By: Myra Sklarew

When I stood in Rotuses Square in Kaunas last September, I listened to a young man speak about the burden he had carried in his young life to know that his own grandfather  had been one of the killers during the War, a member of the Lithuanian Activist Front and part of a mobile killing unit. The young man asked forgiveness.

And when I stood with a group of some fifty people next to the place of massacre of over 2000 Jewish people in Kedainiai—a place where twenty-nine of my own family members were murdered,  I saw how Lithuanians were making the enormous passage across time and cultural divide to embrace a wrong that they had nothing to do with. I ask myself if I have done enough in my own country to right the wrongs committed by my forebears.

Thus, when neo-Nazis march through the streets of Vilnius and Kaunas, they not only bring harm and pain to Jewish people but to Lithuanians who have made and are making efforts to  come to know those who were their neighbors for centuries, as were my grandparents and their parents before them,  village farmers. I thank the Lithuanians for every single effort they are making to come to terms with this past, for schoolchildren who bring small stones to the graves and massacre places on Holocaust Remembrance Day, by way of their remembrance. I thank the teachers who bring the study of those who once lived among them into the focus of learning. I thank the teacher whose students identified very single house in one village, the families who once lived there, making the hidden and anonymous past alive and literally on the map. I thank the teacher, who long before others had begun this—and not without risk-- had her students interview their grandparents about their former neighbors who often comprised half of their village.

If it is not possible to stop the Neo-Nazi march, then surely it is possible to offer some counterweight, some teaching by Lithuanians—Jewish and Christian together—in public forums and media to bring understanding and education, Of course, it would help if the Lithuanian government took a stand against these marches. Though we honor free speech in my country, the government has ways of subduing the hate--requiring a march to take place at the edge of town rather than in the center, encouraging active counterpoint and teaching. assisting those who wish to protest against hate groups that they may do so without harm. It is no secret that the demonstration of radical hate gives permission to those on the fringe of society to act against others as well. The tight power structure of the neo-Nazis where individual 
identity is submerged in the power of the leader does away with any capacity for empathy.

Though we count on our leaders to offer appropriate boundaries and limits, we have learned long ago in America that change also happens through individual action, not only through dictates from above.

Myra Sklarew, USA
February 26, 2012

 
Professor Irena Veisaite

An Interview of Irena Veisaite by Ellen Cassedy April 26, 2011

Irena, you are a Holocaust survivor and have long been involved in Holocaust education initiatives in Lithuania. What do people outside Lithuania need to know about intolerance inside Lithuania today?

Of course there are examples of intolerance in Lithuania. All over the world there is intolerance. But there are also many attempts to promote tolerance in Lithuania. You should not always see only the negative side. We must appreciate positive steps as well.  

What about the neo-Nazi march in Vilnius on March 11, independence day, and the swastika flags and anti-Semitic banner that appeared on Hitler’s birthday?

It is upsetting that this happened and that some young people joined that march. But it is also worth noting that both government and society at large reacted in protest against these incidents.

Lithuania’s foreign ministry and the Speaker of the Seimas, Dr. Irena Degutiene, reacted strongly against the anti-Semitic outbreaks on the day of Hitler's birthday. The reaction against the march on March 11 was not as strong and as far as I remember, it was mainly Kubilius who reacted.

There is always something growing. This makes me hopeful.

What is being done to promote tolerance in Lithuania, and what more should be done?

A great deal is being done. In a short interview it is impossible to mention everything. Just a few examples: When Lithuania declared its independence in 1990, there was almost nothing on this topic. Now we have about 60 books researching the terribly painful history of the end of Litvak history and culture in Lithuania. We have three books about the Roma Holocaust in the country. Our textbooks are changing toward openness and tolerance to Lithuania’s minorities, though they are not yet perfect. We’re educating our teachers, with the help of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

We also have many very active Educational Centers all over the country which are teaching the history of the Holocaust. A wonderful, modern exhibition has opened in the Museum of Tolerance in Vilnius Our government has designated 2011 as the Year of Holocaust Remembrance in Lithuania. Many events, discussions, conferences on this painful issue are planned.

For young people all over the world, the Holocaust is so remote that they can barely imagine it could happen. But we all need to learn about the Holocaust, not only because of the terrible things that happened, but because we need to understand that every one of us could in certain circumstances become a perpetrator. Every day we see how people are manipulated, how people are infected with hatred. As the famous Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has stated in his book, Modernity and the Holocaust," the Holocaust is not a specific Jewish problem; it is a problem of modern society as a whole.

When we speak about the Holocaust in Lithuania or other Eastern European countries to people who also experienced the Gulag, we can’t ignore their experience. If we want to work toward mutual understanding, we must not become rivals as to who’s a bigger victim , but respect any victim of mass murder.

You have spoken of the need for "intolerance of intolerance." Can you explain?

No doubt. we should be intolerant of intolerance whenever and wherever it occurs. And we have first of all to apply it to ourselves. We can’t tolerate corruption, coercion, violence, etc. We have to fight it, but never overstep the border of tolerance. People are brought up differently, they live in different cultures and traditions, they have different experiences and therefore they can have different opinions and feelings, which have to be tolerated.

What can people outside of Lithuania do to help promote tolerance in Lithuania?

People from outside Lithuania should be very careful about interfering. They can speak of their own experience, but when a person from outside any country comes to teach local people how to act, you have to know the local situation very well and find the right way to speak. You must have tact. You have to understand the education people received, and their experiences. Otherwise you will face unexpected consequences.

Only one little example. In February, I attended a conference in London called “No Simple Stories,” which brought together well-known historians from the US, Israel, Germany, England, and Lithuania. We examined Jewish-Lithuanian relations – the years of coexistence and the years of violence. It was wonderful, very open and very honest. But at the end came a professor from outside with two cameraman, who read a statement which insulted all participants, accusing them in hiding the truth about the Holocaust in Lithuania. Such declarations don’t help, they only create bad blood and make a fair dialogue impossible.

Professor Irena Veisaite was a founder of the Open Society Fund – Lithuania and is now ombudsman of the Open Society Institute. For the past 15 years, she has participated in Holocaust education initiatives in Lithuania. She has been honored by the Lithuanian government with the Gediminas Order. The Sugihara Foundation nominated her as the Person of Tolerance in 2002. She lives in Vilnius.

Ellen Cassedy traces her Jewish family roots to Rokiskis and Siauliai. Her book, "We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust," will be published in March of 2012. She lives in Washington, D.C. Visit her website at www.ellencassedy.com.

Postcards collected by Stephanie Comfort, Texas, USA

Jewish market, Vilnius. 

Stephanie Comfort, from Dallas, Texas, has over many years been an eager collector of old Jewsih postcards. Here is how she describes her ‘hobby’:

“I have the collecting gene:  I collect dead Jews, their synagogues, their marketplaces and their family life - of the over 6,000,000 that were killed by the Germans and their countrymen "neighbours" there are few left to say Kaddish for them or to remember them.  My Rabbi - Kenneth Roseman of Dallas once said that I am "Redeeming the Captives" by collecting the postcards and photos of them.  I also collect and honour those few that saved them.  In Lithuania it was the Japanese Consul to Lithuania, Chuin Sugihara, who was housed in Kaunas/Kovno (the Yiddish name) and although demanded to return with his family by the government of Japan he stayed and spent 24 hours a day - along with his wife - filling out visas which saved thousands of Lithuanian Jews.  He was still filling them when on the train departing and throwing them out of the window.  Upon his return to Japan he was removed from his position and never worked again.  When the State of Israel discovered that they were destitute they paid them a yearly salary and educated his children.  He - and other "Righteous Gentiles" (non-Jews)  that saved Jews (proved via testamony) are honoured in the garden of Yad VaShem (Holocaust Museum) in Jerusalem, Israel by having a tree planted in their name.”  
 
“I, myself, have visited Lithuania twice - stood in the Polnar Forest outside of Vilnius/Vilna and in the 9th Fort outside of Kaunas/Kovno and where the Kovno used to stand and where the Jewish patients, Jewish Nurses and Jewish Doctors were locked into the Jewish Hospital and set on fire and in front of the Sugihara home and was so very thankful to him and his family.”

“I was born in Brooklyn, New York to parents also born there BUT was also raised by maternal grandparents who came over from Russia, Poland - areas called The Pale or White Russia - today parts of the Ukraine.  I was raised early on the stories of Pogroms .... my Great Grandfather was crucified during an Easter pogrom - nailed against a door.  My Grandfather quickly grew a beard and came to the USA as his father.  My Grandmother used to tell about the Christian peasants that used to "sic" their dogs on them in the fields where they walked and worked.”
 
“I have lived in Dallas, Texas for the past 44 yrs. although most of my schooling was in California.  I have been a professional weaver - with one of my pieces being in the Dallas Museum of Art for a couple of months.  I have been a jeweller - working primarily in gold with some silver and making jewelry and Judaica.  During those years I also spent several months each summer in Israel studying Biblical Archaeology - called it sending Mother to Camp.  For 4 seasons I worked in The City of David in Jerusalem and 2 seasons at Tel Dor on the Coast.”
 
“My husband and I travel a bit and about 15 years ago we went for the first time (there was also a second time) to the Camps in Poland:  Auschwitz Birkenau, Treblinka, Madjanek and the killing fields in the towns with Ghettos.  We stood in Budapest (3 visits) at the Danube where the Jews were tied 3 together so that only one bullet need be used.  In the Czech Republic (3 visits) we've visited Theresenstadt/Terezin and in Lithuania (twice) the Polnar Forest and the 9th Fort.  In Germany once it was Dachau and the Exposition Field where the Israeli Olympic wrestlers were killed in 1972.  This all started me in collecting postcards of Jews that "were"  knowing most of them were killed in the Holocaust not only by the Germans but ALSO by their fellow Lithuanians, Croatians, Latvians, Romanians, etc. etc.  In fact it was only the Finns, the Danes, the Bulgarians, the Albanians and the Moroccans that were decent enough and brave enough to say NO.”
 
“Now with so many Holocaust deniers I fear that soon Europeans will start also denying that Jews ever lived in their countries - ergo - I document, document, document.”
 
“I think the story of how the Jewish Karaites were saved in Troki (Trakai) is interesting.  When the German Commanded asked the Chief Rabbi of Vilna if they were also Jewish - his not liking the way they practiced their Judaism - said NO.”
 
“I was born during WW2 and remember the hushes when I would enter a room as a child - and the tears - and the names of relatives I would never know.”

Kaunas synagogue 1926.

Kaunas (Kovno) Chief Rabbi.

Jewish school 1926.

Jewish market, Vilnius.

Vilnius ghetto during World War II.

Vilnius, new synagogue.

Wooden synagogue, Žiežmariai (between Vilnius and Kaunas).

Old Vilnius synagogue.

‘Day and Night’ is an epoch-making play for modern Lithuania

7 December 2011

O P I N I O N / R E V I E W

by Birutė Ušinskaitė

Cover of playbill

It was just another rainy, temperate evening in early December of the year 2011, but the play I was privileged to see at the Kaunas Chamber Theater, Day and Night,proved to me, a proud woman of Vilnius, that not all that is bold and brilliant here comes from our capital.

For the first time in our modern Lithuanian history, in my experience at any rate, a Lithuanian play on the Holocaust did not try to deflect attention ― or responsibility ― to the Germans or to some “complicated times” or to some pseudo-objective forces milling about on all sides. Or, to stick to some “kosher” theme like the dilemmas of Jacob Gens and the Judenrat in the Vilna Ghetto in the cause of talking about everythingexcept what is frankly the main point for our country: the voluntary participation of thousands of our countrymen in the mass murder of the Jewish citizens of our own country, in some cases starting before the Nazis even arrived.

For the first time in my life, I have been able to enjoy a quality literary creation where the barbaric and pathologically racist and fascist nature of some members of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) is shown exactly for what it was. In Lithuanian. By and for a Lithuanian audience. That makes me  proud.

It is a small theater, and there were perhaps only a hundred people present, but it was in its own way a grand national catharsis that makes me as a born and bred Lithuanian citizen very patriotic in the European sense of the word, where patriotism is loyalty to finding out and facing the truth and not some kind of nationalist whitewash or prejudice toward minorities or other Others.

From the playbill: Period photos and a 1941 poster tell the audience that this will be no whitewash

Day and Night is a signal that at long last we are becoming a mature nation where a theater production can finally portray the simple truth that a not inconsequential portion of these LAF “heroes” were murderers of civilians  and spreaders of hate toward fellow natives of their country. That it was done artistically, not with some pietistic declaration, but with a strong and unforgettable scene of two LAFers wrapping the white band around their new colleague’s arm, made it incalculably stronger.

The duration of the two-part play is two and a half hours. I personally found that on the long side, and it could benefit by consolidation of some of the latter scenes. One other point is the choice of the music by composer Faustas Latėnas. In my opinion, “general” Yiddish popular songs are not the best choice. I think that Yiddish folk songs of Kaunas, and specific songs of the city’s Holocaust-era ghetto would have made those portions more authentic. Strange to be making such a fuss about these two things, but maybe that is because just about everything else seemed to be almost perfect from the subtle make-up of the actors, the costumes and hauntingly minimalist set, to the singularly effective lighting effects. The Hitchcock-timed dimming sequence at the beginning of the scenes conveyed a slowly unfolding horror. Yes, and the magnificent acting.

Even though the characters of the play have no necessarily real prototypes, the plot is based on historical facts, testimonies of witnesses and archival documents from the Holocaust era. The actors even read some of the documents aloud and quote them in their dialogues, like, for example, a sickening antisemitic article from a newspaper.

Naturally, some viewers in our country might not understand the significance of the play and why it is necessary to speak about the Holocaust in Lithuania today, so the question naturally arises: Why was this play written in the first place?

As playwright Daiva Čepauskaitė puts it:

“I was searching for a serious and principled topic. And the Kaunas Chamber Theater suggested that I should write about the Holocaust in Lithuania. I took this as a challenge, both as a playwright and as a human being. It was a really difficult task for me as a professional ― it was difficult to find the right language, form and the way to tell the story. But the topic enriched me as a person; I had an opportunity to come up with certain principles and a personal approach. Therefore, I have an answer to the question why I have written this play: I wrote it because I am Lithuanian, because it is our common history and because I do care about things that happened, are happening or will happen in Lithuania. And because it hurts.”

It is a tragic love story, the impossible love of teenagers ― a Lithuanian boy Andrius and a Jewish girl Milda, who are entrapped in a bizarre scenario. The main characters are played by young and inspirationally talented Lithuanian actors: Simona Bladženauskaitė and Vytautas Gasiliūnas. They invent a strange game. They are playing the Holocaust in Lithuania and acting out the love story of Milda’s grandmother Golda, who is now old and not clear of mind. Golda had in fact gone mad when her long-time-ago lover Kostas accidentally got shot right before the end of the Second World War, when Golda turned nineteen.

Andrius and Milda are unable to live their own lives. They are predetermined incarnations of ghosts of their city’s past.

Sometimes Andrius resists Milda’s wish to live in the past. And that is when she starts numbly counting aloud to herself. And he invariably succumbs.

It seems to me that many people in Lithuania, whether they want to know it or not, cannot calmly live out their years and roam the streets of the old ghetto in Vilnius, Kaunas or Šiauliai without getting possessed by the dybbuk of our past. In order to let the old wounds heal and to prevent such horrors from happening once again, it is important to tell the young generation of Lithuanians what we have done to our neighbors. Therefore, it is significant to speak the simple truth about the Holocaust in Lithuania, as well as about the lamentable antisemitism today. On the way back from Kaunas, I opened the 3-4 December 2011 weekend edition of our best daily, Lietuvos rytas, only to find a three page antisemitic yarn, advertised with the blurb “Mystery of the Millions” on the front page over a picture of a Jew in the Kaunas synagogue. For shame.

Daiva Čepauskaitė continues to explain what drove her to write the play.

“When I was writing the play, I was reading some documents in the archives, and one protocol of the court caught my eye. The defendant was asked why he was murdering Jews and he replied: “Because I am Lithuanian.” Then I thought about the many meanings of this word. After all, those who rescued Jews were also Lithuanians. The same word can mean the most honest fight for the freedom of the people, simple humanity, or the lowest instincts. I am also Lithuanian and I wrote this play […] because life and death have no nationality, and because inhumanity is our common enemy.”

The two timelines of the play are looped. Today’s reality intertwines and intersects with the past, and the points of intersection are precisely the most important ones. The ones that hurt like wounds that have never healed. The wounds and the pain are real. Kostas burns his arm badly in order to be able to see Golda, the Jewish girl, with whom he falls passionately in love. He comes on Friday night and Golda has to violate the Sabbath law in order to help him, because Jews are not allowed do any work on the Sabbath.

Golda’s father Berelis Taicas (Berl Teitz), a pharmacist, explains to Kostas what it means to be a Jew: Jewish happiness is a very short time between long periods of unhappiness and misery, which change like day and night. Berelis Taicas says that God has punished him, because he has no son, only two unmarried sisters and three unmarried daughters, and, even worse, he thinks that one of the daughters is too smart for a girl, so how could he be happy.

Then the war breaks out and everything changes, at least for the Jewish citizens of Lithuania. The Red Army withdraws from Kaunas and massacres of Jews start immediately. On 25 June 1941 the German advancing troops (Vorauskommando) enter Kaunas. The situation is horrendous. The infamous massacre of Jewish civilians takes place at the Lietūkis garage in Kaunas on 27 June. It seems that the earth under one’s feet is catching fire. The gang of Klimaitis rages and murders people. Some Kaunas Jews are burned alive. One can smell the fear in the air and some of the city’s Jews try to escape or go into hiding.

On 12 July 1941, a regulation is issued for Jews to wear a yellow star, 8-10 cm width in diameter on the front and on the back. They are not allowed to leave home after 8 PM. Another regulation sets out that Jews have to leave their homes and move into a ghetto in Vilijampolė  (Slabódke in Yiddish culture) by 15 August. In Kaunas, Jews are taken to the 7^th Fort. Almost all of them are gunned down by volunteer Lithuanian “partisans”. The murderers are nowadays sometimes hailed as “anti-Soviet patriots”.

Moreover, the Provisional Government of Lithuania does not say a word to condemn the ongoing genocide. After five weeks the mass graves of the victims near the 7^th Fort start to cause problems. The local inhabitants start to complain about the bad smell. In the second half of July it is forbidden to swim in the Nemunas and the Neris rivers because it is believed that the water is contaminated with the “poison of the corpses”.

Kostas joins the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) together with his friends, who instigate racial hatred and genocidal antisemitism. Kostas becomes a Jew-killer, but he saves Golda. Golda’s father is taken away by the young fellows who are wearing white armbands and he never comes back. Golda finds shelter in a hiding-place, a pit under the floor of his house. By day Kostas and his friends murder other Jews, because their task is to liquidate all the “Communists and Jews” though it is Jews who are the primary objects of their passion for murder. By night he makes love to Golda.

Scene from Night and Day. Courtesy Vaida Gedzevičiūtė / Kauno kamerinis teatras

Once Golda inquires of him whether he had shot many of their neighbors and Kostas replies that he had murdered all of them. So that nobody would interfere with their love. Golda attempts suicide, but later she finds out that she is pregnant. One night, after giving birth, she is allowed to have a little walk in the garden. She looks at the starry sky and screams: “Oh, God, the sky is full of Jews! They all are there!”

There are good times and there are bad times in every nation’s life, just like there is day and night, and sometimes we make things of which we cannot be proud, but the story of the Holocaust in Lithuania is the darkest page in the country’s history.

However, the creators of this play, perhaps for the first time in Lithuania’s history, managed to examine and analyze this topic with full honesty. They are not trying to solve any historical dilemmas; their only goal is to frankly and bravely tell what really happened and what kind of mindset made this calamity possible.

The scenes from today actually do more than serve the literary purpose of incarnations of old souls emerging among us, among people just like us, a forever attractive literary device. They are a blunt warning about the advent of antisemitism right here and now which is also presented on stage as it is on the streets (and in our “best” newspapers).

This epoch-making play can and should be translated into English and other languages and produced abroad.

It will do Lithuania proud.

Diena ir naktis.

KAUNO KAMERINIS TEATRAS.

Directed by Stanislovas Rubinovas. Art: Sergėjus Bocullo. Music: Faustas Latėnas.

Starring  Simona Bladženauskaitė and Vytautas Gasiliūnas; Alma Masiulionytė,  Aleksandras Rubinovas, Violeta Steponkutė; with Kristina Kazakevičiūtė, Daiva Škelevaitė, Asta Steponavičiūtė, Edita Niciūtė.

Website.

Birutė Ušinskaitė is a Vilnius translator and memoirist.

← Three Page Antisemitic Mini-Tract runs in Lithuania’s Mainstream Daily

In Janjelgava in Latvia, I found the grave of my Great-Grandfather, it was shattered into thousands of pieces, today it appears in its original state after a complete re-build and restoration to what it would have been when my Grandmother and her siblings would have had it constructed.

Author: Grant Arthur Gochin, Los Angeles, California, USA.

I document my family to the 1700’s in Papile, Akmene District in Lithuania. Jews have lived in Lithuania around 700 years, it is possible that my family has been Lithuanian since the 1300’s. A prerequisite for any Jewish settlement is that a cemetery be built to bury the dead, and so, after 700 years, Lithuania holds many hundreds of Jewish cemeteries, and in all likelihood, there are thousands that had the name Gochin that were buried in the vicinity of Papile.

A religious requirement and a community requirement of Jews is that they maintain and honor the cemeteries of their ancestors, and so, throughout the world where Jews live, one can see clean and neat cemeteries where descendants honor their ancestors. This is very similar to the Lithuanian tradition of All Souls Day where families visit and honor, and remember the graves of their ancestors.

Jews and Lithuanians lived in mostly peaceful coexistence for centuries, when Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of the North” and hundreds, if not thousands of Jewish cemeteries existed in the lands of Lithuania.

In 1915, Jews of the Baltics were deported into the Russian territories of the Ukraine and Belarus. An estimated 100,000 Jews of Baltic origin died of starvation and typhus in faraway foreign lands, including the majority of my family. At that time, almost no records remain of their deaths or burials, and 100,000 Baltic Jewish souls have largely been forgotten. From 1919 Jews were allowed to return to Lithuania, and populations began to regenerate. Burials were recorded, cemeteries restored and communal life re-established. Some of my relatives emigrated to South Africa, and new burial grounds were established.

The Holocaust murdered 96.4% of remaining Jews on Lithuanian soil. From a pre-World War 2 population of about 240,000 Jews, an estimated 3,500 Jews now live in Lithuania, a tattered remnant of the great community of learned thinkers and progressives that once inhabited our ancient homelands. For many, the Survivors were the only remnant of their families, all history having been wrenched away from them when their elders and teachers were so brutally murdered. During the Holocaust hundreds of Jewish cemeteries were destroyed, stones used for building materials, or just wanton destruction. The end of the war brought Soviet occupation, where Jewish cemeteries were further deliberately desecrated and destroyed, and most of the remainder were taken back by nature, the great population that populated Lithuania for 700 years was to be forcefully forgotten, and all signs of their presence to be eradicated, so that the last wafting memories of their existence could be destroyed over time.

My beloved Grandfather tried many times to return to Lithuania after the war, but the Soviets barred South African citizens from entering Lithuania, and so, in 1984 he went to his death without ever having been able to visit the graves of his family. The task fell to me to honor my ancestors.

Research showed that 75% of the land of the Jewish cemetery in Papile was now covered with apartment buildings; not a single stone remained standing for a single relative whose memory was now erased from Papile where documents prove at least 250 years of residence. In 2005, I put up one new stone to memorialize all Gochins that must be buried in that cemetery.

My Maternal Grandmother believed she had been born in Raguva (in fact she was born in Birzai) but given the deaths of both parents during the deportations when she was a young child and the removal of all memory, she had no facts. Research discovered the following photograph from the Raguva Jewish cemetery. I went looking….

After the round up and murder of the Jews of Raguva, local villagers used the gravestones for building material. Stories then spread of “rich Jews” that had been buried with gold fillings, and so much of the remainder of the cemetery was destroyed as people dug for gold from dead bodies. Today, few stones remain. This is not unusual for any Jewish Cemeteries in Lithuania.

Repeated visits to Raguva failed to restore the cemetery, applications for permission went unanswered and frustration set in. Municipalities in Lithuania are responsible for maintenance of Jewish Gravesites and so Governmental pressure was inconsequential. Restoration may ONLY be done with the cooperation of local officials, and regulation requires that the cemetery soil not be moved, as this would be desecration.

I strongly believe that their colorful lives, their contributions to humanity, their vibrant and learned culture should not be forgotten. Their memory is a blessing, their loss will never be able to be recovered and Lithuania will always be less than it could have been without their presence. To allow their lives to be forgotten is a tragedy none should tolerate. We, who are the descendants of those few that survived, owe it to those who had no surviving descendants to remember them, to clean their cemeteries and acknowledge their existences.

During my journeys and efforts, I made two friends, Sergey Kanovich, Public Relations advisor to the Lithuanian Jewish Community, and son of Grigor Kanovich (Past Chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community), and Alexander Avramenko, who believe and think similarly to myself, who value our heritage and our roots and who hold memory as a treasure for the ages. Together we have worked on multiple cemeteries in Lithuania (as can be seen on http://litvak-cemetery.info/index.php?lang=en

Between us, we have built a network on the ground in Lithuania that now know how to navigate the system of municipalities, have volunteers in place to perform the physical work that is needed, and the historians to document information that can be gleaned from the stones. We are connected into the international genealogical Associations that will distribute the information (for free) to any interested people. A non-profit status has now been granted to Maceva in Lithuania. An International Board has been built comprised of historians, government officials and those that care about maintaining and recording the memory of our roots, so that when Jews talk about heritage, we can show our children and grandchildren tangible signs of the greatness of our history, and the combined efforts and travails it took to bring the current generation to the place of safety and position we may now hold.

We, who are not subject to deportations or pogroms for our Jewish birthright, cannot make things better for those that were so badly treated, but we can bring them honor, dignity and remembrance, and give them thanks for where we are today.

Grant Gochin sits on the International Advisory Board of http://litvak-cemetery.info/index.php?lang=en

He is President of www.GAAWS.com and serves as the Honorary Consul of Togo in California, and is Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles Consular Corps.

Minister Plenipotentiary Rolandas Kacinskas, Ambassador Zygimantas Pavilionis and Harley Felstein, Project Chairperson.

On the evening of Thursday November 3rd, 2011, the Jewish Lithuanian Heritage Project hosted a roundtable “Think Tank” at the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington D.C. The concept of the think tank originated from a white paper prepared by Harley Felstein, Project Chairperson, and Adrienne Oleck, a Board member.

The meeting drew together concerned intellectuals from the Washington D.C. area and from the Lithuanian Embassy, the Honorable Ambassador Zygimantas Pavilionis and Minister Plenipotentiary Rolandas Kacinskas. The theme of the discussion was, "A comprehensive Five Year plan to improve Lithuanian-Jewish relations: Cultivating Sunflowers."

The Sunflower project will create three core programs focusing on:

1) Communication and Dialogue;
2) Youth engagement and education; and
3) Jewish heritage projects including cemetery restoration.

Ambassador Pavilionis spoke of the harmony that existed for centuries among Lithuanians, Jews and other ethnic group. The Ambassador emphasized the need for a people-to-people dialogue in order to build bridges. The Ambassador stated that only through constructive interchange can the lost connections that existed in the Old World be rediscovered. To demonstrate the Lithuanian eagerness to initiate goodwill, the restitution plan was underway and just two days prior to the think tank meeting, Lithuania was the only Baltic state that supported Israel in voting against Palestinian membership in UNESCO.

For the chairperson, Harley Felstein, the youth are the future - the youth of Lithuania and the youth worldwide. At the meeting, Harley Felstein’s sixteen year old son and student at McClean High School in Virginia, Benjamin Felstein, stated that people are basically all alike and youth from different cultures can bond easily. Benjamin emphasized the youth need to have contact and dialogue. Mark Zaicik, a fourteen year old student at the Sholom Alechim School in Vilnius, Lithuania, stated that the use of social media can improve the interaction between youth but that he hopes to see more personal interaction between Jewish and non-Jewish youth in Lithuanian.

The Sunflower Project is planning a youth exchange and leadership program run by Initiatives in Education. The exchange program will invite Jewish and non-Jewish youth based in Lithuania, Israel, South Africa and America to travel and then continue interaction with each other upon return.

In addition, Ina Navazelskis of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. spoke of her upcoming trip to Lithuania for the third such conference for Lithuanian teachers to learn how to teach about the Holocaust in Lithuania

Minister Kacinskas noted the need for interaction between the Jewish and non-Jewish communities of Lithuania. He emphasized that the needed dialogue should be at the grassroots level of people, not between governments. Diana Dvidutis, President of the Lithuanian American Committee of Washington DC agreed that the focus should be on the commonalities we share and the future.

The issues facing Lithuania are similar to the challenges facing Estonia and Latvia. Two individuals from the Baltic States are members of the think-tank and brought a regional perspective to the group. Adir Aronovich, an attorney, gave a brief history of the evolution of the Jewish community within Estonia. Karl Altau, managing director of the Baltic American National Committee, reported that the need to education and improve accurate information to the people living in the Baltic region.

The think tank concept will be replicated in Vilnius, Tel Aviv and Cape Town, South Africa.
The Sunflower Project is planning monthly meetings, dialogues in various communities, cultural events, and the restoration of cemetery sites in Lithuania and most importantly, the exchange of ideas. People to People!

For more information or to participate, please contact Harley Felstein at harleyfelstein@yahoo.com