On 19 September, a Road of Memory event was held in Vilnius to commemorate the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews.
The commemoration began in Vilnius’ Old Town, at Rūdninkų Square. This site is historically linked to the Vilnius ghetto and its liquidation in 1943. The event opened with the sounds of the shofar. Ronaldas Račinskas, the event host, addressed the gathering: “Not so long ago, before World War II, before the Jewish New Year – Rosh ha Shanah – people could hear such joyful sounds of the shofar horn in Vilnius.” Members of the Prabudimo orchestra, who played the shofar, invited participants to be solemn and contemplative. More than 500 attendees then joined a procession from Rūdninkų Square to the Vilnius railway station. From there, all travelled by train to Paneriai. In Paneriai, the participants processed again, following the Road of Memory to the Holocaust Victims Memorial.
The commemoration at the Paneriai Memorial began with students from the Saulėtekis School, a multifunctional centre in Vilnius, performing the song ‘Jerusalem’. Emanuelis Zingeris, Chairman of the International Commission and a signatory of the Act of Independence, and Michel Gourary, Head of the March of the Living, emphasized the importance of understanding history and the personal experiences of one’s family during the Holocaust. Shimon Pesach, the Deputy Ambassador of Israel, delivered a speech on historical memory and the importance of remembering what happened during the Holocaust. Rugilė Lincevičiūtė, a student at Kaunas Veršvų Gymnasium, read an excerpt from Grigorijus Kanovičius’s work Candles in the Wind, adding a touching note to the event.
During the commemoration, Ronaldas Račinskas, Executive Director of the International Commission, quoted Marija Rolnikaitė, a former Vilnius ghetto prisoner, who spoke about the victims of the Holocaust more than 30 years ago: ‘Never forget that their lives were taken away by the hatred of some people towards others. Resist this hatred, whatever form it takes and whatever excuses are given for it, so that we will no longer have to commemorate such anniversaries…’
As students from the Vilnius Saulėtekio School and Multifunctional Centre performed the Vilnius ghetto partisans’ anthem, ‘Zog Nit Keyn Mol’, participants in the commemoration were invited to place stones decorated by the students at the monument to the victims of the Holocaust.
The commemoration of the victims of the genocide of Lithuanian Jews took place before 23 September in Vilnius because 22–23 September this year is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. Approximately 550 students and teachers from Ariogala, Balbieriškis, Elektrėnai, Ignalina district, Vidiškiai, Grigiškės, Kaunas, Kėdainiai, Marijampolė, Lentvaris, Radviliškis, Ukmergė, and Vilnius participated in the commemoration event in Vilnius. Alongside the large educational community, members of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania attended the event, including Ingrida Šimonytė, Paulė Kuzmickienė, and Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė. Representatives from the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs were also present, as were diplomats from the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany in Lithuania.
The ‘Road of Memory’ event, which took place from Rūdninkų Square to Paneriai, was organised by the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, in collaboration with the European March of the Living organisation.
