Civic initiative “The Memory Road”

This event invites to walk together to massacre sites of the Jews, remembering the eliminated Lithuanian citizens – the Jews, who lived and created the state of Lithuania. In Vilnius “The Memory Road” initiative will start at 12.30 – a march from Paneriai Railway Station to Paneriai Memorial. The participants of the initiative “The Memory Road” will read out the names of Holocaust victims at the Paneriai event. This year, we will refer to the 75th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius ghetto. Similar events will be held throughout Lithuania.

Participants of “The Memory Road” are invited to bring stones with the names of the victims of the Holocaust and to shape a name of a particular city, a town (shtetl) in Lithuanian and Yiddish in the places of massacre. This will be an action of memory for innocent victims, the destruction of Jewish communities, their language and customs.

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 since 2004. This initiative unites 100-150 general education institutions every year and there are 150-200 sites of massacre visited.

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, having resided 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 the country.