Nevertheless the letters bloom — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Nevertheless the letters bloom / Vilna as an allegory for Jewish identity

An exciting and beautifully displayed exhibition based on the rescue mission of the Torah megillot (scrolls) that were brought from Vilna to Israel was held at Heichal Shlomo in Jerusalem (the former seat of the Rabbinate in Israel). The exhibition entwines the history of the Hebrew book with the story of the Jewish community in Vilna during the Holocaust.

During World War Two, trips were made across Lithuania to collect tens of thousands of Hebrew books and Torah scrolls.

After the war the books were declared "national treasures" that were the property of the Lithuanian government. It took four years of negotiations with the Lithuanian government to change the law that said that because they were cultural items, they could not be removed from the country. On the 30^th of January, 2002 a delegation from Israel headed by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who was then Israel Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi, went to Vilna and returned with three hundred and forty-five Torah scrolls, parchments and other scrolls. After they were restored they were donated to synagogues in Israel and abroad. Eighteen Torah scrolls and fifteen parchment scrolls that were brought over from Vilna were displayed at Heichal Shlomo as part of the art exhibition, together with one hundred and twenty numbered linen bags in which they arrived from Vilna.

The exhibition integrates a display and an art exhibition as well as items from the daily life of the community in Vilna during the war years. The items included a mahzor (a ritual prayer book for Jewish festivals) for Rosh Hashana (New Year) that had belonged to Haim Menahem Bassok who had been hidden in a melina (hiding place) in the ghetto, personal diaries, a minute Torah ark that was made by Professor Yosef Yehoyachin's grandchildren for the Torah scroll that Yehoyachin carried when he was called up at Bergen-Belsen. That is the same Torah scroll that Ilan Ramon took with him on the ill-fated Columbia spaceship.

The Rescue Campaign of the Scrolls in Lithuania in 1999 told by the Israeli Consul to Lithuania Eithan Ben Dor 

"One day," he recalls, "we heard that hundreds of Torah scrolls were being held in safekeeping in the Lithuanian National Library. It was astounding and exciting news. From that moment the Israel embassy did all in its power to get more information. Our efforts were rewarded. What we discovered was fascinating. We found out that the Nazis had intended to build a museum that would document European Jewry that had existed and been liquidated – it was supposed to be a perverted memorial to their nefarious and energetic activities to rid the world of this parasite. To this end, and with the full cooperation of the Lithuanians, they collected all the holy books that had been confiscated from the Lithuanian Jews after they had been sent to their death at the death camps; the books were taken to a church and after they abandoned the idea of the museum, the order was given to burn all the books. The order was not carried out: a local priest whose conscience troubled him, decided to hide them all and look after them."

"At the end of the war, a partisan from the Vilna Ghetto passed on the information about the books. It transpired that after the fall of the Nazi regime and the rise of Stalin, the Russian tyrant, it was again decided to destroy them. This time the books were moved to the Lithuanian National Library again, but by a mysterious turn of fate, someone ensured that no harm would befall the books. Antanas Ulpis, a librarian who worked there, was unable to carry out the order and decided to keep them. He hid them in a niche that he found in the library and covered it with piles of newspapers. But that did not satisfy him. He recruited the other workers in the archive to take care of the books and that is where they stayed until the Berlin Wall fell."