March of the Living 2022
The March of the Living of the Litvak Jews to the Ponar Pits .
9/23/1943 will be remembered forever, as the day of the liquidation of the old and glorious Lithuanian Jewish community, its women and men, its grandmothers and grandchildren. Hundreds of Lithuanian Jews, members of the public, members of organizations, students and a delegation of survivors and members of future generations from The Association of Jews from Vilna and Vicinity in Israel, a House for the Commemoration and Heritage of Litvak Jews who came from Israel, participated today in a memorial event, in memory of the Jewish victims in Ponar, near Vilna. The prime minister of Lithuania, the Israeli ambassador to Lithuania, the head of the Lithuanian Jewish community, the German ambassador and the US ambassador to Lithuania, as well as the chairman of the Association of Jews from Vilna and Vicinity in Israel gave moving speeches.
Speech given by Mickey Kantor, Chair of the Association of Jews from Vilna and Vicinity in Israel.
Dear friends and honorable guests. A moment of silence please.
Let's all listen to the total silence without even the sounds of the birds, hovering above this cursed green compound.
We tremble at the sound of the shrill whistle of the passing train and let's try to listen to what the white stones could have said but they remain silent. We sense the souls of our brothers lying beneath our
feet. We are here at the grave of the members of a great Litvak community. What happened here in those 4 years represents the microcosm of the hell into which hundreds of thousands of Jewish citizens of Lithuania were thrown. We remember the destruction of the magnificent hundreds of years old community that was made possible by carrying out the Nazi ideology and with the collaboration and support of Lithuanians and Ukrainians.
In the book of Matilda Olkinaite "the Unlocked Diary" edited by Dr. Kvietkauskas – the answer to the eternal question –"Why were these innocent people sentenced to death?” - is – “Just because they
were Jewish”!...
I hereby call on you, honorable President Nauseda, who this week awarded the Crosses of Honor to the families of noble and brave rescuers, at the risk of their lives, and saved these innocent Jewish people, to take one further important and brave step too, and to officially denounce those Lithuanian collaborators, who still stain the history of Lithuania.
We are a group of The Association of Jews from Vilna and Vicinity, Litvaks of four generations, proudly represent a vibrant and flourishing organization in our upright State of Israel.
Our parents commanded us to keep their legacy of noble values of humanity. We preserve the cultural and spiritual and cultural heritage of the glorious 700 hundred years community, for the next
generations -"Remember! Remember and don't let it be forgotten" . Today, even more than ever, we stand guard to pass on to the future generations everywhere, the history of the terrible events they
went through on their homeland, so that they know and pass it on and on.
If the history is forgotten then the lesson is not learned, and the tragic story may repeat itself!
May the memory of the victims be blessed.
Mickey Kantor, Chair
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