Saul Kagan, who fled Lithuania, spent decades leading the Jewish welfare organization which was primarily responsible for restitution worth more than $70 billion to Holocaust survivors and their descendants. Saul Kagan came the to the USA in 1940 after losing…
Lithuanians at March of the Living in Poland
Members of the Lithuanian public took part April 28 in a March of the Living procession at Auschwitz. People from 25 countries including non-Jews attended. The event was timed to commemorate the Warsaw Uprising on April 28. Marchers walked about…
Tolerant Person of the Year and Leonidas Donskis Prizes Awarded
Last Sunday the Tolerant Person of the Year 2020 award was presented to writer and philosopher Paulius Gritėnas and the Leonidas Donskis prize to jazz musician and director Vladimiras Tarasovas. The Chiune Sugihara/Diplomats for Life organization presents both awards. “Today…
About Rabbi Shmuel Abba Sniegas Who Was Decorated with Lithuanian Order of Grand Duke Gediminas
by Geršonas Taicas Shmuel Abba Sniegas was born in Rokiškis [Rokishyok] in 1878. He attended a Jewish primary school and completed the Kneses Israel yeshiva in Slobodka (now the Vilijampolė neighborhood of Kaunas) in 1913. He was deported to the…
Happy Birthday to Eugenijus Bunka
We wish Eugenijus Bunka a happy 70th birthday. He created the Litvak Memorial Garden in the Žemaitijan National Park, is a great journalist, ethnographer and public figure. Bunka was awarded the title of Tolerant Person of the Year for 2019.…
Conference and Righteous Gentiles Ceremony at Vytautas Magnus University
Vyautas Magnus University in Kaunas and the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry will host a conference dedicated to Japanese wartime diplomat and Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara in the Great Hall of the University located at Simono Daukanto street no. 28 in Kaunas…
Happy Holidays, Žydelkos
by Sergejus Kanovičius Once, long ago, I attended a Lithuanian school. Back then there were two Jews, or more accurately, a Jewish boy and a Jewish girl. The boy was in the grade next to her. Dark-skinned speaking without an…
Eugenijus Bunka Named Tolerant Person of the Year
Eugenijus Bunka was named Tolerant Person of the Year February 2 in Kaunas. Bunka is the creator of the Litvak Memorial Garden, a regional historian, writer and journalist. At the awards ceremony he said he was carrying on the work…
Israeli Ambassador Yossi Levy Visits Kaunas
Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Yossi Levy visited Kaunas at the end of January, where he visited the Ninth Fort Museum and honored Holocaust victims there. He also visited Sugihara House, the museum where Japanese diplomat and Righteous Gentile Chiune Sugihara…
Donskis Prize Winner Linas Vildžiūnas’s Acceptance Speech
LRT.lt The Leonidas Donskis prize was awarded this year to Linas Vildžiūnas, the director of the “7 meno dienos” [Seven Days of Art] weekly newspaper, by the board of directors of the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life and Jolanta Donskienė. On…
Condolences
Simonas Dovidavičius passed away December 14. He was deputy chairman of the Kaunas Jewish Community, the founding light and director of the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, highly educated, a tour guide and a good friend. His loss is a…
Exhibit on Tadeusz Romer and Jewish Refugees in Far East
The exhibit “Polish Ambassador to Japan Tadeusz Romer and Jewish Refugees in the Far East” will open with an event in the Jascha Heifetz Hall on the third floor of the Lithuanian Jewish Community at 6:00 P.M. on September 19.…
Vilnius YIVO Headquarters Commemorative Plaque Ceremony Held
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry and the Lithuanian Jewish Community invited guests and the public to a ceremony to unveil a plaque near the site of the former Vilnius headquarters of YIVO on Vivulskio street in Vilnius June 20. Those attending…
Director Gintaras Varnas Tolerant Person of Year for 2018
kaunas.kasvyksta.lt The Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life awarded director Gintaras Varnas Tolerant Person of the Year for 2018 and presented their Leonidas Donskis prize to publicist Pranas Morkus at the Catholic Theology Cathedral of Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas February 24,…
Conference Dedicated to International Holocaust Remembrance Day and Combating Discrimination
CONFERENCE DEDICATED TO INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY AND COMBATING DISCRIMINATION Artis hotel, Vilnius, Totorių street no. 23, Vilnius, Lithuania January 25 [10:30 – 11:00 A.M. registration] 11 A.M. Welcome speeches: Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Mr. Linas Linkevičius Faina Kukliansky,…
Irene Pletka Donates Million Dollars for YIVO Bund Collection Digitization
YIVO in New York has had a separate collection for the Jewish Bund since 1992. Recently they announced a project to digitize that collection to make it accessible to scholars and the public around the world. Vice-chairwoman of the YIVO…
Jewish Veterans Commemoration
A ceremony to commemorate Lithuanian Jewish veterans is to be held at the Jewish Cemetery in Kaunas at 4:30 P.M. on November 23. Organizers include the Kaunas Jewish Community, the Sugihara Foundation/Diplomats for Life and the Kovo 11-osios Gatvė Association.…
Kaunas Jewish Community News for October
In October the Kaunas Jewish Community experienced moments of celebration and painful losses, and commemorated the past. The most momentous event in October was the celebration of the Community’s 30th birthday with a concert. The Kaunas State Philharmonic hosted the…
Lithuanian Diplomats in the Arena of Humane Action and Aggression
V. Čečeta began working at the Lithuanian General Consulate in Vilnius on September 17, 1939. Photo: Archiwum akt nowych w Warszawe kauno.diena.lt Chiune Sugihara and Jan Zwartendijk are foreign diplomats who rescued Jews and they have been commemorated in Kaunas…
City of Kaunas Honors Righteous Gentile, Dutch Consul Jan Zwartendijk
Jan Zwartendijk, the honorable consul of the Netherlands in Lithuania at the beginning of World War II and a rescuer of Jews, was honored Friday at Freedom Alley in Kaunas outside his former office where he also worked as a…