Lithuania’s Foreign Vice-Minister: through commemorating the Holocaust victims we are tearing down walls of intolerance
On 23 September Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Mantvydas Bekešius, alongside leaders of the state, members of the Seimas, the representatives of the Jewish Community of Lithuania and of foreign diplomatic missions, attended the ceremony in Paneriai to honour the memory of the genocide victims of Lithuanian Jews.
“Noticeable positive changes in recent years show that Lithuania’s society has become increasingly aware of the heavy losses and pain suffered by Lithuanian Jews. On the 23rd of September we are not only commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, but we are also tearing down the walls of intolerance. Losses of our fellow citizens are losses for each of us, and a tragedy for the whole of Lithuania,” said M.Bekešius.
The 23rd of September is the National Memorial Day for the Genocide Victims of the Lithuanian Jews since 1994. The Vilna Ghetto was liquidated on 23 September 1943. The ghettos in Kaunas and Šiauliai were liquidated in 1944. By September 1943 only about 2,000 Jews remained in Vilnius. In 1941, the Jewish population was about 57,000.
On the same day at the Ministry of Culture, the Foreign Vice-Minister M.Bekešius participated in a press conference, during which Jonathan Brent, Executive Director at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, presented an international project to preserve, digitize and virtually reunite YIVO’s pre-war archives located in New York City and Vilnius.
Photos: Ilona Shilenkova (Paneriai)/ Dainius Labutis/ELTA (press conference)
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