Remarks Made by prof. Jonathan Dorfan at the Dedication of the Memorial Wall for the 2400 Jews Murdered on August 8, 1941. Astravas Grave, Pakamponys Forest, Lithuania. June 16, 2019.
Ambassador Maimon, Ambassador Yamasaki, Ambassador SHEN Zhifei, Lithuania parlament members Zingeris, Rinkevičius, Šimas, Mayor Jareckas, members of the Birzai Jewish Culture and History Society, descendants of the Birzh Jewish community, ladies, gentlemen and children. It is my great honor and privilege to address you today as we dedicate the Memorial to the 2400 Jewish citizens of Birzai who were brutally murdered at this site on Friday August 8, 1941.
This is a momentous day in the long and storied history of the town of Birzai: a day in which its citizenry pay homage to its once thriving Jewish community. A community that had lived harmoniously with their Lithuanian brethren for 300 years. It marks the start of educating the youth about what has been missing in their history books for nearly 80 years. The 60 Jewish descendants here today commend this town for overcoming this silence by endorsing, so fully, a celebration of their Jewish past. It is unfathomable that in the shelter of this tranquil, beautiful forest, such horror, such atrocity, such finality was wrought against 2400 innocent souls. Half the town snuffed out in a single day; eliminated solely because they were Jews. Our daughter Rachel, in her poem titled Birzai, expressed it thusly:
“And can you imagine a warm day in August when the men were given shovels?
Forced to dig massive ditches that they knewwould hold their wives and children as soon as they were finished?
How slowly would you dig up that earth?
How gingerly would you pile the soil?”
And Rachel ends the poem with:
“Fellowship had not saved them — shot in the back…….in a town they called home.”
Jews, both Rabbinic and Karaite, began coming to Lithuania as early as the 1300s. In contrast to the persecution suffered across Europe during the Crusades, the Jews who migrated to Lithuania experienced religious, social and economic tolerance. During his 1392-1430 rule, Vytautas the Great established a charter of legal rights for Jews that fostered their economic growth and established personal and religious security. This umbrella of tolerance continued in large measure during most of the period until the onset of Tsarist Russian rule in 1795.
Jews began arriving in Birzai in the early 1600s, made welcome by the benevolent and egalitarian attitudes of the governing Radziwill family. By the mid-1700s, there were 1000 Jews in Birzai, by the end of the 19th century 2500. Shielded from the prejudices of the rest of Europe, the Jewish community thrived in Lithuania. Yet the same scenario that played out here in 1941 befell 200 Lithuanian Shtetlach and towns – a vibrant population which numbered 220,000 Jews before the 1941 Nazi invasion reduced to less than 10,000 by 1944. We honored, earlier today, the courageous Birzai citizens who sheltered and saved Jews during the Nazi occupation with a tree-planting ceremony at the site of the 1941 ghetto. We applaud that the Lithuanian government has banned British Holocaust denier David Irving’s entry. We take great comfort from the September 25, 2017 words of Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis who said, and I quote: “All of us together are witnesses to the tragedy of the Jewish people, which is a tragedy of our entire nation. This is the blackest page in our history. We must speak openly and bravely about the fact that together with the Nazis our local murderers participated in this blood curdling crime. ….. So, we must do everything in our power that it never happens again.” end quote.
Indeed, this cannot be allowed to happen again — never again. Yet antisemitism is sharply on the rise, nowhere more evidently than in Europe. A chilling May 21 expose in the NYT entitled “The New German Antisemitism” states that antisemitic crimes in Germany increased by nearly 20 percent last year to 1,799, while violent antisemitic crimes rose by about 86 percent. According to the Anti- Defamation League, the U.S. Jewish community experienced near-historic levels of antisemitism in 2018, including a doubling of antisemitic assaults and the deadliest attack in American history, killing 11 congregants as they observed shabbat services in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Anti-ethnic, white-supremacist rhetoric and behavior from politicians and citizenry alike, often goes unchallenged by government leaders, thereby empowering a hitherto hidden, dangerously large, portion of their electorate that support such views. In an interview several weeks ago with Christiane Amanpour, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated: “There is to this day not a single Synagogue, not a single daycare center for Jewish children, not a single school for Jewish children that does not need to be guarded by German policeman.” She went on to state that Germany must face up to “the specters of our past” and “we have to tell our young people what history has wrought over us….”. The lesson from Germany, it would seem, is that too little attention was paid to educating the post-war German generations such that antisemitism was not eradicated, but rather allowed to lay dormant. Which brings us back to what we commemorate today and the important role that it must play in ensuring never again.
Enough cannot be said of the vision, the bravery, and the dedicated leadership of Vidmantas and Merunas Jukonis in initiating and achieving the recall and celebration of Birzai’s Jewish community. Additionally, we are most grateful for: the unstinting support from the local government, whose Council voted unanimously to erect this Monument; the efforts of Edita Lansbergiene and Emilija Raibužytė-Kalninienė from the Museum; the skill and dedication of Edgar Mendelevich; and the support of the staff from many Birzai city services. And equally essential has been the partnering by the Birzh Jewish descendants: the vision, wisdom and generosity of Ben Rabinowitz in South Africa, the remarkable leadership and energy of Abel and Glenda Levitt from Israel, the architectural and engineering skill of Joe Rabie from France, to mention but a few.The result of the Birzai Jewish Culture and History Society’s work – namely the Memorial, the Tolerance Center that will educate future generations, the large section of the city museum that will be dedicated to Jewish history, the translation of key documents – this work must become an example to the other 200 Lithuanian towns, their municipalities and their descendant Jewish communities that by accomplishing what has been established here in Birzai is perhaps the strongest way that they can ensure never again. עושה שָׁלום בִּמְרומָיו הוּא יַעֲשה שָׁלום עָלֵינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשרָאֵל וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵןHe who makes peace in his high holy places, may he bring peace upon us, and upon all Israel; and let us say Amen.
Remarks Made by prof. Jonathan Dorfan at the Dedication of the Memorial Wall for the 2400 Jews Murdered on August 8, 1941Astrava Grove, Pakamponys Forest, Lithuania. June 16, 2019.