2011: Year of the Memory of Holocaust Victims in Lithuania

Maria Zawadzka, 16 November 2016
In 2011 Lithuania will celebrate the Year of the Memory of Holocaust Victims. The Lithuanian government approved the schedule of the celebrations commemorating the Jews killed during the Second World War, as well as the Lithuanians who rescued Jews.

A rich and diverse program has been prepared. The subject of the Holocaust will be debated during events such as exhibitions, conferences and educational projects.

Through the Year of the Memory of Holocaust Victims the government of this country wants to present the 600 years of the history of Lithuanian Jews and their cultural heritage, which was almost completely destroyed during the war.

The Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ażubalis, while presenting the program of the celebrations of the Year of the Memory of Holocaust Victims to foreign diplomats, expressed the hope that “this program will help to spread tolerance throughout Lithuania”.

In a special resolution passed by the Lithuanian Sejm, we can read: “The tragedy of the Lithuanian Jews during the Nazi occupation is also a tragic part of our common history”. The extermination of Jews , committed by “the Nazis and collaborators in Lithuania” was condemned, and a “fight with any manifestations of anti-Semitism” was announced.

Between 1941 and 1944 in the Ponary forest near Vilnius took place mass murders, committed by SS troops, the German police and the Lithuanian police, collaborating with the invader. The Germans, supported by voluntary Lithuanian troops, murdered about 100 thousand people.

About 70 thousand Jews died in Ponary, as well as Poles – intelligentsia from Vilnius and soldiers of the Home Army – Gypsies, Russians and Lithuanians.