News

Lithuanian Public Radio and Television Interview with Arūnas Bubnys

Lithuanian Public Radio and Television Interview with Arūnas Bubnys

/Translation from the Lithuanian language/

Fresh at the GRRCL’s helm, Bubnys opens about the connection between the June Uprising and the Holocaust, Noreika’s personality, and historic truth

‘There is no such thing as the absolute historic truth. And I do not believe there can be any on principle,’ said Arūnas Bubnys, the new head of the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania (GRRCL). In his interview with the LRT.lt portal he also spoke about the challenges the Centre had faced, and the plans to boost the GRRCL’s prestige.

Bubnys did not have an easy accession to the post of the GRRCL’s director. After a conflict with the staff that had ran for a few months, Adas Jakubauskas, the Centre’s director for nine months, was fired in early April. The Parliament approved this decision by a majority vote, however Bubnys’s nomination as the new head was immediately met with allegations from the parliamentary opposition.

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US Rep: Quisling Lithuanian PM Brazaitis Wasn’t Exonerated or Rehabilitated

US Rep: Quisling Lithuanian PM Brazaitis Wasn’t Exonerated or Rehabilitated

United States representative Brad Sherman (D, Sherman Oaks, California) has asked the Lithuanian ambassador to the United States for clarification regarding claims by the Lithuanian Government the pro-Nazi prime minister in the Lithuanian Provisional Government of 1941 was somehow exonerated by the Congress in the 1970s.

Congressman-Sherman-to-Ambassador-Plepyte-Letter-Response1

Correspondence leading to the latest letter:

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Imprisoned Lithuanian Telephone Scammers Target Russian Speakers in Israel

Imprisoned Lithuanian Telephone Scammers Target Russian Speakers in Israel

Criminals from Lithuania pretending to be doctors and lawyers cause true scandal in Israel

Criminals from Lithuania continue to put our country’s name on the world map, and this time their targets are Lithuanian citizens living in Israel. Israeli and Lithuanian police have uncovered two international crime groups who have managed to scam a very large number of people. Prosecutors say they’ve made almost a half-million euros, but the criminals themselves say the sum is actually much higher.

… Following a long investigation, it turns out there are two crime groups operating out of the Marijampolė penitentiary tricking foreigners out of their money. Most of the money goes to the ring-leaders with the poor prisoners only getting a small portion of the money which they are allowed to spend at the prison commissary. Prisoners say their main “salary,” however, was drugs.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Help Mark the 80th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania This Year

Help Mark the 80th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania This Year

Dear Community members,

This year we’ll mark the 80th anniversary of the onset of the Holocaust in Lithuania. The Lithuanian Jewish Community is creating a digital chronicle to help the broader public understand how Litvaks lived before the Holocaust and what happened to their communities beginning in 1941.

We are asking you to share the stories and photographs of your relatives who lived in the Lithuanian shtetls and died in the mass murders in 1941 or the years following.

Everyone is invited to participate by sending copies of photographs and short texts including biographies and descriptions of murders to info@lzb.lt or zanas@sc.lzb.lt

Please indicate the names of people in photographs, locations and dates if available.

Condolences

With deep sadness we report the death of Olegas Feiginas on May 26. He was born in 1954. Our sincere condolences to his son Aleksas and other family members.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yossi Avni-Levy. Here are some archive pictures of his first visit to LJC headquarters.

Condolences

Panevėžys Jewish Community executive board member and doctor Sergejus Amitonas has died following chronic illness. He was born in 1953 and achieved much in the field of medicine. Our deepest condolences to his sons Ruslanas and Georgijus as well as all his relatives and many friends.

Condolences

Jevgenija Ginzburg passed away May 24. She was born in 1932. We extend our deepest and most sincere condolences to her children who lost both their parents this month.

From Lazdijai to Hollywood: The Achron Phenomenon

From Lazdijai to Hollywood: The Achron Phenomenon

“From Lazdijai to Hollywood: The Joseph Achron Phenomenon” is a lecture celebrating Joseph Achron’s 135th birthday.

Joseph Achron (or Akhron, 1886-1943), the violin prodigy and composer born in Lazdijai, Lithuania, charmed audiences in Warsaw, Grodno, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Kiev and other cities around Europe, and went on to play Carnegie Hall. Having achieved fame in New York and Los Angeles, he remains little known in Lithuania. A close friend of Jascha Heifetz and Arnold Schönberg, he was humble on stage. He composed his greatest hit, Hebrew Melody, in barely an half hour.

How did his religious family support the young virtuoso’s musical career? What did Tsar Nikolai’s mother present as a gift to Achron? What did Achron contribute to the creation of professional Jewish music? Find out the answers and other interesting matters in Kamilė Rupeikaitė’s lecture “From Lazdijai to Hollywood: The Joseph Achron Phenomenon” at 3:00 P.M. on May 25.

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Condolences

The Lithuanian Jewish Community extends our deepest condolences on the death of long-time Lithuanian diplomat Edminas Bagdonas to his surviving family members.

Edminas Bagdonas, 58, passed away Saturday in Vilnius following a battle with illness. He was one of the most remarkable of Lithuanian diplomats after the country achieved independence in the early 1990s. Most recently he served as Lithuanian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He has been active in Lithuania’s diplomatic corps since 1994 and has served as ambassador to Israel and Belarus.

His admirers have called a “statesman with a capital S.” Litvaks in Israel remember him well for his communicability, professionalism and sense of duty.

Arie Ben-Ari Grozendsky, the chairman of the Association of Lithuanian Jewish in Israel, has sent the following condolences as well:

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Happy Birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya

Happy Birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya

Happy birthday to Fania Brantsovskaya, our living link with former Lithuania before the Holocaust. A Jewish partisan, she kept fighting after the war, educating generations about the truth of what happened. Most of us at a certain age in adulthood begin to slow down, to rise more slowly from our chairs, to walk more cautiously. Fania never did. She still walks with a spring in her step as if she were a teenager, with a smile for everyone and ready to talk to anyone without regard for social status. Happy birthday, Fania. Mazl tov! Bis 120!

Lithuanian Jews Wish Peace for Israel

Lithuanian Jews Wish Peace for Israel

As Jews prepare for the Sabbath this Friday, blessing the wine and the end of the week with prayer, we would like to bless Israel with a more peaceful situation as a cease-fire comes into effect after 11 days of thousands of rockets raining down from the Gaza Strip. We will light candles and say a blessing for Israelis to hold peace and a peaceful life dear. Shabat shalom!

“What we are depends on what the Sabbath is to us. The law of the Sabbath day is in the life of the spirit what the law of gravitation is in nature” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) writes on page 89 in his book “The Sabbath” (1951).

On Fridays Jews in Israel always wish one another “shabat shalom,” the peace of the Sabbath, and Lithuanian Jews wish the Jews in Israel and everywhere the same thing. Shabat shalom!

Shavuos Greetings

Shavuos Greetings

Illustration: Shavuot: The Harvest by Harry Lieberman, c. 1934

Greetings on Shavuos (Shavuot) or the Feast of Weeks with an educational video in Lithuanian about the holiday.

Court Gives Go-Ahead on Palace of Sports Reconstruction

Court Gives Go-Ahead on Palace of Sports Reconstruction

15min.lt

The Vilnius Municipal District Court rejected a suit filed by Israeli citizens seeking an injunction to stop construction planned on the former Palace of Sports in Vilnius and protection of former Jewish cemetery grounds around the site.

The court found Lithuania’s state privatization bank Turto Bankas had acted properly. The court said the institution knew of the importance of the cemetery and the need to protect it, and that due attention would be paid to commemorating the site during reconstruction.

Turto Bankas director Mindaugas Sinkevičius said: “Not only are we following all binding laws, but the Government has also made it incumbent upon us that we work with the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe. So Jewish religious beliefs and laws will be taken into account during reconstruction. Both preparatory work and construction later will be performed under the supervision of rabbis in order to safeguard human remains and graves and preserve this site for the future.”

Full article in Lithuanian here.

Germany: Synagogues Vandalized, Anti-Jewish Marches for Palestine

Germany: Synagogues Vandalized, Anti-Jewish Marches for Palestine

Police vehicle at synagogue in Bonn, Germany. Photo courtesy Deutsche Welle.

Amid Israel’s heightened tensions two synagogues and a memorial site have been vandalized in Germany. Lawmakers and religious leaders said the acts were “shameful” and called for greater protection for places of worship.

All three incidents occurred Tuesday night in the cities of Bonn, Düsseldorf and Münster in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The incidents were reportedly motivated by the current violence in Israel and Gaza.

German broadcaster RTL reported a march by Palestine supporters outside a synagogue in Gelsenirchen also in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia Wednesday night which included the shouting of anti-Semitic slogans.RTL also reported a pro-Palestinian march in Hamburg. They reported increased security around synagogues in Germany and mentioned the city of Hesse in particular.

Full stories here and here.

Litvaks in Israel Talk about Horrific Attacks

Litvaks in Israel Talk about Horrific Attacks

by Birutė Vyšniauskaitė, lrt.lt

“It was very cozy and even fun because all the neighbors gathered in one hiding place. We also took in a married couple from the neighboring building because they didn’t have anywhere to hide after the danger signal,” Litvak woman Dusia Lan Kretchmer told Lrytas.lt about the Hamas rocket attacks on Tel Aviv Wednesday night. She left Lithuania about 50 years ago.

Kretchmer said she was in disbelief Hamas rockets were targeting Lod, the city on the way towards Israel’s main Ben-Gurion International Airport, on Wednesday.

“I have taught chemistry for twenty years in this city. Over that entire time I have witnessed Jews and Arabs living together in peace. Many times I have celebrated holidays with the city’s communities, Arabs celebrated their holidays with Jews, Jews with Arabs. So many Arabs live there, I can’t wrap my head around why Hamas would take aim at their own people,” she said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Virtual Sabbath Discussions Continue

Virtual Sabbath Discussions Continue

We invite you to a virtual Sabbath discussion at 7:00 P.M. on May 15 of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot or Shavuos, moderated by Vijamas Žitkauskas. We will discuss the significance and traditions of the Feast of Weeks as it is known in English. The discussion will be held in Russian and prior registration is required. Registration form here.

Condolences

We are ad to report the death on May 13 of long-time member Lidija Kazmina. She was born in 1927. We extend our deepest condolences to her children and grandchildren.

Newly Renovated Synagogue in Žiežmariai to Host Cultural Events

Newly Renovated Synagogue in Žiežmariai to Host Cultural Events

The renovated synagogue in Žiežmariai will become a new cultural center. The first synagogue in appeared sometime between 1690 and 1696. In the 19th century there three synagogues. Not surprising, since the majority of the population were Jewish. This synagogue which has survived and has now been renovated stands in the southern part of town between Vilniaus and Žalgirio streets, with the Strėva river flowing from southeastward from there. This synagogue was build in the mid-19th century and is one of only a handful of surviving wooden synagogues in Lithuania.

The plan is to use the refurbished synagogue to host cultural exhibits and events.

“At first there was doubt the synagogue could even be saved. It was so abandoned and ruined. Even so, we resolved to renovate it and now we are very proud we have such a beautiful building,” director of the Strategic Planning and Investment Department of the Kaišiadorys Regional Administration Ramutė Taparauskienė said.

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