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On 17 July at the opening ceremony of the renewed tragedy memorial in Kaušėnai village, Plungė region, Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė noted that preservation of remembrance of victims of the Holocaust promoted traditions and spiritual values.

“The remembrance of the Holocaust is necessary to us, the living and to our children, and grandchildren. It is necessary that we preserve what should be sacred to every person, regardless of their nationality or religion. This is respect and love to one another, to our homeland, history, traditions and spiritual values ​​of mankind,” Vice-Minister A.Skaisgirytė Liauškienė said during the 70th anniversary of the massacre of the Jews in Kaušėnai.

According to the Vice-Minister, the dead cannot be brought back to life, but we can always find ways to remember and honor them.

“It is impossible to bring back to life the Holocaust victims, but their memory qualms our conscience. And, therefore, I believe that it is possible to preserve the remembrance of victims of the Holocaust, which is necessary not only for the dead to rest in peace, but also to us,” emphasized A.Skaisgirytė Liauškienė.

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the massacre of the Jews in Kaušėnai, a Memory Wall was built with names of all the victims of July 1941 inscribed on it. 1800 bricks of the demolished synagogue in Plungė were used for the construction of the Wall – a brick for each murdered Jew.

The unveiling ceremony of the Memory Wall to honor Jews who were killed in Plungė was also attended by relatives of the victims who survived the Holocaust, the delegation of the Seimas (Parliament) of Lithuania and representatives from the Embassies of Japan, Germany, the United States of America, Israel and other countries.

In 1952, the monument was erected in Kaušėnai and in 1986 the only Lithuanian folk artist of the Jewish background Yakov Bunka and six Lithuanian wood craftsmen created a memorial that annually attracts excursions and individual visitors from all over the world.

Yakov Bunka’s charity and support fund financed the memorial’s new Memory Wall.  Glenda and Abel Levitt, who now live in Israel, have been contributing to the renewal of the Holocaust Memorial in Kaušėnai and to the caring for the graves since 2000.

The sponsors sought that the site of the tragedy would be not forgotten. Therefore, they decided to renew the wooden sculptures that were erected more than two decades ago, and to give the memorial a more solid form that is also more resistant to time.