Live Memory of Vilnius Ghetto | WPN World People News

Lithuania's presidency of the EU Council provides an occasion for Litvaks to gather on the narrow streets of the Old Town of Vilnius. The contribution of Litvaks – Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy and their descendants – to the culture of both Lithuania and the world is outstanding. Did you know that both the cellist Jascha Heifetz and the artist Samuel Bak were born in Vilnius, and that sculptor Jacques Lipchitz was born in Druskininkai? Canadian poet and singer Leonard Cohen, iconic U.S. musician Bob Dylan, and Philip Glass, perhaps the most famous avant-garde minimalist composer of the twentieth century, can also in some sense be referred to as Litvaks because their ancestors came from Lithuanian Jewish families.

On 20th September, Litvaks from all the world will return to Lithuania, the homeland of their parents and grandparents, to participate in the Fourth World Litvak Congress. This time the Congress will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto.

On 23 September, 1943 – 70 years ago – the Vilnius Ghetto, which had been created in 1941, was finally liquidated. Despite the difficult living conditions, chronic food shortages and punitive actions taken against them, the prisoners of the Vilnius Ghetto managed to maintain some form of stability: there was a theatre, a library, and a hospital in the ghetto, and vulnerable members of society were taken care of. Tragically, even before the ghetto was liquidated, many of the prisoners of the ghetto, as well as Jews from other places, were killed by Nazis and their few Lithuanian collaborators in Paneriai. On 1st August, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė and Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Paneriai Memorial to honour the memory of all Holocaust victims. By the end of the Nazi German occupation, about 96% of the Jews who lived in Lithuania before the war had been killed.

These sensitive events have been commemorated in Lithuania through the organisation of various events, as well as meetings with members of Lithuanian Jewish community, Litvaks from different countries of the world, and Lithuanian and Jewish artists who have represented the Vilnius Ghetto in their creative work. The public is also invited to attend movie screenings, concerts, exhibitions and performances, which show the attempts of younger generations to talk about the tragic elimination of the Lithuanian Jewish community. Exhibitions commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto will be opened at the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, as well as at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Anyone who would like to become more familiar with the story of the Vilnius Ghetto is invited to join a guided tour of the site of the Vilnius Ghetto on 21st September at 9:00. The stories of survivors from the ghetto will be recounted at the movie screenings, and we recommend you to use the occasion to see them. The speakers will include Fania Brantsovskaja, who escaped from the ghetto. She tells her story, and her memories of the city and its people, in the documentary film "Fania's Vilnius".

It is important that the names of ghetto prisoners are not forgotten; we need to hear and remember them. A few years ago, a ceremony took place during which lists of the names of ghetto prisoners were read aloud. Widely supported by the public, the event is again being organised by the Vilnius Choral Synagogue, and participants invited.

Source: Presidency of the Council of the EU