The Lithuanian Jewish Community celebrated the 75th anniversary of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara’s mass rescue of Jews through the issuance of “visas for life” recently. It’s been 75 years since the Japanese diplomat saw the atrocities of the Holocaust in Lithuania with his own eyes and decided to help the Jews by giving them visas providing them the opportunity to flee Lithuania and live. People whose lives were saved by Sugihara were on hand for the event, including Nina Admoni (Israel) and Marsel Weiland (Australia), as were diplomats from the foreign embassies in Vilnius, Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, deputy chairwoman Maša Grodnikienė, Vilnius ORT Sholem Aleichem Gymnasium principal Miša Jakobas, members of the community and Lithuanian rescuers of Jews as well as their family members.

Žana Skudovičienė, one of the organizers of the evening, spoke emotionally and thanked those who risked not just their own lives but those of their loved ones as well to save Jews from extermination. She named some of the names of the rescuers: Irina Ostenko, Gražina Blažienė, Antanas Gasparas, Milda Putnienė, Ričardas Plokšto, Antanas Poniškaitis and Jurgis Beriatskas.

Lithuania has been, and remains, Israel’s “voice” in the international arena, the Baltic state’s prime minister, Algirdas Butkevicius, told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday on the final day of a two-day visit.

Lithuania is nearing the end of its two-year stint on the UN Security Council, and Butkevicius said that during this period, the “security of Israel” was one of Vilnius’s main priorities.

Lithuania supported Israel on a number of key votes in the Security Council and the UN over the past year, including abstaining – rather than voting for the Palestinians, as did fellow EU states France and Luxembourg – when the Palestinian Authority failed to gain the support of nine states needed to pass a Security Council resolution dictating a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.

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As most of us have recently returned from our summer vacations, we wish to present you again with the summary publication and video of the 5th GFCA 2015. We kindly suggest to share these materials on your websites, Facebook pages, email lists etc.

· Concluding Documents:

VILNIUS, September 9, BNS – Israel has no objections to a project to renovate the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace in central Vilnius located beside graves from the old Jewish cemetery, Lithuanian prime minister Algirdas Butkevičius says.

The issue was high on the agenda of Tuesday’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“No, he gave no critical remarks whatsoever – the prime minister said he had recently received the information and was fully familiar with it. I said we wanted to get this done and would not make any decisions or start any tasks before prior agreement with the Jewish Community of Lithuania or the international organization for preservation of Jewish cemeteries that had come to Lithuania. He was clear – this is very good,” Butkevičius told BNS in a telephone interview from Jerusalem Tuesday evening.

VILNIUS, September 9, BNS – The Jewish community in Vilnius achieved remarkable things, but also experienced the horrors of the Holocaust which can never be forgotten, Israeli pre minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in Jerualsem Tuesday while meeting his Lithuanian counterpart Algirdas Butkevičius.

The head of the Israeli government said his grandfather came from Lithuania.

“My own family hails from Lithuania. My grandfather was born in Lithuania. The Jewish community in Lithuania and especially around Vilnius had remarkable achievements, spectacular intellectual achievements, but of course we also experienced the horrors of the Holocaust,” Netanyahu said in a comment published on the Israeli government website.

As Jewish New year approaches, to take place September 14 and 15 this year, it’s traditional to visit the graves of relatives. The tragic events of World War II, the Holocaust, means that there is usually more than one mass Jewish grave in every Lithuanian city and town. On September 3 members of the Kaunas Jewish Community visited mass murder sites in Petrašiūnai and at teh Seventh Fort, where Jews were murdered in August of 1941.

On August 30, 1941, 23 children, 72 women and 30 men were murdered at Petrašiūnai because they were Jews. More than 4,000 Jews were murdered at the Seventh Fort and on August 18, 1941, alone more than 500 Jewish intellectuals imprisoned in the Kaunas ghetto were murdered in an attempt to kill the elite and most educated first.

A conference organized by the Congregation of the Sisters of the Apparition of God was held August 30, 2015, in Panevėžys, Lithuania. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky gave the welcome speech and presented the organizers with a certificate of gratitude and flowers. The chairwoman spoke warmly of those who rescued Jews during the Holocaust and underlined the role played by Marija Rusteikaitė, who officially rescued 15 Jews during the war and also saved several others by sending to other people. For her heroism, the state of Israel awarded Marija Rusteikaitė the medal and certificate of Righteous Gentile posthumously.

Danutė Selčinskaja, the director of the department of Rescue and Commemoration of Jews at the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum in Vilnius, delivered a paper devoted to Marija Rusteikaitė. One of those Marija Rusteikaitė rescued was in the audience, Sulamita Lev, who in turn spoke about the hardships and history of her family. Danutė Selčinskaja also presented a museum exhibit panel with photographs and material on the history of Sulamita Lev’s rescue, and commented on details contained in the exhibit.

On August 7, 2015, members of the Panevėžys City Jewish Community visited the Riga ghetto. The Riga ghetto was established in October of 1941 by order of Nazi politician Hugo Wittrock. They placed the ghetto in the most Jewish neighborhood of Riga called the Moscow Suburb by locals. All Riga Jews living outside the territory were ordered to leave their homes immediately and move into the ghetto, 9,000 square meters surrounded by fences.

About 30,000 Jews in total were forced to live under atrocious conditions in the Riga ghetto. Approximately 12 people had to share a room with five beds.

A ghetto prisoner gave the group from Panevėžys a short tour of the ghetto during which he recounted how they murdered Riga ghetto Jews continuously from November of 1941 till June of 1944. On November 28, 1941, the Nazis ordered the men separated from the women, including children.

Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon visited Panevėžys on August 6. The purpose of his visit was to expand cooperation and encourage the growth of trade between Israel and Lithuania, to meet with Panevėžys businesspeople and to meet with the Jewish community. The ambassador visited city hall where he met with the mayor Rytis Račkauskas.

“We live in the middle of Lithuania, in a favorable geographic location, halfway between the capitals of Lithuania and Latvia. We are a compact city favorable for business growth. We have large enterprises such as AB Amilna, the Panevėžys Construction Conglomerate and Panevėžio keliai, we have received foreign investment and we are pleased by the Norwegian companies which have been established here.

“We can be proud of the free economic zone operating here, this year the enterprise Devold should be established here, and two other potential investors are considering doing business here. We strive to make Panevėžys attractive for investors, so we have invited representatives of Israel. I would like to note that ten years ago a protocol was signed with the city of Ramla [in Israel], but sadly this process has come to a halt. One wishes one of the Israeli cities was among the ranks of our partners,” mayor Račkauskas said.