landsbergis went so far as to publicly accuse her of “murdering him all over again” (Noreika was executed by the Soviets in 1947).
Landsbergis publicly condemned Vilnius City Council for removing the name of Kazys Skirpa, pro-Nazi leader of the Lithuanian Activist Front, the armed anti-Soviet resistance group behind the June 1941 Uprising, and nominal head of Lithuania’s provisional government under the Nazis, from a street in the middle of the capital. After the Vilnius synagogue was temporarily closed due to escalating anti-Semitism and threats of violence in the wake of these decisions, instead of calling for calm, Landsbergis continued to escalate his rhetoric, accusing head of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Faina Kukliansky of being “useful to the Kremlin.”
Full text here.
Photo: © 2019 DELFI/Karolina Pansevič
ELTA
August 14, 2019
Lithuania’s Supreme Public Service Ethics Commission will investigate Wednesday the actions of Ronaldas Račinskas, the secretary general of Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Soviet and Nazi Occupational Regimes in Lithuania.
According to the press release, the ethics commission has conducted an investigation on whether Račinskas adhered to the stipulations of Lithuania’s law on conflicts of interest in public service, and having discovered violations, seeks his resignation. The investigation began after receiving internal audit information provided by the Chancellery of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania.
The Supreme Public Service Ethics Commission is looking at cases where Račinskas might have signed orders giving himself additional income, approving his own vacation and approving working trips for himself in Lithuania and abroad.
Full article in Lithuanian here.