On January 23, with International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaching, an exhibition of photographs titled “Return to Kaunas” by Michael Shubitz, a descendant of Litvaks, was opened at the Seimas. The exhibition commemorates those Kaunas ghetto prisoners who managed to survive the Holocaust. The exhibition was initiated by Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas and the Chair of the International Commission, Seimas member and signatory of the Act of Independence Emanuelis Zingeris.
During the opening, speeches were delivered by the author, Michael Shubitz, who traveled to Lithuania from Israel; Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas; Chair of the International Commission Emanuelis Zingeris; Israeli Ambassador Shelly Hugler Livne; Japanese Ambassador Shimizu Shinsuke; acting director of the Vilnius Gaon Jewish History Museum Ieva Šadzevičienė; and public figure Daumantas Todesas. The choir of Vilnius Sholom Aleichem ORT Gymnasium performed the Jewish partisan ghetto anthem “Never Say,” and a student from the same school poignantly read Abraham Sutzkever’s poem “Shoes.”
