2019

Commemorating Holocaust Day in Vilkaviskis September 2019
Below is the English text of the composition created by the Vilkaviskis teacher Mrs. Vaida Kriščiūnienė. I trust that like me you will find this a very moving document.
Composition "Counted Stars"
Commemoration Day of Victims of Genocide in Lithuania (September 23)
Composer Vaida Kriščiūnienė
Background music : Introduction; SCHINDLER'S LIST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWrt0m-cOkU

At this point, the students step forward.
Two young people are talking
?- What's next
- Then we buy a dog and get married
- ? And after
- Let's build a house and have children
- ?And after
- I know what will happen to after sooner or later. Then there will be a pogrom. Then the barber will shave the men, the women will be raped and the children will be killed the. Here's such a traditionally inevitable European pogrom]]
?- So why did we come back, why did we voluntarily go under the knife, , under the boot
- For one reason: we just had nowhere to go except for that PASSPORT, PASSPORT, PASSPORT ...
The sounds of gunshots in the distance are heard. The girl and the boy move away from each other, waving a hand, waving goodbye.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWrt0m-cOkU
There are 2 girls (daughter and mother) coming to the front. They chat, collect the dolls, Rachel, lay down in the stroller and close your eyes.
The city has not yet woken. We will still be able to leave. No one will see us
Morning is coming the blue bluebells are flowering and a dog is leaping . Gather me, Rachel, from the horns of the bridle,
Right now, I didn't wake up - you stayed asleep, baby
,You stayed, only you stayed ……….
.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWrt0m-cOkU
..Students come to the front.
Why did you sell me for 30 silver? (together)
Didn't we eat one slice?
Didn't we drink from one pitcher?
We were just ordinary people and now we are just numbers!
SELL, SELL, SELL ... (all together)
Why did you sell me for thirty pieces of silver? (together)
Is your heart black like tar?
Do the stinging snakes on your lips burn?
Are your hands colder than everlasting ice?
Why did you sell me for thirty pieces of silver? (together)
And standing you are not like a man
Desperate to lay on the ground and fire
And the words fall - dark as the earth,
And heavy as earth...
Why did you sell me for thirty pieces of silver? (together)

. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWrt0m-cOkU
Reading deleted from the book "Saved in a Potato Bag"
":
Smuggled in Potato Sacks
Edited by Solomon Abramovich and Yakov Zilberg
Smuggled in Potato Sacks is a collection of stories compiled by Holocaust survivors Ariela Abramovich Sef and Ilana Kamber-Ash, both born in the Kovno Ghetto and hidden during the Holocaust. Inspired to preserve their own stories as well as those of other children who had been rescued, they collected as many testimonies as they could find, and in the end, put together this book with fifty stories of hidden children from the Kovno Ghetto.

I'm Kama Ginko. I remember my mom saying that when I was six weeks old, Hitler came to kill me.
Hitler killed 6 million Jews. 35,000 of them are buried at Kaunas IX Fort. Hitler killed grandmother Lizzie, grandfather Abraham, uncle Chess. But he failed to kill me even though I was only six weeks old. I live so far ... grateful to the people who saved me ...

I'm Yakov Taft. I remember my parents telling them that my grandparents were burnt alive in front of the Great Campaign. My parents saw that horror and couldn't help. I was very sick. We did not expect help from anywhere.
The Great Campaign began - we were sent to die, and then my mother turned to a German officer to beg her to take care of the dying child. Apparently, the prayers affected the German and he pushed his mother towards the survivors. It's hard to understand, but a German who condemned us to death gave us a second chance to live.

I'm Ada Feldstein. My parents told me I was a baby when World War II began. Only later, while living in the ghetto, do I remember how poor our lives were, I barely died from pneumonia. During the Children's Action, I was asleep and hidden in a hiding place. I was cared for by the nuns of Pažaislis Monastery. So I got a second chance to survive ...

I'm Volodia Kac. I was secretly taken out of the ghetto suitcase. I was accepted by the priest. When I was in danger, I was handed over to Doctor Baubli, who rescued many Jewish children under the direction of an orphanage. I bow my head against this wonderful man ...
History is history -
Not dry yellows, not marbles,
History is inscribed in the human heart-
Her memory, her hope,
All betrayals, triumphs, crowns, echoes, conclaves, hangman's arm tag -
Everything in the tiny, infinite human heart,
To the heart that beats under your palm.

I pray the names of the people who hid and rescued Jewish children during the fascist occupation.
As a prayer, I speak the names of those people, familiar or unfamiliar, ever seen or never seen, who, in all of Lithuania, cities and towns, villages and churches, in spite of brutal terror, saved the condemned to die.
As a prayer, I repeat the names of the people who, in various European countries affected by the brown plague, have extended the hand of help and friendship, the life and bread-carrying hand of those who were to be destroyed spiritually and physically.
We will never forget. Not only out of gratitude, but also out of responsibility