DOCUMENTS | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: SAGA OF 2015-2026 | EARLIER OPPOSITION TO CONVENTION CENTER PROJECT | COMMENT BY ANDRIUS KULIKAUSKAS, SID LEIMAN, JULIUS NORWILLA, DOVID KATZ | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO “COMPROMISE’ MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS

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The following press release was received today from the Vilnius office of Gerbkime kapines (Respect Cemeteries):

Visitors are warmly invited to attend the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, Sept. 17, at 1 p.m. Those wishing to attend should contact Emanuelis Zingeris’s adviser, Auksė Dransard, no later than the preceding day, providing their first and last names and date of birth so that admission to the Seimas can be arranged.

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On Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026, at 1 p.m., an exhibition titled “The Jewish Cemetery in Šnipiškės, Vilnius” will open in the Stained Glass Gallery of the Seimas, Lithuania’s Parliament. The exhibition is being presented under the auspices of Member of Parliament Emanuelis Zingeris. It was prepared by Artūras Imbrasas together with the association Gerbkime kapines (“Respect Cemeteries”). The creative team also includes the association’s chair, Rūta Bloštein, as well as Arkadij Kurliandčik, Andrius Kulikauskas and Edmundas Kulikauskas.

The organizers’ goal is to have the entire historic cemetery area legally registered as a cemetery. It is believed that at least 30,000 Jews — residents of the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” — were buried on the 4.3-hectare site.

The Soviet authorities confiscated, demolished, damaged and desecrated the cemetery, eventually constructing the Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports in its midst. Thousands of human remains nevertheless remain buried there.

In 2018, the Vilnius city government formally recognized the Jewish cemetery in Užupis, on Olandų Street. The organizers of the exhibition are calling on the municipality to similarly recognize and register the Jewish cemetery in Šnipiškės and to appoint an administrator responsible for it.

The exhibition consists of 18 panels, which are available online here. The photographs, maps, records and historical evidence presented in the exhibition challenge claims that “there are no remains left,” that “all the remains were removed,” that “the Jews sold their cemetery to the czar,” or that “the Jews themselves failed to care for their cemetery.”

After reviewing the evidence, members of the Seimas will be in a position to call on the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania to formally document and make public the relevant historical facts.

On Sept. 16, 1940, the Soviet authorities dissolved the Vilnius Jewish community and confiscated the cemetery. Did the Soviet seizure of the cemetery constitute a crime?

The Genocide Center twice declined to address that question, on July 3 and July 28, 2026. The relevant correspondence can be viewed in the initial submission to the Center, the Center’s July 3 response, the July 16 follow-up request and the Center’s July 28 response.

The Center maintained that it lacked the competence to make a legal determination. The request, however, was that the Lithuanian state, through the Center, simply certify the historical fact of the crime. The Center’s own regulations describe it as a state-funded institution charged with evaluating the crimes of totalitarian occupation regimes.

An official finding by the Lithuanian state, issued through the Genocide Center, would help counter the dissemination of false claims concerning the cemetery.

Recognition of the historical facts, public acknowledgment of Soviet crimes and respect for Jewish religious tradition could also help members of Parliament reassess the circumstances surrounding the Soviet construction of the Sports Palace on cemetery grounds.

Recognition of the Šnipiškės Jewish cemetery as a cemetery administered by the Vilnius city government would give hope to defenders of the site in Lithuania and abroad that the cemetery’s ohels and grave monuments might ultimately be properly restored and that pilgrimage to the burial places of the rabbis and other residents of the Jerusalem of Lithuania might be fostered.

Visitors are warmly invited to attend the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, Sept. 17, at 1 p.m. Those wishing to attend should contact Emanuelis Zingeris’s adviser, Auksė Dransard, no later than the preceding day, providing their first and last names and date of birth so that admission to the Seimas can be arranged.

The exhibition will remain on view from Sept. 17 through Sept. 23, and visits on other days may also be arranged in advance.

Andrius Kulikauskas
Gerbkime kapines (“Respect Cemeteries”)