On September 23, one hundred and thirty Lithuanian educational institutions, Tolerance Development Centres, museums and other educational institutions joined a civic initiative “Memory Road“ which has been held for four years. School communities visited the sights of Jewish massacre, read names of killed Jews, teachers shared stories on Jews before WWII as well appalling massacre of their communities.
The Secretoriat of the International Commission has been initiating the civic initiative “Memory Road“ since 2013. This commemoration has become a tradition- teachers and students give live History lessons, hold events in commemoration as well as they visit sights of Jews mass massacre in different places of Lithuania, on September 23.
A ceremony to honour the victims of Lithuanian Jewish genocide was held on September 23rd, on the Remembrance Day of the Victims of the Jews Genocide in Lithuania. More than two hundred students from ten schools in Vilnius and from Tolerance Development Centre in Varėna “Ąžuolas“ gymnasium participated in the civic initiative “Memory Road“. This initiatve was aimed at going together from Paneriai Railway station to the Paneriai Memorial Complex, the same road the Jews had been marched to their ultimate trip in 1941-1944. A signatory of Independece and a chairman of the International Commission Emanuelis Zingeris in his speech claimed that it was very important to know what had happened in that place and pass on the message from generation to generation so that the appalling massacre of innocent people would never take place.
At the ceremony the topic of memory was also unfolded by the Holocaust survivor Fania Brancovskaja and other honourable people. The ceremony of the Victims of the Jews Genocide in Lithuania was closed by guests from Israel, to be more precise, choir Adam le Adam. Teachers and students who took part in the civic initiative “Memory Road“ gave their honour to the victims of the Holocaust together with official people from the Republic of Lithuania, representatives from various institutions, members of Lithuanian Jewish community, foreign ambassadors residing in Lithuania.