DOCUMENTS | OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: THE SAGA OF 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION | 2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | THE USCPAHA | THE CPJCE | THE AJC | THE CER | THE GWF | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS
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VILNIUS—A deeply ethical and conscientious Vilnius scholar, flabbergasted by the local “mainstream” media’s rehashing of the mantra (and sheer antisemitic nonsense) that “the Jews sold the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery to the czar in 1830” decided to look in the archives. When he succeeded to find the document, issued by Stalin’s USSR on 22 October 1940 ordering the confiscation (i.e. theft) of the Jewish cemeteries under the aegis of the Vilnius Jewish Community, he just did the right thing and released it to the public domain. That Stalinist order came very soon after the summer 1940 forcible annexation of Lithuania and its two Baltic state neighbors, into the Soviet Union.
The document assumes special significance in the midst of current debates over the past and future of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Shnípishok, today’s Šnipiškės), referred to (accurately) as the “Old Jewish Cemetery” in item no. 2 (colored below in red for rapid locating) in the document of “transfer” of ownership. There is explicit reference to “historical monuments and remnants”. The document orders that cemeteries belonging to the Vilnius Jewish Community (administering the property of the thousands of Vilna citizens who purchased their plots freehold over the centuries) were being nationalized (i.e. pilfered) by Soviet occupation authorities. Defending History’s translation (with translator’s explanatory notes) is followed by an image of the document (also available as PDF; PDF of the copy with Soviet handwritten archival notation at bottom).
