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VILNIUS—Five eminent Vilnius architects have released to the public domain a letter to the mayor of Vilnius expressing their passionate views on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in the Shnípishok section, today’s Šnipiškės in beautiful, modern Vilnius). Many thousands of Vilna Jewish citizens still lie buried in the cemetery, though the Soviets pilfered all the gravestones and constructed the hated “Sports Palace” (long a derelict, dangerous ruin) in its center, followed by construction of “the two green buildings” under Lithuanian sovereignty early in the twenty-first century.

The timing of the five architects’ letter is pivotal, coming just before the anticipated announced conclusions of the current Working Group (also known as the “latest commission on the old Vilna cemetery”) set up to recommend solutions after its final meeting in late November (see DH’s comments on the published minutes of its previous meeting). Moreover, the letter inadvertently lets the proverbial cat out of the bag. The current Working Group was set up not to restore the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, but to destroy it, via refurbishment of a hated Soviet dump as a “multi-purpose arena” that will have various and sundry “Jewish toys” for tourists to “honor” the “former” Jewish cemetery. Anyone with a modicum of respect for the Jewish heritage knows that in that heritage there are no “former” Jewish cemeteries, a position in harmony with universal human rights ensuring the right of the deceased to rest in peace, and with principles of honoring plot purchases by the families of the deceased made freehold and in perpetuity (except for Jews?).

The paragraph in the architects’ letter described by an elderly Jewish resident in Vilnius today as “particularly sickening” reads as follows:

“Reviving the Palace and putting it to good use would first of all provide a great base for the main Vilnius’ basketball club to train and play their home games, as well as a venue for concerts and other mass events in the city center, together with the finest infrastructure imaginable. At the same time it would be a great opportunity, and we suggest precisely that, to commemorate the site of the Old Jewish Cemetery and, to be more precise, the Jewish community of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy in general, by adorning the ground floor halls with appropriate artwork and other interior details. This way, the Palace would become historically and culturally multilayered.”

Would these architects similarly be recommending such a fate for a medieval Christian Lithuanian cemetery where the greatest scholars of the Lithuanian people lie buried? That it become “the base for Vilnius’s main basketball club to train and play their home games” with some BS claptrap commemoration for a “former” cemetery (which empirically still exists, remembering that cemeteries are defined by the people buried there)? Not in a million years. Not in two million years.

As for the commemoration of Sajudis and the martyrs of 1991 (killed from far this site), of course the restored cemetery should have special permanent memorial stones and inscriptions, suitably situated, to mark these historically important events. But as an excuse to rebuild a huge Soviet eyesore and thereby destroy the city’s world-famous Jewish cemetery? No way.

Amazingly, the five architects describe the hated Soviet dump (known informally as “the Russian ski slope”) as some kind of unique architectural masterpiece, when the facts are different: it is one of a series of similar brutalist Soviet monstrosities imposed by the Soviet occupation on cities throughout the corrupt Soviet empire.

For the subtle and exotic forms of antisemitism that come into play here see the recent comment pieces by Baron, Katz, Kulikauskas, and Norwilla. But where are the voices of all the great Vilnius humanists and specialists in “Judaic studies” who have won awesome awards for “Jewish things” in recent years? Will they speak up? Or is this all part of unprecedented state manipulation of the heritage of a minority subject to the genocide in the Holocaust, manipulation that includes industrial scale Holocaust revisionism as well as elaborate “safeguards” against the restoration of a magnificent historical Jewish cemetery in Vilnius? All buttressed by a state-sponsored ersatz local Jewish “community” and a cadre of foreign Jewish specialists addicted to medals, junkets, honors, translations and wonderful escapes for fun, photo-ops and glory from the boredom of everyday Western existence.

The architects’ letter has been widely distributed in both JPEG and PDF format, including major social media. A full translation, commissioned by Defending History, follows.

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TO THE MAYOR OF VILNIUS VALDAS BENKUNSKAS

19 December 2023, Vilnius

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REGARDING THE MAIN SPORTS AND CULTURAL EVENTS ARENA OF THE CITY OF VILNIUS

Honorable Mayor,

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Out of concern for the history of the city of Vilnius and sustainable development of our capital, as well as growth of its sports infrastructure and preservation of its cultural heritage objects and improvement of their condition, to help you in the spirit of best wishes to find solutions to relevant issues, we suggest the transfer of the Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports (Rinktinės 1), the state of which is currently deplorable and the fate of which is currently unclear, from the state enterprise “Turto Bankas” to the municipality‘s uncompensated use.

The situation has become more urgent recently, after it appeared that the historical Vilnius basketball club “Rytas” (formerly “Statyba”) has no (or has lost) its home arena. As is publicly known, the former Siemens Arena is a property of a private foreign-capital company and its own basketball club.

Now there are talks of building yet another new sports arena next to the National Stadium. We would like to remind people that the Soviet authorities deliberately picked the spot for the Stadium so as to be inconvenient, to avoid large gatherings of people in the city center. Therefore building an additional arena next to this sports complex would be a big mistake, as the arrival of city transport and pedestrians to the complex would be even more complicated. One must admit that it is not convenient to walk or drive uphill in order to get to events. Furthermore, the end date of the stadium’s construction works would be postponed even further.

The Palace, built in 1971, is an object of cultural heritage: unique architectural and engineering solutions make it an internationally recognized masterpiece of 20th century brutalism. Historically, it is exceptional to us as the site of the January 22, 1988, establishment meeting of the Sąjūdis (the Lithuanian Reform Movement) and of the public wake of the defenders of the Vilnius TV Tower, which took place on January 14, 1991.

Reviving the Palace and putting it to good use would first of all provide a great base for the main Vilnius’ basketball club to train and play their home games, as well as a venue for concerts and other mass events in the city center, together with the finest infrastructure imaginable. At the same time it would be a great opportunity, and we suggest precisely that, to commemorate the site of the Old Jewish Cemetery and, to be more precise, the Jewish community of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy in general, by adorning the ground floor halls with appropriate artwork and other interior details. This way, the Palace would become historically and culturally multilayered

The Palace is in the ideal place in the city, it is easy to reach from the city center and, in turn, any other city district can be easily reached from it. The benefit from such a project would be invaluable, and the construction costs, compared to building a new arena, would be significantly smaller, since the plot of land, the engineering infrastructure, and various constructions are already present. The only costs left would be those of reconstruction and interior works.

We are looking forward to your opinion and decision on this issue, important to all of us. We are ready to meet you at your convenience to explain the possible solutions and answer any relevant questions.

Architects
— Audrius Ambrasas
— Gintaras Čaikauskas
— Augis Gučas
— Kęstutis Pempė
— Henrikas Žukauskas