Category Archives: Lithuania

I feel hesitant towards and often distrustful of the manner in which Efraim Zuroff conducts himself (an explanation for why will have to wait, but please note my reason is certainly not for Zuroff’s success in bringing Nazi war criminals to justice), and as such I read his article in The Jerusalem Post this morning with interest. There is a great deal of scaremongering on both sides of the Holocaust obfuscation argument. Lithuania and her two neighbouring Baltic States, Latvia & Estonia, as well as other Central and East European countries, are not solely festering pustules of right-wing, anti-Semitic activity. more »

During the course of one month in 1941, most of the thousands of Jewish residents of Utena, Lithuania, were rounded up by the Nazis, taken into the forest and murdered. Only a few dozen managed to escape. That episode nearly buried the entire history of the centuries-old town, but through the efforts of the nonprofit MACEVA and volunteers like students at Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School in Northridge, this history is finally being unearthed. On Jan. 23, the entire eighth-grade class at Heschel filled the gym to translate the Hebrew inscribed on recently uncovered gravestones from Utena. MACEVA, from the more »

From Israel National News >> Lithuanian Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust and Soviet terror during World War II will receive symbolic compensation from the Baltic state next year, a Jewish group leader said Wednesday. Andrew Baker of the American Jewish Committee told journalists in Vilnius that three million litas (870,000 euros, $1.l4 million) “will be used as a symbolic payment to individual Lithuanian Jewish survivors of totalitarian regimes.” Faina Kukliansky, a leader in Lithuania’s small Jewish community of around 5,000, said she expected more than a thousand people to share the funds next year. “It is a symbol which more »

From the World Jewish Congress >> The Law on Goodwill Compensation for the Immovable Property of Jewish Religious Communities of the Republic of Lithuania has designated that LTL 3 million (approximately US$ 1.1 million) shall be paid “to persons of Jewish nationality who resided in Lithuania during the Second World War and suffered from the totalitarian regimes during the occupations.” The Goodwill Foundation, established jointly by the Lithuanian Jewish Communities and the World Jewish Restitution Organization, has the responsibility of distributing this money, which is likely to mean ‘symbolic’ payments of several hundred dollars to individual recipients. Those eligible to more »

From Defending History The ceremony today to commemorate Lithuanian Holocaust victims at Ponár, the country’s largest mass murder site, outside the capital city of Vilnius, on the day officially known as Day to Commemorate the Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide, went off pretty much as most official commemorations do here: inappropriate and with seeming desperation to focus on any topic except the circumstances of the actual Lithuanian Holocaust—the massive collaboration and participation that led to the country’s having the highest proportion of Holocaust murder in Europe. Ponár is the site’s Yiddish name. It is today Paneriai and is known as more »

From the Jewish Community of Lithuania Rugsėjo 24 dieną Vilniuje, prie Lukiškių tardymo izoliatoriaus buvo atidengta memorialinė lenta iškiliam žydų tautos atstovui Menachemui Beginui, apdovanotam Nobelio premija už jau daugiau nei tris dešimtmečius besitęsiančios taikos su Egiptu 1979-aisiais sudarymą. Kalinys, gavęs Nobelį Simbolinėje ceremonijoje lankėsi Izraelio žemės ūkio ir kaimo plėtros ministrė Orit Noked, Teisingumo ministras Remigijus Šimašius, Lietuvos žydų bendruomenės atsotvai, kiti garbūs asmenys. „Šeštajam Izraelio premjerui svarbi ne tik kaip vienam reikšmingiausių Izraelio politikui, bet ir kaip litvakui ir sionistui“, – apie M. Beginą kalbėjo Lietuvos žydų bendruomenės pirmininko pavaduotoja Faina Kukliansky. „Be to, jis yra vienintelis Lukiškių more »

An interesting article: is Lithuanian Prime Minister, Andrius Kubilius, using the Israel-Palestinian issue as a means to soothe tensions his government and Lithuania’s Jewish community? From The Jerusalem Post Lithuania plans to oppose further Palestinian unilateral bids for statehood at the UN, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius told a group of visiting Israeli journalists last week. “We are in favor of continuing negotiations [between Israelis and Palestinians] and not in favor of unilateral decisions,” he said, as he sat in his office building in downtown Vilna. It would be best if the European Union could formulate a common position on the more »

From Y-net Jewish World Foundation to allocate $49.45 million in compensation for Jewish communal property appropriated during Nazi, Soviet times Lithuania’s government on Wednesday approved a foundation to allocate 128 million litas ($49.45 million) in compensation for Jewish communal property appropriated during Nazi and Soviet times. The step follows last year’s decision by the parliament to pass a special law after years of negotiations and calls from Lithuania’s Western allies, including the United States, to reach the settlement. “It’s a historical step. As far as I remember, it took 18 years to arrive to this date,” Simonas Alperavicius, chairman of more »

From the Lithuania Tribune Thanks to the efforts of scholars, people in culture, artists and educators who are telling the truth about the painful history of the Holocaust, which was hushed up in the Soviet times, Holocaust awareness is rising in Lithuania,” Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis said, urm.lt reports. On 20 April, the Minister greeted participants of the March of the Living who came to the opening of a photography exhibition “Synagogues in Belarus – Jewish Heritage Reflections in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania” and attended a discussion on Lithuania’s Jewish history at the Ministry of Foreign more »