Samuel Kukliansky Remembered at 25th Anniversary of Lithuanian University

Minint Mykolo Romerio Universiteto 25-metį, pagerbtas Samuelio Kuklianskio atminimas

Samuel Kukliansky, father of Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, has had a tree planted in his memory at a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius (known as the Law University before 2004). Samuel Kukliansky, Lithuanian attorney, scholar of law, criminology expert, was also a professor at the university and a post-doctoral fellow in social sciences. He was born and raised in Veisiejai, Lithuania. After surviving the Holocaust, he was graduated from the Law Faculty of Vilnius University in 1953 with the qualifications of attorney. He was a life-long scholar and published more than 150 academic papers on different aspects of criminology.

On June 23 Mykolas Romeris University celebrated honored alumni and friends. The event to mark the 25th anniversary of the post-Soviet incarnation of the university included the release of a book including those who have contributed to the university along with the names of rectors, professors, teachers and students. An arboretum of Japanese cherry trees and ash trees was planted to honor past professors, alumni and friends of the university. Rector Dr. Algirdas Monkevičius said at the ceremony to open the garden it was intended as a gift from the university community to the founders and boosters of the university, to the neighborhood and to the city of Vilnius.

2016-06-272016-07-05

Lithuanian Jewish Community Chairwoman Kukliansky Comments on Baltic Pride 2016 March

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A large crowd of upwards of 2,000 people turned out June 18 in Vilnius for the Baltic Pride march for equality. The marchers included several foreign ambassadors—Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon, Norwegian ambassador Dag Malmer Halvorsen and others—as well as Lithuanian and European politicians human rights activists, LGBT community members and supporters, social organizations and large delegation from Vilnius University. Marchers carried flags and banners identified with thr gay rights movement and different organizations as well as the national flags of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the United Kingdom, Israel, Russia, the United States, Sweden and others.

Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky also attended and said she believes the march is not about gay or lesbian rights, but basic human rights, the right to be who one is.

“There are those who protest, who don’t like this right, they are disgusted and they don’t like people who are different. I would advise such people to read some medical literature. Being gay or lesbian is not a disease. One doesn’t need to be cured of it, and these people don’t have to be fixed. We should accept them as they are,” Faina Kukliansky pointed out.

2016-06-272016-07-01

Discussion of Litvak Heritage Protection at Lithuanian Government

Vyriausybėje aptarti Lietuvos žydų paveldo ir istorinių vietų išsaugojimo klausimai

On June 23 a second sitting of the commission investigating issues associated with Litvak culture and history was held at the Lithuanian Government. Discussion included Litvak heritage, protection of Jewish cemeteries and mass graves, plans for the Ponar Memorial Complex, restoration of property and inclusion of the Lithuanian Jewish Community in centennial celebrations of the restoration of the Lithuanian state.

“Lithuania is proud of her rich history and opulent ethnic culture legacy. That includes synagogues, communal buildings, different documents and other heritage. I can say resolutely that it is very important to us to maintain existing Jewish heritage sites and to adapt them for public use,” first deputy chancellor and chairman of the commission Rimantas Vaitkus said.

2016-06-232016-06-27

Removal of Jewish Headstones from Electric Substation Begins in Lithuanian Capital

Sostinėje pradėta ardyti pastotė iš sunaikintų Žydų kapinių paminklinių akmenų
photo: Saulius Žiūra

Vilnius mayor Remigijus Šimašius is keeping his promise: now that the centralized hearing season is over, work has begun to remove part of an electric transformer station whose construction during the Soviet era employed stones from Jewish graves. The mayor today surveyed the work to disassemble the electric substation on Olandų street. After consulting with the Lithuanian Jewish Community, the decision was made to remove the headstone fragments to the site on Olandų street where a Jewish cemetery memorial is being constructed.

It’s clear that 26 years after the declaration of Lithuanian independence, it has long been time to get rid of such symbols of disrespect for our history. Today the Jewish headstones are being removed from the substation and will be used for a Jewish cemetery memorial on Olandų street. We consulted with the Lithuanian Jewish Community on how to return the fragments of gravestones in the most honorable manner, showing due respect to the memory of the dead,” Vilnius mayor Šimašius said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

2016-06-232016-07-05

Jewish Gravestones Removed from Electric Substation

Iš elektros pastotės išimami žydų antkapių akmenys

VILNIUS, June 22, BNS–This week removal began of fragments of Jewish headstones used in the construction of an electric substation in Vilnius. The fragments will be removed to the Jewish cemetery on Olandų street to be used in a Jewish cemetery memorial to be erected there, the municipality informed BNS. “Currently work is underway to remove stones set in different walls,” Kęstutis Karosas, acting director of the city’s Heating and Water Department said. The plan is to remove all the stones by September 1.

The cost to the municipality is unknown so far. Karosas said payment will be made for work done. The electric substation on Olandų street was constructed during the Soviet period using headstones from the Jewish cemetery there. Jewish headstones, especially from the cemetery on Olandų street, were used all over Vilnius for construction during the Soviet era.

2016-06-232016-06-27

Archaeologists Find Burners Brigade Tunnel at Ponar

Mokslininkai žydų žudynių vietoje Paneriuose aptiko pabėgimo tunelį

A team of archaeologists from the US, Canada, Israel and Lithuania have discovered the escape tunnel dug by the burners’ brigade at Ponar as well as new killing pits.

“New pits were discovered, overgrown paths were also found along which the victims were taken, and the ashes of burnt corpses distributed over the area. And also, the most important thing, the act of resistance, the escape tunnel, about which so much is said in the literature… Now without margins of error its length has been measured, about 30 meters, very exactly, Markas Zingeris, director of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum told Lithuanian Radio and Television Wednesday.

He said the findings at Ponar will lead to new information stands and exhibits. The tunnel might also become part of the new museum planned at Ponar.

2016-06-222016-06-27

Archaeologists Dig at Vilnius Great Synagogue

Vilniaus Didžioji sinagoga žydams buvo svarbi, kaip katalikams Vatikanas

VILNIUS, June 21, BNS–A team of experts from the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel and Lithuania is starting to investigate the remains of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius and other buried buildings.

An international team of archaeologists using non-invasive geophysical techniques plans to investigate the remnants of a mikvah buried 2 meters below the surface under a school built by the Soviet regime after 1960.

“Our geophysical studies can map below the street without destroying any infrastructure and then to identify exactly where to dig, map and retrieve artifacts to understand the historical context,” one researcher said.

2016-06-222016-06-27

Romanian Klezmer Concert

The Romanian embassy in Vilnius and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invite you to a concert by the klezmer group Mazel Tov from Cluj, Romania, called

Rumania, Rumania,

lekhaim briderlakh!

at 7:00 P.M. on Wednesday, June 29, at the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Pylimo street no. 4, Vilnius

2016-06-202016-06-30

350-Year-Old Torah Scroll Returns to Vilnius

350 m. skaičiuojatis toros ritinys grįžta į Vilniaus choralinę sinagogą

The Vilnius Jewish Religious Community cordially invites you to celebrate this extraordinary event, the return of the Torah scroll, at the Vilnius Choral Synagogue.

This 350-year-old Torah scroll, which survived the destruction of the Vilnius ghetto during World War II and was taken out of the country to protect it, is finally coming home.

The ceremony of bringing in the Torah is to take place at 1:00 P.M. on Monday, June 27, at the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.

The Vilnius Jewish Community is tremendously grateful to Judah Passow for his initiative in returning the Torah scroll. The family of London-based photojournalist Judah Passow safeguarded the Torah scroll for 56 years after it left Vilnius. The ceremony will feature a short presentation of the history of the Torah and what this most important book means.

2016-06-202016-06-27

Famous Film Director Boris Maftsir Visits Panevėžys Jewish Community

Panevėžio žydų bendruomenėje lankėsi garsus režisierius Borisas Maftsiras

Maftsir was born in Riga in 1947 and made aliyah to Israel in 1971, where he works at Yad Vashem as an independent film director. He has produced over 400 documentaries for film and television and is the director of at least 30 documentary films.

He’s currently working on a new film about Lithuanian Righteous Gentiles. When he was in Lithuania in 2008 he visited the Panevėžys Jewish Community to talk about best to commemorate those who heroically rescued Jews during the Holocaust. This time Maftsir met sister Leonora Kasiulytė of the Congregation of the Love of God at the Community concerning her book and collection of material about Marija Rusteikaitė, a woman who saved 15 Jews without regard for her own life during World War II. He also met Genutė Žilytė, a history teacher from the Rožynas Pre-Gymnasium who has been doing tolerance and Holocaust educational projects for 12 years now to give greater understanding to Lithuanian society on the scope and nature of the tragedy. She’s been directing the school’s Tolerance Education Center since 2004, participating with students in projects by the International Commission and civic initiatives, collecting Holocaust survivors’ testimonies and of those who were deported to Siberia and maintaining the mass murder sites at Kurganava and Žalioji forest. Every year creative work by students at the pre-gymnasium on the topics of the Holocaust and Soviet repression of Lithuanians is presented to the people of the city and region of Panevėžys.

2016-06-192016-06-19

Meeting the Past at a Chess Match

kazys_grinius_cropped
by Geoff Vasil

Sometimes you open a door and walk into a room expecting nothing, and the strangest things happen. I went to the Rositsan Elite Chess and Checkers Club chess tournament dedicated to the memory of chess enthusiast and interwar Lithuanian president Kazys Grinius at the Lithuanian Jewish Community on Sunday morning, June 19, and thought I saw the president himself, although he died many years ago in exile in America.

At the chess tournament held in his name, there were tables with timers and boards set up both inside the Jascha Heifetz hall and in the foyer and people of all age groups from pre-teen to people in their 80s waiting for the games to begin. I expected some sort of formal nod of the head to the former president, a cursory commemoration after which the players would get down to business. The organizers had a much different idea of what it means to honor someone. Multiple speakers took the podium, gifts were lavished, chess medallions were passed out and there was a sincere recollection of the man himself.

Borisas Gelpernas, former chess champion, spoke about how Kazys Grinius rescued his mother and father from the Kaunas ghetto. At first his father refused the offer of help, not wanting to put Grinius in danger, but the former Lithuanian president kept insisting, and after the actions–mass shootings of Jews–began, he and his wife did hide in Grinius’s own apartment for several months, along with Kristina, Kazys’s second wife.

2016-06-192016-06-27

Lithuanian Parliament Rushes to Aid of Litvaks

By Raimonda Ramelienė

The Lithuanian parliament has heard complaints from Jews who left Lithuania between the wars and their descendants over their inability to restore Lithuanian citizenship and has begun amending Lithuania‘s law on citizenship.

Several parliamentary committees have been trying to determine since spring why the Migration Department has been rejecting requests by Litvaks and their descendants living in Israel and South Africa for restoration of Lithuanian citizenship.

Although members of parliament determined bureaucratic obstacles were hindering the process, they decided to put an end to conflicting legal opinions by amending the law. The initiator was oppoisition conservative leader Andrius Kubilius, aided by European Affairs

2016-06-172016-06-27

Presentation of Archaeological Finds from Ponar and Great Synagogue in Vilnius

Participating: professor Richard Freund (Hartford University) and Dr. Jon Seligman (Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem)

This team of renowned investigators began work on the Ponar mass murder site near Vilnius in early June. Using non-invasive archaeological methods, they examined a large portion of the site of the largest mass murder in Lithuania.

The archaeologists focused on the tunnel excavated by burners’ brigade and other items of high interest according the museum specialists. A film crew travelled with professor Freund to Lithuania and plan to release a documentary called Lost Vilnius.

The Israeli-American duo also looked at the site of the former Great Synagogue in Vilnius.

The Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum will host their presentation of their findings June 22. The public is invited to attend. The event will be held in Lithuanian and English. The Tolerance Center is located at Naugarduko street no. 10, Vilnius.

2016-06-162016-06-27

Latvian Consul Speaks Frankly about Holocaust

At a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Soviet mass deportations of citizens of the Baltic states held in Los Angeles June 12, Latvian consul in California Dr. Juris Bunkis spoke out strongly for remembering the Jews in the Baltics who were murdered during the Holocaust.

“We are here to commemorate evil–evil like the mass shootings that took place earlier today in Orlando,” Dr. Bunkis said. “We gather today to commemorate a brutal event in our histories, the mass deportations of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians from their illegally and forcefully occupied countries to Siberia by the Soviet Union that began on June 14, 1941. Unfortunately, this was just the first in a series of mass Soviet deportations of tens of thousands of victims from the Baltics, occupied Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova,” he continued.

2016-06-152016-06-15

Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky’s Speech at the Lithuanian Parliament at Commemoration of the Day of Mourning and Hope and the Day of Occupation and Genocide

LŽB pirmininkės Fainos Kukliansky kalba Lietuvos Respublikos Seime, minėjime, skirtame Gedulo ir vilties bei Okupacijos ir genocido dienoms atminti

Over the entirety of Lithuania’s 25 years of independence the Lithuanian Jewish Community hasn’t had the opportunity to share our thoughts publicly during the marking of the Day of Mourning and Hope at the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania. Seventy-five years have passed since the beginning of the mass deportations of Lithuanian citizens. For the Jewish people, who suffered prophetic exile from the times of the Assyrians, Babylonians and Romans, the experience of exile could be considered part of our historical identity. Seventy-five years ago about one precent of the Lithuanian Jewish community at that time were deported, and as a percentage represent the largest group to be deported from Lithuania. State repression did not put an end to Jewish identity: Zionist organizations operated underground, there was a Hebrew educational system, and all sorts of measures were employed to enable members of the Jewish community to leave for Palestine.

According to Jewish historiography, during the deportations of June, 1941, alone about 3,000 Jews were deported, including Jewish activists from the left and right side of the political spectrum and owners of large industrial enterprises and factories, with about 7,000 people being deported in total during the first year of Soviet rule. On the eve of the first Soviet occupation the majority of Lithuanian Jews were involved in different cultural, social and political organizations and associations. The tradition of Zionism, however, has always been especially strong in the Lithuanian Jewish community; in Lithuania between the two world wars members of the Jewish conservative cultural orientation were the most active and influential, and spoke out for the creation of an independent Jewish nation-state in Palestine. In this regard the confrontation with the Soviet system was especially vivid.

Solomon Atamuk reports there 16 Jewish daily newspapers, 30 weeklies and 13 non-periodical publications as well as 20 collections of literature being published in Lithuania before World War II. After the June 14, 1940 ultimatum to Lithuania and the consequent occupation the Jewish community soon experienced social and cultural repression. All newspapers, belong both to organizations on the Jewish political left and the right, were shut down. Even the Folksblat newspaper, popular with Communists and issued by the Jewish People’s Party, was closed.

2016-06-142016-06-19

Jakovas Mendelevskij: Childhood and Life of a Jewish Deportee

Jakovas Mendelevskij – žydo tremtinio vaiko gyvenimas ir tolesnis likimas

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the mass deportations of Lithuanian citizens which began on June 14, 1941. The Russian regime then began by rounding up intellectuals, members of the educated elite, wealthy businessmen and well-to-do farmers, sending them deep into the interior of Russia. In total about 132,000 people were deported, and 28,000 people died in exile.

Jakovas Mendelevskij lived as a child in Ukmergė in an affluent and happy family. He was 9 that early morning of June 14, 1941, when the knock came at the door and the family was ordered to get ready to be deported. Many Jews were deported in Ukmergė that morning. They were taken by truck to Jonava, summarily separated from his father, and he, his mother and brother were loaded onto train cars like livestock and carried off. His father was arrested and tried, and received a sentence of 10 years in one of Stalin’s camps under article 58 of Soviet law. He was taken to a camp in the Krasnoyarsk region.

2016-06-142016-06-19

Fira Bramson-Alpernienė Has Died

Fira Bramson-Alpernienė
December 18,1924-June 12, 2016

Estera Bramson-Alpernienė, whom everyone knew as Fira, has died. With her dies a bit of Litvak history. She belonged to a world of 20th century Jewish personalities, looming figures such as that of Shimon Dubnov, Max Weinreich and Tsemakh Shabad. She came from the famous Bramson family whose members have played a key role in Lithuanian Jewish and European Jewish life. The Bramsons were a center of gravity to Jewish intellectuals in Kaunas before the war. Fira was educated at the Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium with Yiddish as the language of instruction. For Fira family and school were holy, although her school life didn’t last long.

In 1941, before she could graduate from high school, the war forced her to bid a hasty farewell to family, to leave her only sister, to flee from the Nazi terror. Fira didn’t come back to Kaunas after the war because there was no one waiting for her there. Her entire family was at the Ninth Fort. She started a new life in Vilnius. In the late 1980s there was a movement in Vilnius to revive the Lithuanian Jewish Community. Fira was among the founders of that movement. Finally she could come back to her Yiddish roots and cultural hearth so important and crucial to her spiritual life. Some of her most important work since that time has been with Jewish books at the former Palace of Books, and with that collection now removed to the Lithuanian National Library. Her pride and joy became these surviving books, along with a small number of books from the private collections and libraries from before the war belonging to survivors of the Holocaust. Fira was one of the first conservators of this heritage and presented the legacy she protected to the Jewish community, but also to the wider audience in Lithuania and the world. She held exhibits and lectures, facilitated cooperation with academics and students and helped make use of this priceless inheritance. She wrote about what she achieved in her work of many years in the book “Prie judaikos lobių” [“Next to the Treasures of Judaica”].

Fira Bramson could be called the white knight of Yiddish culture. This woman, slight of build, fragile, driven and principled, fought for the protection and preservation of cultural treasures. Not only did she fight, she won. Even in difficult circumstances she never relented because she saw her life as a mission to safeguard that Yiddish culture so dear to her parents and ancestors, and to pass on memories of that culture to future generations. When she spoke at conferences and seminars, when she was part of educational programs in Lithuania, Europe and the USA, Fira would first speak not of herself, but about the founders of Yiddish culture. The grief of losing Fira Bramson is somewhat mitigated by the realization she lived a long, interesting and productive life and generously shared with others her love of Jewish culture. She was of keen intellect, a person with a warm heart whom, if you ever met her, you will never be able to forget. Let our vivid memory of her live on.

A wake will be held at the Nutrūkusi Styga funeral home Tuesday from 10:00 A.M. The coffin will be carried out at 3:45 P.M.

2016-06-132016-06-23

History of the Vilnius Jewish Community: Learn (Not) to Forget

Professor François Guesnet, a reader at the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Faculty at University College London currently visiting at the History Faculty of Vilnius University, granted Nijolė Bulotaitė, a writer for VU’s news page, a long interview. Dr. Guesnet is also the secretary of the European Association for Jewish Studies. Excerpts translated from Lithuanian appear below.

What is the most interesting or most inspiring thing to you?

That’s a good question. We were just talking with a doctoral student about how some topics become very boring as the years go by and become stale. Partisan politics, let’s say, isn’t very sexy. Right now I’m most interested in the human body and the history of medicine, because it’s very interesting to explore who people understand themselves and their bodies. I also research the functioning of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. I was born in Germany, my mother is German, my father French; I grew up in a very European family and studied the history of Eastern Europe. I know Polish and Russian. Both languages were very important for me and Russian helped especially in researching archival material. I know Hebrew and Yiddish, otherwise it would be impossible to study the history of Eastern European Jews, at least a basic knowledge is required. My dissertation concerns the 19th century when the majority of official documents were in Russian.

2016-06-102016-06-15

Youth Activities in May at the LJC

Lithuanian Jewish Community youth activities coordinator Pavel Guliakov has provided a report on youth activities for the month of May as most children in Lithuania have finished school and are busy enjoying the first weeks of summer vacation.

The Ilan Club is closing for summer and getting ready for summer camps, but had three activities in May. On the 15th children and parents visited a fire station, got to try out firefighting equipment, learned about how firefighters live and had an informative outing. On May 22 the kids learned about the Israeli military and the life of Israeli soldiers at the Lithuanian Jewish Community. On May 29 the club had an end-of-season closing event called Jewish social networks where counselors presented an interesting activity involving social media and mobile telephones, which most of the children already use regularly and enthusiastically.

2016-06-10