OPINION | 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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English translation of the Seimas press conference “Vilnius A City Built on Cemeteries” of 5 November 2026
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Source: Press conference convened by Seimas member Kęstutis Vilkauskas, “Vilnius – miestas ant kapinių. Šiandienos iššūkiai” (“Vilnius, a City Built on Cemeteries: Today’s Challenges”), 5 November 2026, approximately 40 minutes. Video recording.
EDITORIAL NOTE: We publish below a working draft English translation of a mechanically generated Lithuanian transcript of the 5 November 2026 press conference held at the Lithuanian Seimas concerning Vilnius’s historic cemeteries and the proposed future of the Soviet-era Concert and Sports Palace, built within the grounds of the old Jewish cemetery at Piramónt (in Shnípishok, now the Šnipiškės district of modern Vilnius). Automatic transcription can omit words, mishear names, and misconstrue entire phrases. This English translation should therefore be regarded as a point of departure and an aid to orientation, not as an authoritative verbatim record. Readers wishing to rely on particular statements should check the original video. Uncertain passages are identified in square brackets where feasible; bracketed identifications and explanatory notes are editorial, not spoken. The views expressed are those of the participants, not of Defending History. This was a press conference and discussion held at the Seimas, not a plenary parliamentary debate.
A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION: Timestamps refer approximately to the beginning of each intervention, not to individually timed sentences. Hesitations, false starts and mechanical duplications have generally been lightly smoothed; meaningful qualifications, arguments, and disagreements are preserved. Where the automatic transcription is doubtful, the translation is correspondingly provisional. The spelling of certain audience participants’ names requires confirmation from the recording.
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Transcript
[00:16] Kęstutis Vilkauskas (chair): Good afternoon to those watching our broadcast and those present here in person. We are beginning the press conference “Vilnius, a City Built on Cemeteries: Today’s Challenges.” Participating in our press conference are Dr. Rytis Jonaitis, an archaeologist and researcher in the Department of Urban Research at the Institute of History, and Dr. Adas Jakubauskas, longtime chairman of the Union of Lithuanian Tatar Communities and associate professor at Mykolas Romeris University.
By way of introduction, I would like to say that in the very centre of Vilnius, in one place, we have two cultural heritage assets: the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace, entered in the Register of Cultural Properties in 2006, and the site of the old Jewish cemetery at Šnipiškės, which received legal protection in 2008 and was also entered in the Register of Cultural Properties.