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VILNIUS—The Respect Cemeteries group (Gerbkime kapines), based here in the Lithuanian capital, today released its new brochure with members of the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament, in mind. They will be voting this autumn on whether to (mis)invest substantial state assets in a national convention center or memorial complex in the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Shnípishok, today’s Šnipiškės in modern Vilnius) or, as Respect Cemeteries (and the Defending History community) hope, discard both plans in favor of the ethical solution (supported by tens of thousands internationally who have signed petitions) — restoration of the major Jewish cemetery in the historic Lithuanian lands. Thousands still lie buried there.
Indeed it was the recent letter-writing campaign initiated by Respect Cemeteries that persuaded the relevant parliamentary committee to postpone its decision until the autumn. That campaign was launched by an article on these pages by one of the group’s founders, Dr. Andrius Kulikauskas, and by an appeal by another, Ms. Ruta Bloshtein, to the nearly 54,000 people who have signed her Change.org petition over the years. Selected letters are published on the Respect Cemeteries website.
In addition to a detailed map showing the historic cemetery (or mapping) boundaries of 1830, 1831, and 1935 (significant given the campaigns of social and mass media misinformation apparently coming from contractors and building industry figures), the brochure provides powerful quotes from both Kulikauskas and Bloshtein. In English translation:
One may not plough up a burial mound. It bears witness to our ancestors. We honor the remains of the partisans, once desecrated by the Soviets. In 2019, the remains of the leaders of the 1863-1864 uprising, Zygmunt Sierakowski and Konstanty Kalinowski, and of their 19 comrades-in-arms were found on Gediminas Hill. They became a symbol of the unity of Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine.
Let us imagine how wonderful it would be to find, within the jurisdiction of Vilnius Castle, the remains of thousands of inhabitants of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries who were under the protection of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. Let us imagine that the descendants of these inhabitants are scattered throughout the world — in the United States, Europe, South America, and Africa — yet their thoughts keep returning to Lithuania.
In 2020, the Alkas portal published a series of articles about the oldest Jewish cemetery of Vilnius. It was within the jurisdiction of Vilnius Castle, on the other side of the Neris from the castle. In 2025, the Office of the Government of Lithuania and Vilnius City Municipality marked the boundary of this cemetery with a stone wall. Respect for this cemetery of ours unites the descendants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, citizens of the European Union, and NATO soldiers.
In recent days, participants in the society Respect the Cemetery have written letters to the Culture Committee of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. The symbol of the unity of Lithuania’s supporters is precisely this cemetery, and not the sports palace with which the Soviets desecrated it.
Andrius Kulikauskas
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The Sports Palace is a structure that symbolizes not freedom but the desecration of the centuries-old cemetery. And the present-day attempt to proclaim it as something sacrosanct is tantamount to continuing the Soviets’ tradition of inhumanity.
In this cemetery there are buried a multitude of spiritual authorities, teachers, pioneers, among them the publishers of the famed Vilna Romm Talmud, and scholars, the fruits of whose labor hundreds of thousands of students throughout the world savor today and will savor until the end of days. Their names and their teachings resound and will continue to resound without interruption. They are the roots of the Jewish people, nourishing our souls with wisdom.
Just as the roots of the Lithuanian people shine with Vytautas the Great, Donelaitis, Maironis, Vaizgantas, Basanavičius, and many other eminent figures. Would you allow others, or yourselves, to desecrate their places of burial by declaring as “sacrosanct” a place of false values imposed by barbarians, wiping out true values? We think not.
We believe that respect will be restored to the Jewish cemetery in Šnipiškės and that it will once again become a place of quietude and solemn reflection. Only such a place, and no other. No, not a space for entertainment and merriment, not a museum or memorial space, which is what is now being sought in the attempt to revive the demon of the Soviets’ sports palace.
Such a step would be a true symbol of Lithuania’s spiritual freedom, the most precious and eternal legacy for generations to come.
Ruta Bloshtein
The original brochure in Lithuanian follows. To turn pages, please use the arrows in the upper left hand corner.
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