Conference on Jewish Heritage at the Lithuanian Parliament

On September 25, 2017, I attended the conference on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance of Lithuanian Jewish Victims of Genocide and the European Day of Jewish Culture, “Diaspora and Heritage: The Shtetl”, which was held in the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament) in Vilnius.

The Conference took place in the Conference Hall of the Parliament. In the lobby there was a beautiful, very well documented exhibition about the History of Lithuanian Jewry. The exhibition, which is going to travel around the world, was divided into five panels, each one containing clear and visual impacting information about different periods of Jewish Life in the country.

The conference was introduced by Viktoras Pranckietis, Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Amir Maimon, Ambassador of Israel to Lithuania and Faina Kukliansky, Chair of the Jewish Community of Lithuania. They all remarked the importance and symbolism of the Conference, which shows how much Jewish culture did for Lithuania. It was also remarked the necessity of returning the memory of Lithuanian Jews to Lithuania. The lost of Jewish culture in Lithuania is lost, not only for the Jewish culture but also for the whole Lithuanian culture.

After the introduction, the conference began and was moderated by Professor Sarunas Liekis, Dean at the Political Science and Diplomacy Faculty of the Vytautas Magnus University.

The conference was split into three sessions. The first one was called “The Shtetlakh: History and Memory”. The second one was about “Jewish Heritage Research”, and the third and last one about “Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Heritage”.

The first session was opened by Lyudmila Sholokhova, Director of the YIVO (Institute for Jewish Research) archives and Library, whose speech was “Representation of the Lithuanian Jewish Shtetl in the Edward Blank VIVO Vilna Collections”. She talked about the great task of YIVO, focussing in the labour of the Edward Blank Vilna Collections Project, whose aim is to preserve, digitize and virtually reunite YIVO’s pre-war collections located in New York and in Vilnius.

According to her words, most of the Jewish artifacts and documents were destroyed during the Nazi occupation and during the Soviet period. Consequently, what we have at the present is only a top of an iceberg, the remains of what once was the production of a wide and very important culture.

The speech was illustrated with many photographs of books, but also unique documents miraculously preserved to the present day.

Election campaign poster for the Kaunas City Council 1920s

After this speech, Lara Lempertiené, Director of the Judaica Department at the Martinas Mazydas National Library of Lithuania had the floor and her speech was “Shtetl, or Capital of the Intellect? The Scholarship of the Jews of Telsiai in the Collections of the Lithuanian National Library”. Her presentation focused on the life of this Telsiai disappeared Jewry, based on the remaining documents that survived the World War II. Among these artifacts, there were books, periodicals, and manuscripts that once were preserved by disappeared Jewish cultural institutions, museums, and libraries. She showed photographs of many of these old documents.

Old book labels informing that some books have been donated

The documents are not only about religious life but also scientific. All that demonstrates that there was a large cultural and spiritual Jewish life in Telsiai.

Milda Jakulyté-Valis, Museum curator of the Seduva Jewish Memorial foundation, gave the third and last presentation of the first session. The title of her presentation was “Memory of Seduva Shtetl in Lithuania and the Diaspora”.

This speech touched me especially because it was about individual people and not just about books, documents, and other unanimated artifacts. As she told, the presence of Jewish life in Seduva shtetl dates from the first half of the 18th century and many traces of this vanished life and culture had been found.

As an example, she mentioned that there is a farm in South Africa called Shedova. The founder of this farm was Isaac Pinkus, a Jew who emigrated with his family from Seduva to South Africa and gave the farm the name of his town of origin.

She also talked about the letters written by Nachum Berman, a Jewish pharmaceutic from Seduva, who complained about how boring was life in the shtetl and how much he wished to move to a big city.

If I don’t mistake this is a picture of Seduva and Nachum Berman

Besides of the many pictures, the presentation of Milda Jakulyté-Valis was illustrated with a number of stories and funny anecdotes that made it especially pleasant. As she said, Seduva was a little town where everybody knew each other and consequently there was not possible to keep any secret.

Today there is a monument in Seduva devoted to all Jews that once lived there. The Lost Shtetl Project aims to preserve the Jewish Heritage of Seduva, to reconstruct a kind of mosaic from the tiny fragments that they have to find from different information sources such as memoirs, testimonies, books, the press of the period and so on.

The project also restored the ancient Jewish cemetery in 2014 and in 2017 the restoration was noted in European Union awards for cultural heritage conservation. A museum is scheduled to open its doors to the public in 2019.

After the Coffee break began the Second Session of the Conference, “Jewish Heritage Research”. Professor Sarunas Liekis, Dean of the Political Science and Diplomacy Faculty at the Vytautas Magnus University, moderated this session.

The first speech “Evidence of mass Murder at Ponar: Non-Invasive Archaeology (2016-2017)” was given by Saulius Sarcevicius, Director of the Urban Research Department at the Lithuanian History Institute, Dr. Oksana Valionienè, junior research correspondent at the Lithuanian History Institute, and Dainius Michelevicius, General Director at Geobaltic.

It was a very impressive speech in which the speakers demonstrated that Ponary was a kind of killing factory. These mass murders have been reconstructed thanks to the modern technologies like tomography that prove there was a massacre in Ponary.

Next presentation “The Excavation of the Great Synagogue of Vilna and the presentation of its Archaeology” was given by Jon Seligman, Director of the Excavations, Surveys and Research Department of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The Great Synagogue of Vilnius was built in the 1600s. During the Nazi occupation, it was seriously damaged and later, after the World War II, the ruins were totally demolished by the Soviet regime that built a school on the site. Archaeological research shows that the remnants of the Great Vilna Synagogue still remain buried two meters below the ground level. These remains have been identified thanks to ground-penetrating radar that showed that besides of the synagogue there are remnants of the miqveh (ritual bath) and the Schulhoyf.

Seligman remarked the importance of continuing with the excavations in order to ensure that Jewish built cultural heritage is preserved, not only as a part of Jewish heritage but also as an important part of the Lithuanian heritage. According to what Seligman said, there is enough documentation like maps and photographs that could facilitate the reconstruction of such an important building that is known as the Lost Cathedral of Vilnius. This synagogue was widely known in Europe for centuries as the centre of spiritual, cultural and social life of the Jewish Community.

In this picture, there is to see the monument to the Gaon of Vilnius. Besides the monument, you can see the school on the site where once the Great Synagogue was emplaced

Next speech of this second session was “Wooden Synagogues of Lithuania: From Magnificent to Modest” by Dr. Sergey Kravtsov, research fellow of the Centre for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Kravtsov began his speech with a brief history of wooden synagogues in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was illustrated with many photographs of ancient wooden synagogues of Lithuania that were mainly destroyed or damaged during the German occupation. He talked about the necessity of preservation of this enormous heritage and about different options of preservation, like restauration or complete reconstruction, both of them with its advantages and inconveniences but better options than demolition, which means the total destruction and consequently the absolute lost of heritage.

He pointed out that preservation is a matter of responsibility and presented the audience different ways of how wooden synagogues may be preserved.

Wooden Synagogue in Alanta, Lithuania

The last speech of the third session was “The German Occupation of 1915-18 and the Shaping of Jewish memory in Vilne” by Professor Mikhail Krutikov of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He talked about historical facts and explained the German occupation from the point of view of different personalities like Dr. Yakov Vygodski, Arnold Zweig and Hermann Struck. The speech was illustrated with photographies of books and personalities from that period.

Alfredas Jomantas, Director of Registry, public relations and education of the Cultural Heritage Department under the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture moderated the third and last session of the Conference “Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Heritage”.

Diana Vanaité, Director of Cultural Heritage Department under the Ministry of Culture talked about State Policies and Practices for the Conservation of Lithuanian Jewish Immovable Cultural Heritage, and Faina Kukliansky, Chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, talked about “Inter-Institutional Cooperation in the Conservation of Litvak Heritage”.

Faina Kukliansky explained about the present situation of Jewish Heritage in Lithuania and the perspectives for the future. She remarked the fact that 90% of the Jewish population in Lithuania were murdered during the Holocaust. Now there are practically no Jews left in the tent for example to family graves or to protect cemeteries. The Jewish Community would not be able to care for its entire heritage without the support of governmental and municipal institutions, NGO and active and often volunteering citizens. Another question she pointed out was what to do with these many synagogues that will not serve anymore to their primary religious function. She suggested that there should be found a different function for them, something corresponding to the needs of the local community.

She also talked about the reconstruction of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius and remarked the importance of this project that will attract visitors, helping educate the public on Litvak history and presenting the rich legacy of the Lithuanian Jewish culture. Its goal must be the protection and preservation of heritage and memory but must not become a commercial site.

She thanked for the support of authorities and Municipality but Faina Kukliansky lamented that despite its importance and symbolism, Jewish heritage is not a priority for Lithuanian authorities.

The session was concluded by the presentation of the Lithuanian Jewish community’s calendar for the year 5778, which is illustrated by graphic representations of the synagogues of Lithuania by Gerardas Bagdonavicius (1901-1986), and the presentation of the Exhibition “Lietuva, Lite, Lita. One Century out of Seven” which, as I said before, will travel around the world.

Calendar published by the Lithuanian Jewish Community

After the coffee break, Victor Sorenssen, Director of the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture Heritage (AEPJ) took the floor. His speech was “Towards new models of Jewish heritage project. Heritage, community and socio-cultural sustainability”. He talked about the role of tourism in the preservation of Heritage and how to set the framework for socio-cultural sustainability in the context of communities and around heritage routes. He also talked about socio-cultural policies and practices and discussed the question of commercialization of culture and heritage preservation which could be very controversial for communities with different attitudes.

The Conference concluded with the presentations of initiatives by several Lithuanian municipal governments, which were very encouraging. Remigijus Simasius, Mayor of Vilnius City Municipality, Vytenis Tomkus, Mayor of the Kaisiadorys City Municipality, Skirmantas Mockevicius, Mayor of the Jurbarkas District Municipality, Prof. Jonas Audjaitis, City council member of the Kaunas City Municipality, Ovidijus Kaciulis, Director of the Kédainiai District Municipality Administration and Mindaugas Veliulis, Senior specialist for cultural heritage at the Pakruojis district Municipality Administration, all of them talked about different projects concerning Jewish Heritage which were really interesting.