This year, 15 March fell on a Saturday, and Lithuanian general education institutions decided to observe the day from 13 to 21 March.
The Tolerance Education Centres in Lithuania organized a number of activities: meetings with relatives of the Jewish rescuers, lectures about the Jewish rescuers, film screenings, excursions, and quizzes prepared by teachers. The commemorations were organized by 59 Lithuanian educational institutions in various places throughout Lithuania.
The first commemoration of the Day of Rescuers of Lithuanian Jews took place in Vilnius on March 13 at the Vilnius Choral Synagogue. The commemoration – which honours people who resisted Nazi policies and risked their lives and the lives of others – was organized by the Lithuanian Jewish Community. The event featured a series of stories about the rescue of a Jewish child and family, a granddaughter of the Righteous Among the Nations, and a woman who was rescued as a little girl during the Holocaust.
The next commemoration in Vilnius took place on March 15. An exhibition about the Jewish rescuers, prepared by architect Tauras Budzys and his daughter Barbora, was opened on Bokšto Street. The exhibition highlighted those Jewish rescuers whose graves were marked with a special Jewish rescuers’ marker designed by architect Tauras.
The main national commemoration of the Day of Jewish Rescuers took place in Vilnius on March 17 at Vilnius University, in the courtyard named after Ona Šimaitė. The event was attended by politicians, diplomats, representatives of the Lithuanian Jewish community, descendants of the Jewish rescuers, and students and teachers from three centres for tolerance education: the Ariogala and Kaunas Juozas Grušas Art High School and the Druskininkai “Atgimimas” School. Those who came to Vilnius from the Tolerance Education Centres not only took part in the official commemoration, but also had an intensive educational program for the whole day: they visited the exposition of the Vilnius Gaon Museum of Jewish History “Museum of Litvak Identity”, got acquainted with an exhibition dedicated to the rescuers of the Jews, and had a guided tour of Vilnius University.
To read about the Lithuanian Jewish Rescuers’ Day events held in other towns, in Tolerance Education Centers, see Tolerance Education Centers News.
Moments from the commemoration in Vilnius:
