OPINION | OLD VILNA JEWISH CEMETERY AT PIRAMÓNT: 2015-2025 | EARLIER OPPOSITION |  2023-2024 “WORKING GROUP” ON VILNA CEMETERY | LIST OF MEMBERS | MOUNTING OPPOSITION TO NEW “MUSEUM PROJECT” | USCPAHA  (UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD) | THE CPJCE (COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF JEWISH CEMETERIES IN EUROPE) | THE AJC (AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE) | THE CER (CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS) | THE GWF (GOOD WILL FOUNDATION) | CEMETERIES & MASS GRAVES | HUMAN RIGHTS

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VILNIUS—The following is the text of Dovid Katz’s post on Facebook today in response to the call by 53 signatories of Lithuania’s declaration of independence for proceeding with a convention center in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish cemetery:

https://defendinghistory.com/53-signatories-of-lithuanias-declaration-of-independence-call-on-president-and-pm-to-proceed-with-a-national-conference-center-surrounded-by-thousands-of-jewish-graves/122914
As Jewish people here in Vilnius, and around the world, were preparing for the first Passover seyder last week, certain powerful forces here arranged for a demand by 53 signatories of Lithuania’s declaration of independence to the president and prime minister to ignore protests from around the world and proceed with the erection of a national convention center in the heart of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, where many thousands still lie buried, including some of the major Litvak scholars of the last half-millennium.

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Question 1: Who will now speak out among those who REALLY love modern, beautiful, democratic Vilnius, against this travesty that would bring generational shame to the city and country? Maybe one single signatory of the declaration?
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Question 2: Will any of the international Jewish organizations and “Vilnius-frequent-visitor” personalities who have received medals, translations, junkets, grants, banquets, and photo-ops to “legitimize” the cemetery desecration finally have some second thoughts?
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Question 3: Would any of this be happening if this were a 500 year old hallowed cemetery of the majority religion/ethnicity population? Human rights include the rights of the dead to rest in peace, including minority groups, and all the more so when the plots were purchased in perpetuity and freehold by their families?
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Question 4: Would any of this be happening if not for the Holocaust, which resulted in the many thousands of buried having no descendants in town to stand up for ancestral graves?
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Question 5: With the mayor of Vilnius having identified an outstanding site for a new national conference center, one that would be celebrated with joy and admiration by all the historic peoples of Lithuania, here and abroad, is it not high time for the president and prime minister to do the right thing for Lithuania (just as Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė did in 2021, before the usual coalition of antisemites and corrupt property developers moved in again) [https://defendinghistory.com/congratulations-pour-in-to-lithuanias-prime-minister-ingrida-simonyte-on-16-aug-cancellation-of-vilnius-convention-center-in-the-cemetery-ccc/108345]/).
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Question 6: What good will it bring for tens of millions to be poured into a convention center that people of conscience from around the world will never step into?
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Follow the last decade of the unseemly saga in ascending or descending chronology at:
https://defendinghistory.com/category/jewish-cemetery-piramont-snipiskes-shnipishok?order=asc