Every September, the International Commission invites general education institutions of Lithuania to commemorate the Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews on September 23rd. The commemoration of the Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews has been initiated by the International Commission in cooperation with Tolerance Education Centres for more than a decade. And since 2012, educational institutions, as well as the Lithuanian society, have been invited to join the civic initiative “The memory path”. This initiative is an invitation for teachers and pupils to remember a huge number of Lithuanian Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust, to walk together the path to the massacre sites, taken by the Jews on their last journey. There are more than 200 sites like this in Lithuania. This initiative unites from 100 to 150 general education institutions every year.
Schools are suggested not only to visit the places of massacres, but also to conduct lessons, excursions, where students would learn about the history of the Jewish community living in the area, the traditions, and the remaining cultural heritage. This aims at creating the possibility for the pupils not only to know about the Holocaust tragedy, but also about the large Jewish community, which lived in Lithuania, about the city of Vilnius, called “The North Jerusalem”. We seek to raise awareness in the society that the Holocaust is not only a Jewish tragedy, but also the loss of Lithuania as a whole – the loss comprises our intellectual, cultural, political and economic potential of our country.