In commemoration of the National Holocaust Remembrance Day
In commemoration of the National Holocaust Remembrance Day
For more than decade on September 23th (The National Holocaust Remembrance Day in Lithuania) the International Commission for evaluation of the crimes of the Nazi and Soviet occupation regimes in Lithuania invites Lithuanian educational institutions, students and teachers to participate in the civic initiative “The Memory Road” to retrace the memory of numerous Lithuanian Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust. In more than 200 places of Lithuania students walk from town centers there Jews use to live to the mass killing sites, retracing the path of the victims killed during the Holocaust.
While preparing for the commemoration the students research history of the local Jewish communities by collecting information about the people, their customs, traditions, their way of life. On their path to the memorial sites students carry stones with the names of Jewish victims found during their research. The stones with the names are intended to be a reminder about the people killed during the Holocaust and respect for Jewish tradition. At the memorial sites participants hold commemoration ceremonies and read out the names of the murdered victims of the Holocaust.
Each year more than 200 schools and more than 10 000 students participate in these commemoration events. Since the introduction of this initiative more than 100 000 participants attended these commemoration marches.
The civic initiative “The Memory Road” is annually organized by the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.
