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The citizens of Lithuania have the second highest count of individuals per capita who have been recognised by Yad Vashem as the Lithuanian Righteous Among the Nations, for saving Jews from extermination during the Holocaust in World War II. There are As of 1 December 2022[update], 924 Lithuanian men and women bestowed with the honour.[1][2] The Lithuanian list includes not only Lithuanians, but also Polish and Russian citizens of Lithuania. The search for the righteous is ongoing but it has become increasingly difficult to find survivors who can confirm the fact of rescue and tell their story. Most of the Jews were saved by peasants as it was easier to hide them in remote farms and most rescued Jews were children as they attracted less attention. More Jews were saved in Samogitia (western Lithuania) than in other areas of Lithuania.[3] Many of the rescued Jews were helped by multiple people. For example, Glikas family (parents and five children) was helped by about twenty Lithuanian families; ten individuals were recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations in 2005.[4]
The Righteous Among the Nations award was established in 1963. Julija Vitkauskienė and Ona Šimaitė were the first Lithuanians to be awarded this title in 1966.[3] The majority of the Lithuanian rescuers, recognized as Righteous, have also received the Lithuanian State Award, the Life Saving Cross . The cross was first awarded in September 1992 and it was initiated by Vytautas Landsbergis, chairman of the Supreme Council – Reconstituent Seimas, and Emanuelis Zingeris, director of the Jewish Museum.[3]
Years | People |
---|---|
1966–1969 | 6 |
1970–1974 | 8 |
1975–1979 | 42 |
1980–1984 | 79 |
1985–1989 | 13 |
1990–1994 | 126 |
1995–1999 | 178 |
2000–2004 | 115 |
2005–2009 | 215 |
2010–2014 | 96 |
2015–2019 | 37 |
Total | 915 |
The first stories of rescuers appeared in Lithuanian press in late 1944, and Lithuanians who retreated west after the war collected questionnaires from Lithuanians in displaced persons camps in post-war Germany in 1947–1948. In total, 231 questionnaires were completed.[3] However, the Holocaust research in the Soviet Union was generally suppressed.[20] Therefore, information from these questionnaires was first published only in 1991–1992, i.e. after Lithuania declared independence in 1990.[3] A book based on these questionnaires (originals are kept at the Department of Special Collections and Archives of Kent State University) by Jonas Rimašauskas was published in 2008, almost 40 years after the author's death.[21] Sofija Binkienė compiled the first more comprehensive book on Jewish rescuers in Lithuania, Ir be ginklo kariai (Soldiers Even Without Weapons), and managed to get it published in Vilnius in 1967.[5] The book listed about 400 names of rescuers and rescued Jews.[3] In 1999, the Union of Lithuanian Canadian Journalists (Lithuanian: Kanados lietuvių žurnalistų sąjunga) published a list of rescuers and rescued Jews compiled by Antanas Gurevičius. Based on various sources, he counted 6,271 rescuers and 10,137 rescued Jews.[22] However, the book has been criticized for lax inclusion criteria.[23] For example, it includes 1,000 people who signed a petition in Raseiniai to save a Jewish family as rescuers (the petition was ignored); it also includes 2,000 Jewish children as rescued Jews based on an unsuccessful petition by women in Utena.[24]
The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum was established in 1989 and began systematic study and collection of information about the rescuers and the rescued.[23] As of 1998, it has collected information about more than 2,300 families (including 120 priests) who rescued Jews and has compiled a list of about 3,000 rescued Jews.[3] In 1997, the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum started publishing the series Gyvybę ir duoną nešančios rankos (Hands Bringing Life and Bread), which documents stories of Jewish rescue. In 2009, the fourth volume was published.[25] In 2009, the museum unveiled an exhibition "Išsigelbėjęs Lietuvos žydų vaikas pasakoja apie Šoa" (Rescued Lithuanian Jewish Child Tells about Shoa) with about 1,000 pages of text, 6,000 photos, 60 hours of visual and 5 hours of audio material. The exhibition was published as a DVD and is available online.[26] In 2011, the museum published a book with a list of 2,570 names of Lithuanians who rescued Jews.[23] In 2012, the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania published a list of rescuers that combined previously published lists by the Jewish State Museum, Gurevičius, Rimašauskas as well as the lists of those recognized as Righteous Among the Nations and awarded the Life Saving Cross to come up with a list of 3,277 names. The list was made available online.[27]
In 2018, a twelve-part documentary film series Pasaulio teisuoliai (The Righteous Among the Nations) was released by the Lithuanian National Radio and Television.[10] An exhibition "Išgelbėjęs vieną gyvybę, išgelbėja visą pasaulį" (One Who Saves One Life Saves the Entire World), a narrative of 105 stories about the rescuers, has been traveling throughout the country. In 2019, a comprehensive catalog of this exhibition was released.[28]
In October 2001, sakura trees were planted in Vilnius to honor the 100th birth anniversary of the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara.[29] In 2011, a street in Viršuliškės, a district of Vilnius, was named after Juozas Rutkauskas who saved about 150 Jews and was executed by the Nazis.[30] In 2015, a street in the Old Town of Vilnius was renamed after Ona Šimaitė.[31] In June 2018, a monument to Jan Zwartendijk (about 2,000 LED rods connected into a 7-metre (23 ft) diameter spiral) was unveiled on Laisvės alėja, Kaunas by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and President Dalia Grybauskaitė.[32] On September 21, 2018 a memorial stone was unveiled on Maironis Street in Vilnius to honor Jewish rescuers in Nazi-occupied Lithuania. The stone marks the place where a memorial to Jewish rescuers will be erected in the future.[33] In 2019, Šiauliai decided to reconstruct and dedicate a square next to the former Šiauliai Ghetto to the righteous among the nations. The construction is expected to finish in late 2020 or early 2021.[34]
Architect Tauras Budzys started a private initiative to affix memorial medallions to the tombstones of the righteous among the nations. The medallions measure 76 millimetres (3.0 in) in diameter and are made of brass. They depict two hands that symbolize help, letters A✝A and RIP (short for amžiną atilsį and rest in peace), and inscription "Righteous Among the Nations" in Lithuanian, English, and Yiddish. As of June 2019, Budzys marked about fifty graves.[35]
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