Pop's visit to Lithuania
Pope Francis visited the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—from 22 to 25 September 2018.
It was announced in November 2017 by the apostolic nuncio to Estonia that Pope Francis would travel to the nation in the autumn sometime, with September being provided as a possible date. It was further related a week after that the pope would also be visiting neighboring Latvia and Lithuania; he would travel to all three to celebrate the centenary of their independence. The official confirmation for the visit would be made, according to media reports, in December 2017. The visit to the Baltic states was confirmed in a Holy See press release on 9 March 2018.
Lithuania
In Lithuania, the pope visited Vilnius and Kaunas.
Pope Francis arrived at the airport in Lithuania's capital of Vilnius on September 22, where he was welcomed by Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite and other political and civilian representatives. He later spoke outside the Presidential palace, where he noted how both Nazi and Soviet occupations weakened religious tolerance in the country and honored "martyrs" who died during these occupations. He also called for unity between Catholics, Lutherans, and followers of Eastern Orthodox in the country. He also visited the Divine Mercy Shrine, which serves as a major pilgrimage destination for Poles from neighboring Poland, and held a prayer service there. On September 23, he visited Lithuana's second largest city, Kaunus. Speaking in the city's Santakos Park to an estimated crowd of 100,000, the Pope honored the Jews who suffered oppression during the Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1944. Commemorating the Lithuanian Holocaust Memorial Day, the Pope condemned anti-Semitism which fueled Holocaust propaganda. He also paid tribute to Lithuanians who were deported to Siberian gulags or tortured and oppressed during five decades of Soviet occupation. He later returned to Vilnius to hold three-minutes of silent prayer at the Vilnius Ghetto's Holocaust memorial on the date which marked the 75th anniversary of the liquidation of Jews in the area and also laid flowers. He afterwards visited Vilnius' Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, a Museum containing items and papers detailing the long history of Soviet oppression in Lithuania and which once served as headquarters for the local branch of the now defunct Soviet KGB, where he also spoke in the outside square to praise Lithuanians who stood up for their faith and described the country as a potential "beacon of hope."
From: Wikipedia
Pope takes part in ceremony commemorating liquidation of Vilnius Ghetto, Yossi Lempkowicz sun-sentinel 26/9/2018
Pope Francis took part in a commemoration ceremony marking 75 years since the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto.
The pontiff’s visit to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, was part of his tour of the Baltic countries. He visited the former Jewish ghetto to remember Jews who were killed by Nazis and urged Lithuania, where neo-fascist parties are making political gains, to refrain from temptation to be superior or dominant to others again.
Vilnius had been known for centuries as the “Jerusalem of the North” for its importance to Jewish thought and politics. Each year, the September anniversary is commemorated with readings of the names of Jews who were killed by Nazis or Lithuanian partisans or were deported to concentration camps. As many as 200,000 Lithuanian Jews were killed inside the country and in Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe.
Faina Kukliansky, president of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, said: “Seventy-five years after the destruction of the Vilnius ghetto, which has become the symbol of the Holocaust in Lithuania, under democratic conditions, it still takes courage, wisdom, will and fundamental human understanding to witness to historical truth. We, Lithuanian Jews, are carrying a perpetual obligation: to safeguard the historical truth and to never give up our efforts in ensuring the wholesome future of our children.”
World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald S. Lauder, who also participated in the ceremony, declared: “Seventy-five years ago, the Germans and local Lithuanian accessories nearly obliterated one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in Europe, a hub of cultural and intellectual Jewish life for thousands of years. But they did not succeed entirely. From the ashes of the Holocaust, the broken community is slowly rebuilding itself and working to ensure the future of Jewish life in Lithuania.”
Today, approximately 4,000 Jews live today in Lithuania.
“Pope Francis has made clear time and again, including in meetings with the WJC, that attacks against Jews and against the state of Israel are equally anti-Semitic and intolerable, and that Israel has the right to exist in safety and prosperity,” said Lauder.
He added that “as Pope Francis joins us in remembering the hundreds of thousands of Jews of Lithuania who were brutally murdered by the Nazis, we must also remember that the threats and the dangers of anti-Semitism are still alive today in many parts of the world.”
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