LONDON—The following is an excerpt, relevant to issues today, from Preliminary Report on Legislation and Practice Relating to the Protection and Preservation of Jewish Burial Grounds. Lithuania. September 2008. It was issued by Lo Tishkach Foundation / European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative with the support of the Claims Conference and the Conference of European Rabbis. A PDF of the entire report is available here.
Monthly Archives: July 2015
Text of Sept. 2008 Report by Lo Tishkach Foundation / European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Text of Sept. 2008 Press Release from Experts Group on the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
VILNIUS—Because of its renewed relevance, the press release of the Experts Group summarizing the findings of the Geophysical Survey, dated 3 September 2008, concerning the old Vilna Jewish cemetery, is republished:
Posted in Appeals to the European Commission on Piramónt, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Jewish cemetery Snipiskies (Shnipishok), Piramont cemetery in Vilnius, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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U.S. State Department’s 2006 Conclusion about the Location of the Sports Palace in the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
VILNIUS—The following excerpt from a 21 June 2006 United States report from the American Embassy here to the Secretary of State in Washington deals with questions around the old Vilna Jewish Cemetery. The site, known to generations of Vilna Jews as Piramónt, is within the Šnipiškės district (itself in Yiddish: Shnípishok).
The document, entitled “Jewish Cemetery in Vilnius — Overview and Update,” now published at part of the Wikileaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (PDF here) emanates from a period when the “current debate” was focused on two new buildings, rather than on the Sports Palace per se.
Posted in Appeals to the European Commission on Piramónt, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
Tagged Jewish cemetery Snipiskes (Piramont), Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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Dr. Rachel Margolis Dies in Rehovot; Didn’t Get to See Her Native Vilna One Last Time
רחל מאַרגאָליס (מַרְגָלִית) ז″ל
Rachel Margolis
Vilna, 28 October 1921 — Rehovot, 6 July 2015
About Rachel Margolis: Shimon Alperovich, Algirdas Brazauskas, Gordon Brown, Abraham Foxman, Steinar Gil, Martin Gilbert, Chen Ivri Apter, Dovid Katz (Y), Francois Laumonier, NCSJ, Geoff Vasil. UK House of Lords, 5 US Congressmen, 9 Western ambassadors in Vilnius.
Posted in A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Dr. Rokhl (Rachel) Margolis (1921-2015), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Obituaries, Politics of Memory, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged anti-Nazi resistance, Dr. Rachel Margolis, Jewish partisans in Lithuania, Prosecutor General of Lithuania, Sakowicz's Ponary Diary
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A Letter from Leffond, France to the Mayor of Vilnius, Capital of Lithuania
O P I N I O N
by Christian Bonneville
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Leffond, France, 5 July 2015
Hon. Remigijus Šimašius, Mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania
Monsieur le Maire,
- Convention and Congress Center
- Conversion of the Sport Palace Center along the Neris at the Piramónt Location
Congratulations on your election and your determination to develop the cohesion and the attractiveness of the city to be enriched with new facilities and services including a new Conference and Congress Center.
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, France, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius
Tagged Cemetery in Snipiskes (Shinipishok), Christian Bonneville, Jewish cemetery at Piramont (Snipiskes, Remigijus Šimašius
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Dancing on Jewish Graves in Vilna
O P I N I O N
by Pinchos Fridberg
Editor’s note: Reprint from The Times of Israel, where this article, with several photographs, appeared on 25 June 2016.
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I am a Holocaust survivor. I was born here in Vilnius (Yiddish: Vílne), today’s capital of Lithuania, known forever as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” for its vibrant Jewish culture, religious and secular, for hundreds of years. Today our post-Holocaust Jewish community is a tiny remnant, just a few thousand people, but we are vibrant, and, as always, a community of many opinions. Once again, a question has arisen that calls for robust discourse.
Posted in Appeals to the European Commission on Piramónt, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Human Rights, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, Jeish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, Pinchos Fridberg, Vilnius Jewish cemetery at Piramont (Snipiskes)
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Vilnius’s Shnipishek Jewish Cemetery
O P I N I O N
by Bernard Fryshman, PhD
This article appeared in today’s edition of Yated Ne’eman. The PDF of the original is available here.
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First, a brief review: In June 2005, Reb Chizkiya Kalmanowitz discovered construction taking place in the Shnipishek Jewish Cemetery in Vilnius. The Shnipishek Cemetery is where the Gaon of Vilna was buried, as was the Ger Tzedek. Even now, the cemetery contains the bodies of the Chayei Adam and the Be’er Hagolah among many others.
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, EU, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Opinion, United States, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged Dr Bernard Fryshman, Jewish Cemetery in Shnipishok (shnipishkes), Vilnius Jewish cemetery (Piramont)
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Israel’s Leading Litvak Rabbis Issue Impassioned Protest Against Convention Center Plans for the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
JERUSALEM—Leading Lithuanian-tradition (Litvak) rabbis who head yeshivas in Israel have signed an impassioned plea for the Lithuanian government to abandon plans for a massive new convention center in the heart of the old Vilna Jewish cemetery at Piramónt, now in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania (background; the paper trail to date). Among the signatories to the poster are Rabbi Meir Soloveitchik, Rabbi Israel Isaac Kalmanovitz and Rabbi Tzvi Rotberg. Some of the signatories add handwritten notes with personal observations on the events underway in Vilnius (see lower left area for the handwritten addenda).
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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Central Rabbinical Congress of the USA and Canada Protests Desecration of Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK—The Central Rabbinical Congress (CRC) of the U.S.A. and Canada today released to the media the facsimile of the original Hebrew letter it has issued concerning plans for a convention center at the old Vilna Jewish cemetery at Piramónt, now in the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania (background; the paper trail to date). The facsimile is followed by an English translation provided by the CRC.
EXCERPT:
“We turn to the enlightened government of Lithuania, and to the European Union, and say: Please Brothers—do no evil! O Heaven! Aren’t we all children of the same father and mother? Why are we different than every other nation, that you decreed such terrible things against us?”
Posted in Appeals to the European Commission on Piramónt, Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok), Politics of Memory
Tagged Central Rabbinical Congress + Lithuania, Jewish cemetery at Piramont, Jewish cemetery in Shnipishok, Jewish cemetery in Snipiskes, Jewish issues + Lithuania, Jewish Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuanian Jewish issues, Vilnius Jewish cemetery
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Vilna Gaon Synagogue in Tel Aviv Posts Protest Against Vilnius Convention Center Plan for Old Jewish Cemetery
TEL AVIV—The famous Vilna Gaon Synagogue (Beys Hakneses Ha-Gro / Bet Hakeneset Ha-Gra), founded in Tel Aviv in 1934, issued a poster that has appeared in synagogues, yeshivas and other institutions in various parts of Israel. Reproduced below (sent by a correspondent), it protests plans by Vilnius government and business entities to further desecrate the old Vilna Jewish cemetery at Piramónt, now in the Šnipiškės district, by plans to build a twenty-five million dollar convention center in the heart of the historic cemetery (background; the paper trail to date). The protest poster is signed by a number of famous rabbis, including Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Halevi, head of the rabbinical court of Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and Rabbi Elijah Landa, a direct descendant of the Gaon of Vilna, Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman (Eylióhu ben Shlóyme-Zálmen, 1720 − 1797), who signs on behalf of the entire family.
Posted in Cemeteries and Mass Graves, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery at Piramónt (in Šnipiškės / Shnípishok)
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The June 2015 Memorial for the Lietūkis Garage Massacre in Kaunas, Lithuania
O P I N I O N / E Y E W I T N E S S A C C O U N T
by Julius Norwilla
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To mark the 74th anniversary of one of the iconic events of the Lithuanian Holocaust, the infamous Lietūkis Garage Massacre of 27 June 1941, the Kaunas Jewish Community organized its annual memorial event at the site, last Friday, 26 June 2015. The massacre, carried out by local Lithuanian “patriots” wearing the white armbands of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF), butchered dozens of Jewish passers-by at a garage on Kaunas’s Vytautas Avenue, using a variety of execution methods, including clubbing to death with crowbars, and particularly, forcing water from high-pressure hoses into bodily orifices of the victims until they burst. A growing crowd, including women holding up their young children to get the best views, cheered them on.
Posted in Bold Citizens Speak Out, Commemorations for Destroyed Communities, Events, History, Julius Norwilla, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory
Tagged Aleksandras Bosas, Amir Maimon, Embassy of Israel in Lithuania, Holocaust in Lithuania, Julius Norwilla, Lietukis Garage, Lithuanian Activist Front
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