LITHUANIA’S OFFICIALS PAY RESPECT TO THE VICTIMS OF JEWISH GENOCIDE
On 21 September, Lithuania’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė paid tribute to the Jewish victims of genocide. During a solemn ceremony, the Vice-Minister laid a wreath at the Memorial for the victims of the Holocaust in Aukštieji Paneriai.
Speaker of the Seimas Irena Degutienė, Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of Lithuania’s parliament Emanuelis Zingeris, Minister of Culture Arūnas Gelūnas, foreign ambassadors, and other Lithuanian officials also took part in the commemoration.
Participants of the ceremony observed a one-minute silence in memory of the victims of the Jewish genocide. Another highlight of the event was when people brought to the monument the stones that had been gathered during a civil initiative “Every human has a name”, thus memorializing names of the Jewish people that had lived in Lithuania and had been killed.
The ceremony in Aukštieji Paneriai was co-organized by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Defence, and the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania.
A ceremony honouring the victims of Lithuanian Jewish Holocaust was also held at Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem.
On 20 September, during the ceremony organized by Lithuania’s Embassy in Israel and the Association of Vilna and Vilna Vicinity Jews in Israel, Lithuania’s ambassador to Israel Darius Degutis laid a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem and observed a one-minute silence in tribute to Holocaust victims.
Litvak choir “Vilnius” performed songs in Yiddish at the event.
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