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The annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust was designated by the United Nations and is marked by a number of various events in Vilnius. Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Neris Germanas will open an exhibition of photographs “The Litvak Heritage in Belarus” at the Jewish Culture and Information Centre on 28 January.

In 2005, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution urging peoples of the world to develop educational programmes to instil the memory in future generations to prevent the horrible tragedy of Holocaust from occurring again.

“As we bend our heads today before the victims of the Holocaust, we need to ask ourselves what we have done and what we can do to prevent the terrible tragedy of Holocaust from occurring again,” the Lithuanian Foreign Vice-Minister said.

The exhibition of photographs “The Litvak Heritage in Belarus” provides a spotlight on the latest research of the Jewish heritage of Lithuania and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The research was carried out under the Development Cooperation Programme of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 2006, professors and students from Vilnius Academy of Arts and the Belarusian State University have been preparing an inventory of documents and buildings of former synagogues in Belarus, hoping that the rich Litvak heritage will not be forgotten. The project headed by Dr Jūratė Markevičienė, lecturer at Vilnius Academy of Arts, was launched on the initiative of the Jewish Culture and Information Centre.