Wednesday 10 October – Sydney Jewish Museum – lunchtime
The Partisans’ Song, written by Hirsh Glik, age 22, in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943, is one of the most powerful songs of resistance and defiance ever written.
Pope honours victims of Holocaust, Soviet terror in Lithuania
Pope honours victims of Holocaust, Soviet terror in Lithuania
Pope Francis on Sunday paid homage to Holocaust victims who perished in the Vilnius ghetto, 75 years to the day after the Nazis liquidated it, and remembered those who risked and lost their lives to challenge the Soviet regime in Lithuania.
Who Are Lithuania’s Heroes Today? Å kirpa, Noreika or the Righteous Gentiles?
Who Are Lithuania’s Heroes Today? Å kirpa, Noreika or the Righteous Gentiles?
Former ghetto prisoners, members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, members of international Jewish organizations, ambassadors from Israel and other countries
The Vilna Ghetto[a] was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the territory of Nazi-administered Reichskommissariat Ostland.[1] During the some two years of its existence, starvation, disease, street executions, maltreatment, and deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps reduced the Ghetto’s population from an estimated 40,000 to zero. Only several hundred people managed to survive, mostly by hiding in the forests surrounding the city, joining Soviet partisans,[2][3] or sheltering with sympathetic locals.
Official Opening “I Am My Brother’s Keeper” Exhibition
Official Opening “I Am My Brother’s Keeper” Exhibition
Join us at the opening of the exhibition to be launched by the Premier, the Hon. Mark McGowan MLA. This exhibition profiles some of the heroes, titled “The Righteous Among the Nations”, who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. The multimedia exhibition heightens awareness and understanding of the human capacity for good by inspiring a proactive community of upstanders rather than bystanders.
Jewish settlement in the Japanese Empire – Wikipedia
Shortly prior to and during World War II, and coinciding with the Second Sino-Japanese War, tens of thousands of Jewish refugees were resettled in the Japanese Empire. The onset of the European war by Nazi Germany involved the lethal mass persecutions and genocide of Jews, later known as the Holocaust, resulting in thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing east. Many ended up in Japanese-occupied China.
In August of this year, an article appeared on the website of the Lithuanian municipality of Kėdainiai, under the headline: “With a minute of silence, Kėdainiai met Tel Aviv.” The text described an annual event, begun only a few years ago, commemorating the extermination of Kedainiai’s Jewish community on August 28, 1941, during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania.
At precisely 18:30, local leaders and others observed a minute of silence – while at that same moment, in Israel, descendants of that vanished Jewish community, who called their home Keidan, were doing the same thing.
Two simultaneous ceremonies – one at the hall of the association of the Vilna Jews in Tel Aviv, the other by the mass grave where more than 2,000 Keidan Jews were murdered 77 years earlier.
Such commemorations are a longstanding tradition in Israel, home to thousands of Jews who trace their families to Lithuania. But in Lithuania itself this is relatively new, and still uncommon, tradition. Kėdainiai’s annual observance began several years ago, and has grown each year. This year it was led by Saulius Grinkevičius, mayor of the municipality, and Rimantas Žirgulis, director of the regional museum. The participants included two mayor’s deputies, the heads of local cultural and educational institutions, members of the administration and museum workers, school teachers and other Kėdainiai citizens. A local television station broadcast the ceremony.
The event reflects an important recent change in public consciousness and attitude. To a significant degree, Lithuanians are confronting their country’s painful past. This is reflected in the media, in increased research into local Jewish history and culture, and in the restoration of sites related to Lithuania’s former Jewish communities. In Kėdainiai, the regional museum and its director have played an important role, as have teachers such as Laima Ardavičieneof the Kėdainiai Atžalynas gymnasium, or secondary school. As it was often in the past, Kėdainiai is providing leadership and serving as a role model for other communities in Lithuania.
Supporting those efforts going forward is a recently published English translation of the Keidan yizkor book – a volume of memoirs, historical accounts and other material gathered from survivors and descendants of the Jewish community after World War II. Originally published mostly in Hebrew and Yiddish in 1977, the book offers a multi-faceted view of Jewish life in Keidan – its history, its religious, educational, social and cultural institutions, youth organizations, portraits of its prominent people, recollections of witnesses and survivors before, during and after the Holocaust.
Cover of the Keidan Memorial (Yizkor) Book, recently translated into English. Edited by Aryeh Leonard Shcherbakov aryeh.shcherbakov@gmail.comand Andrew Cassel awcassel@gmail.com of the Keidan Associations of Israel and the U.S.; published by David Solly Sandler sedsand@iinet.net.auin Perth, Australia. The book is obtainable from any of the three above mentioned
Photos of Commemoration in Kedainiai – 28 August 2018
A section of the memorial erected in 2011 at the site of the Jews’ massacre near Kedainiai. Names of the victims were recorded as cutouts in the metal sheet.
At the site of the 28 August 1941 massacre of Kedainiai’s Jews. Mayor Saulius Grinkevičius lays flowers, while Rimantas Žirgulis (in white shirt) observes.
Local students and media participated in the commemoration.
Laima Ardavičiene, a teacher at the Kėdainiai Atžalynas gymnasium, records the event.
With some fun lovlng Aussies and one Emirates hostess on her way to work!
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Wilanow
Just outside Warsaw – with my hosts, Michael Ruth Leiserowitz, and their other house guest – Ralph Salinger from Israel.
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Wilanow Palace
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Wilanów Palace – Wikipedia
Wilanów Palace – Wikipedia
Wilanów Palace or Wilanowski Palace (Polish: pałac w Wilanowie, Polish pronunciation: [ˈpawat͡s vvilaˈnɔvjɛ]) is a royal palace located in the Wilanów district, Warsaw. Wilanów Palace survived Poland’s partitions and both World Wars, and so serves as a reminder of the culture of the Polish state as it was before the misfortunes of the 18th century.
So you think you know Warsaw off-by-heart? Then impress that special someone with a romantic safari around the heart(s) of the city… Mostek Zakochanych ul. Przyczółkowa 394 Unveiled in 2012, this dinky 12-meter bridge is best enjoyed at night when fully illuminated. Having snapped your own love lock to the…
The Choral Synagogue of Vilnius (Lithuanian: Vilniaus choralinė sinagoga) is the only synagogue in Vilnius that is still in use. The other synagogues were destroyed partly during World War II, when Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany, and partly by the Soviet authorities after the war.
Vilniaus žydų viešoji biblioteka – vienintelė Žydų kultūros sklaidoje besispecializuojanti biblioteka visoje Lietuvoje.Our library is the only one in Lithuania which specifies in spreading Jewish culture in various forms
The Jerusalem of Lithuania: The Story of the Jewish Community of Vilna
The Jerusalem of Lithuania: The Story of the Jewish Community of Vilna
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On the eve of the Shoah the Jewish community of Vilna was the spiritual centre of Eastern European Jewry, the centre of enlightenment and Jewish political life, of Jewish creativity and the experience of daily Jewish life, a community bursting with cultural and religious life, movements and parties, educational institutions, libraries and theatres; a community of rabbis and gifted Talmudic scholars, intellectuals, poets, authors, artists, craftspeople and educators. In the Jewish world it was known as “The Jerusalem of Lithuania” – a spiritual centre of the first order.
Focus on Judaic Documentary Heritage at the National Library on the Last Day of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Visit to Lithuania – Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania
Focus on Judaic Documentary Heritage at the National Library on the Last Day of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Visit to Lithuania – Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania
Nacionalinė kultūros įstaiga, kaupianti, organizuojanti ir sauganti rašytinį Lietuvos kultūros paveldą, formuojanti Lietuvos mokslui, švietimui, kultūrai ir ūkiui aktualių Lietuvos ir užsienio dokumentų fondą bei teikianti bibliotekinio informacinio aprūpinimo paslaugas visuomenei.