Joseph Levinson, 98,
Dies in Vilnius
JOSEPH LEVINSON (1917-2015)
Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites
Joseph Levinson (1917-2015)
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Joseph Levinson, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Joseph Levinson
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Stated Purposes of Lithuanian Government’s New Commission on Jewish Heritage
D O C U M E N T S
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The following excerpt from the Lithuanian government’s documents, released today, explains the purposes of the new state commission on Jewish heritage. It is excerpted from longer documents available here and here. Updates on the commission’s history will appear on this page.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Double Games, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged Jewish cemetery at Piramont (Snipiskes, Old Jewish cemeteries + Lithuania, preservation of Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Shnipishok)
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The Lithuanian Government’s New Commission on Lithuanian Jewish Heritage
D O C U M E N T S
The following English version of the Lithuanian government’s announcement of its new state commission on Jewish heritage was released today. A PDF of the entire document is available here. An excerpt containing the mission statement is available here.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Documents, Herbert Block and Issues of Lithuanian Jewish Cemetery Preservation, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged Abraham Ginsberg, Alminas Maciulis, Andrew Baker, Andrijana Filinaite, Diana Varnaite, Elvinas Jankevcius, EvelinaPetrone, Faina Kukliansky, Gideon Taylor, Herbert Block, Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, Jewish heritage in Lithuania, Jewish mass graves in Lithuania, Jonathan Brent, Julius Pagojus, Leonidas Melnikas, Lina Saulenaite, Mantvydas Bekesius, Markas Zingeris, Misha Jakobas, Rimantas Vaitkus, Romas Jarockis, Samuel Gruber, Shmuel Levin, Vladas Bumelis, VytautasVisinskis
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Annual Memorial for the Jews of Svintsyán (Švenčionys): Small but Well Done
by Defending History Staff
Svintsyán [Švenčionys] — Some fifty people gathered in the forest at midday today at the mass grave at Poligón, outside Švenčioneliai (Yiddish: Svintsyánke), in northeastern Lithuania, where around 8,000 Jews were murdered on 7 and 8 October 1941 after more than a week of barbaric incarceration and humiliation. The number includes nearly all the Jews of the county-seat town Švenčionys (Svintsyán) as well as the Jewish citizens of a number of towns and villages in the region, including (Yiddish names first in the following list, followed by current Lithuanian or Belarusian names): Dugelíshik (Naujasis Daugėliškis), Duksht (Dūkštas), Haydútsetshik (Adutiškis), Ignalíne (Ignalina), Koltnyán (Kaltanėnai), Kaméleshik (Kimelishki, Belarus), Labonár (Labanoras), Lingmyán (Linkmenys), Líntep (Lyntupy, Belarus), Maligán (Mielagėnai), Podbródzh (Pabradė), Saldúteshik (Saldutiškis), Salemánke (Salamianka), Stayátseshik (Stajotiškės), Svintsyánke (or Nay-Svintsyán — Švenčionėliai), and Tseykín (Ceikiniai).
Misha (Meyshke) Shapiro (at left), head of a region’s tiny remnant Jewish community, chairs the annual commemoration in the forest at a mass grave where 8,000 Jews were killed in two days in October of 1941.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Events, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Svintsyán (Švenčionys), Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Darius Velicka, Emanuelis Zingeris, Holocaust in Lithuania, Svencionys, Svintsyan
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Yankl-Yosl Bunk – Jakovas Bunka (1923 – 2014)
Yankl-Yosl Bunk (Jakovas Bunka), Famed Wood Sculptor, Last Jew of Plungyán (Plungė, Lithuania), Dies at 91
His Art Commemorates the Holocaust in Western Lithuania
Was World War II Red Army Veteran of the War Against Hitler
Yankl-Yosl Bunk (13 July 1923 – 30 July 2014) Photo: Adam Ellick
Posted in Arts, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Plungyán (Plungė)
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The Stones Tell Me. After All, They Lived Here.
O P I N I O N
by Genrich Agranovski
Genrich Agranovski is co-author (with Irina Guzenberg) of Vilnius: Sites of Jewish Memory as well as other works on Jewish Vilna. This comment was translated from the Russian by Ludmila Makedonskaya. See also DH’s section on old Jewish cemeteries and mass graves.
At the beginning of the 1990s a commission tentatively called “Memorial” was founded at the Jewish Community of Lithuania. Its aims included collecting information about the mass murder and burial sites of the World war II period, Jewish cemeteries, as well as other issues connected with the memory of the perished. The commission was headed by Joseph Levinson. Being a member of the commission, I was in charge of collecting information on Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius. There had been two large Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius before the war: the “old one,” founded, according to Vilna Jewish lore, at the end of the fifteenth century and used till 1830, and Zarechenskoye [“beyond the river”; in Yiddish Zarétshe] (Antokolskoye), which was used from 1828 up to June 1941. The latter was the biggest in the city. According to the Jewish ethnographer Solomon Shik, seventy thousand people had been buried there by 1937. In Soviet times both cemeteries were destroyed and the gravestones were used for construction purposes.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Genrich Agranovski, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius)
Tagged Genrich Agranovski, Jewish cemeteries in Vilnius, matseyves (matsevot) in Lithuania
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Мне камни говорят — они здесь жили
МНЕНИЕ
Генрих Аграновский
В начале 1990-х годов при еврейской Общине Литвы была создана комиссия, условно называвшаяся «Мемориал», в задачи которой входил сбор информации о местах массовых убийств,захоронений евреев в годы 2-й Мировой войны, еврейских кладбищах и другие проблемы, связанные с памятью о погибших и умерших евреях. Комиссию возглавил Иосиф Левеинсон. Я, как член комиссии, отвечал за сбор информации о еврейских кладбищах Вильнюса. До войны в Вильнюсе было два еврейских кладбища-Старое,основанное по преданию в конце 15-го столетия и действовававшее до 1830 года, и Зареченское (Антокольское), действовавшее с 1828г. вплоть до июня 1941 года. Последнее было самым большим в городе-на нем ,по данным еврейского краеведа Соломона Шика, до 1937 г. было похоронено 70 000 человек. В советские времена оба кладбища были разрушены ,и могильные камни были использованы для строительных целей.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Genrich Agranovski, In Russian, Lithuania
Tagged Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius + Jewish gravestones, Genrich Agranovski, Genrich Agranovskij, Šiuolaikinio meno centras + Jewish gravestones, Vilnius Jewish cemeteries
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New Joseph Levinson Website Has Page on Old Jewish Cemeteries in Lithuania
The recently launched website JosephLevinson.com provides renewed opportunities for acquiring his two major books that are available in English. One, The Shoah in Lithuania, includes documents of the Lithuanian Activist Front detailing their intentions for Jewish citizens, issued before the outbreak of war on 22 June 1941. It is also rich in resources on understanding how, where and why the far right’s “Double Genocide” revisionism arose in the first place. These are just two of the many areas covered by the book.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Joseph Levinson, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views
Tagged Alex Levinson, Joseph Levinson (Vilnius), Lithuania, old Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, The Double Genocide theory
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Aleksandrs Feigmanis Documents Mysterious Eight-Pointed Star in Riga Synagogue
Following publication last year of an article on the mysterious eight-pointed star known from some old Jewish cemeteries in western Lithuania (the area known as Zámet in Yiddish, corresponding in part to Žemaitija), DH contributor Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis, director of Riga-based BalticGen Tours, has reported that a similar eight-pointed star adorns the (recently renovated) synagogue in Riga, Latvia. Hopefully, images will emerge of the prewar design corresponding to the reconstructed section in question.
Posted in Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Symbology
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Where You Have to Step on Old Jewish Gravestones to go to Church
C E M E T E R I E S / C H R I S T I A N – J E W I S H R E L A T I O N S
by Dovid Katz
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The following are translated (and edited) excerpts from a longer letter in Yiddish received from a survivor who has asked to remain anonymous, about the Jewish gravestones that form the steps going up to the Reformed Evangelical Church at Pylimo 18 in Vilnius.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Christian-Jewish Issues, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Reformed Evangelical Church (Vilnius)
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Christian-Jewish relations, Jewish gravestones as steps to church, Lithuania, Reformed Evangelical Church in Vilnius, Reformed Evangelical Church Lithuania
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Mystery of the Eight-Pointed Western Litvak (Zámeter) Symbol on Jewish Gravestones
by Dovid Katz
On expeditions and on culture and history tours, we have on a number of occasions come across unusual Jewish gravestones (in Yiddish — matséyves), so far invariably on the territory of western Lithuania (and on occasion, in bordering Latvia) that is the land known in Litvak culture as Zámet (a Jewish person therefrom is a Zámeter, f. Zámeterin or deep Litvak Zámeterke).
In broad terms, it corresponds to historic Samogitia (Lithuanian Žemaitija). However, the specific cultural and linguistic borders relevant to Litvak culture and Yiddish dialectology often make for a unique Litvak geocultural configuration. For a general Yiddish orientation on the (pre-Holocaust) linguistic situation, see e.g. the maps for ‘ear’ and ‘dove’ vs ‘deaf’ in the in-progress Language Atlas of Lithuanian Yiddish.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Litvak Affairs, Symbology
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The Fate of an Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery that is Part of Now
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
This comment first appeared in The Times of Israel on 22 May 2013.
One of the predictable consequences of genocide is the spectacle of old cemeteries without relatives or descendants of the buried to care for the gravestones or the site. Some stones will fall, some will sink, and then some will just be taken as usable components for the foundations of houses, the ballast of roads or the walls of a basketball court.
Posted in "Good Will Foundation" (Jewish Restitution in Lithuania), Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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An Unmarked Holocaust Mass Murder Site in Riga, the Latvian Capital
INTERVIEW WITH RIGA HISTORIAN MEYER MELLER (MELERS)
by Aleksandrs Feigmanis
The great Russian author Lev Tolstoy wrote in his story “From the Notebook of Prince D. Nekhlyudov. Luzern.”
“Seventh July 1857 in Luzern in front of the Schweizerhof Hotel, where most rich people would stay the itinerant beggar-singer sings songs for half an hour and plays his guitar. About a hundred people heard him. Three times the singer asked the crowd to give him some money or food. Nobody gave him anything and many laughed at him.” […] This is the event which the historian of our times should write about with fiery irascible letters. This event is much more important and serious and has much more sense than the facts written in newspapers and history books. […] This is not a fact for the history of human acts, but for the history of progress and civilization.”
All that marks this major Holocaust mass grave in Riga, the Latvian capital, is a plastic bucket of flowers near the empty frame of a long-destroyed Soviet-era tin sign.
If you wish to see the mass grave take number 13 bus from the central station headed for Plavnieki and get off at the stop called Darzenu baze (roughly a half-hour ride). When you get off, turn from Lubanas street to the right until you come to Darzenu baze (“warehouse for vegetables”). In the pine woods some 300 meters from the warehouse you will see a little hill, without any mark, inscription or tombstone. Just a few primitive buckets of plastic flowers mark the site. They are placed near a wood frame stand that once, in Soviet times, held within it a bilingual tin sign about the site, that has long been destroyed and removed. The site is about 600 meters from the nine-floor apartment houses in Riga’s Plavnieki district.
Posted in Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Latvia, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
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On the Preservation of Lithuania’s Old Jewish Cemeteries
O P I N I O N
by Joseph Levinson
Joseph Levinson (Josifas Levinsonas) in Vilnius, 2013. Courtesy of the Levinson family.
On April 25th 2013 an event dedicated to the recording, maintenance and preservation of old Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania was held at the Vilnius premises of the Lithuanian Jewish Community. It was organized by the NGO “Maceva” and chaired by one of the NGO’s founders and leading figures, himself a resident of Brussels.
The April 25th evening in Vilnius went “smoothly” until a veteran member of the Jewish Community politely pointed out that much of the work that the NGO was taking credit for and presented as a miracle dropped from the heavens had in fact been carried out many years earlier by the very Jewish Community in whose premises the event was held. There was a moment of shock when the event’s chairman reacted by saying “There are different kinds of Jews!” instead of thanking the senior member of our community for his well-intentioned, polite and factual corrective remarks from the floor.
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Joseph Levinson, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged Joseph Levinson, Maceva
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Trilingual Memorial Plaque Unveiled on Zhager Town Square
O N – S I T E R E P O R T / O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
ZHAGER, northern Lithuania. Over a hundred people gathered here today on the historic town square to unveil a trilingual plaque memorializing the erstwhile Jewish population of thousands in the town, today Žagarė. The event was incorporated into the annual Cherry Festival and suitably entitled “You can’t fudge the history.”
SEE ALSO THE REPORTS BY ROD FREEDMAN AND SARA MANOBLA
THE QUESTION: IS IT THE ONLY TOWN-CENTER IN ALL THE LAND WITH CLEAR AND TRUE WORDS ON THE TRUE FATE OF THE JEWISH POPULATION?
The text — in English, Lithuanian and Yiddish — summarizes the unvarnished history, with prominent reference to local Lithuanian collaboration (though historians will quibble with the use of “some” in place of “many” among other points). It is placed right in the center of town, rather than at a mass grave site deep in the forest; that might well be a first in modern Lithuanian history.
Posted in Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, South Africa, The Great SLS About-Face, Vilnius Jewish Public Library, Zháger (Žagarė)
Tagged Azubalis, Cliff Marks, Holocaust in Lithuania, Jewish + Lithuania, Lithuanian shtetl, Litvak, Roger Cohen, Valdas Balciunas, Zagare, Zhager, Zhager (Zagare)
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Old Stones Speak to Young Pupils: Jewish Gravestones in the Walls of a Vilnius School Yard
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Photos by Richard Schofield (© R. Schofield)
The Lazdynai Middle School in Vilnius, built in the early 1970s, has an admirable reputation, inter alia for an excellent trilingual policy enabling Polish and Russian to flourish alongside the national language, Lithuanian, in a spirit of multicultural respect and harmony so fitting for the city’s history.
Updates to May 2013:
Return visit to the Stones of Lazdynai
♦
Updates to 15 December 2011
Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art and Monuments
Facebook discussion thread
Work in Progress: A Cultural Dictionary of Lithuanian Jewish Gravestones
Posted in Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Human Rights, It Pays to Defend History: Success Over the Years..., Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Symbology
Tagged cohen hands, fate of Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Jewish gravestones, Jewish sites in Vilnius, Lazdynai, Lazdynai Middle School, Olandu Jewish cemetery, use of gravestones in walls with letters showing, Uzupis Jewish cemetery, Zaretshe Jewish cemetery
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First Full Photo of July 2011 Ponár Desecration
Despite efforts by officials to suppress the photographs of the July 2011 desecration at the Ponár (Paneriai) mass murder site outside Vilnius, a cellphone image was released today to DefendingHistory.com by a former employee of the Tolerance Center who reported that he felt obliged by conscience to release the image. The Tolerance Center is the headquarters of the state Jewish museum which in addition to three addresses in Vilnius, runs the small museum at the Ponár site, where the desecration took place. This is the image of the paint attack on the main monument:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Lithuania, News & Views, Ponár (Ponary, Paneriai)
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A Speech Never Spoken at Plungyán (Plungė)
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
An imaginary speech, not delivered by any of the high government officials who addressed the commemoration at the mass murder site of the Jews of Plungyán (Plungė) on 17 July 2011.
My dear friends, it is precisely because I am a proud official of the government of independent, democratic, Lithuania, and I love my country, that I am able to speak here today openly, on the seventieth anniversary of the murder of the Jews of Plungė — Plungyán, as they proudly called it in the Yiddish that rang through its streets for so many centuries.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Defense of Old Jewish Cemeteries and Mass Grave Sites, Dovid Katz, Events, Exotic Jewish Tourism, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Plungyán (Plungė), Politics of Memory
Tagged Antisemitism Lithuania, Asta Skaisgirytė Liaukšienė, Desecration of monuments Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Commemoration in Lithuania, Holocaust commemoration Lithuania, Holocaust Memory, Jacob Bunka, Kausenai Memorial, Kazys Vitkevečius, Lithuania Tolerance Studies, Plunge, Plunge Holocaust, Plungian, Plungian Holocaust, Plungyan, Plungyan Holocaust, Ronaldas Racinskas, Tolerance studies center Lithuania
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