National Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorated at the Embassy
25 September 2017. The Lithuanian Embassy in the UK hosted the National Holocaust Remembrance evening. The event is held annually by the Embassy and brings the representatives of the UK’s Jewish, Lithuanian and British communities together to pay tribute to the victims of the Shoah in Lithuania.
This year the Commemoration included a screening of the documentary “Sisters” (co-directors Lilija Kopač & Danutė Selčinskaja; 2016) which was followed by a discussion with its main hero violinist Danutė Pomerancaitė - Mazurkevich, a Holocaust survivor miraculously rescued from the Kaunas ghetto in 1942 by a Lithuanian Petrauskai family. The documentary tells Danute Pomerancaite – Mazurkevich’s escape story and depicts how she found herself in the family of Kipras and Elena Petrauskas and what impact they made on her illustrious life.
“Coming to terms with one of the darkest pages of our history was never going to be easy but Lithuania has successfully solved a number of complex post-Holocaust issues. It is our moral obligation to preserve the sacred memory of the Shoah victims and pass it on to the future generations”, the Lithuanian Ambassador Renatas Norkus said.
The diplomat also noted that the successive Lithuanian governments have attached a great importance to Holocaust remembrance and implemented a wide range of national and international projects raising public awareness of the scale of the tragedy of Lithuanian Jews.
The Commemoration at the Embassy was also attended by Kipras Šimulynas, the grandson of the Righteous Among the Nations Petrauskai family and Kamilė Rupeikaitė, Deputy Director at the Vilna The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum who is also the granddaughter of ‘righteous gentile’ Balys Simonavičius.
A commemorative speech on behalf of the Board of Deputies of British Jews was delivered by the Vice-Chair of its International division Edwin Shuker. Rabbi Hershel Gluck performed the traditional candle-lighting ceremony in memory of the victims of Shoah in Lithuania.
The Victims of the Holocaust in Lithuania are traditionally commemorated on September 23rd . On that day in 1943 the Nazis wiped out the Vilnius Ghetto. The action marked the beginning of the end of the Shoah in Lithuania. The Kaunas and Šiauliai Ghettos were liquidated in the summer of 1944.
Photography by Deivaras Kaleininkas
