Recovering Memory — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

While looking ahead to the future, it is our responsibility to remember and evaluate the past, especially the tragic events that took place in the prewar and postwar Lithuania, particularly at Vilnius University. Thus we have launched on the historical scientific research based long term project      Grįžtanti atmintis - Recovering Memory, whose aim is to commemorate and pay respect to members of Vilnius University community, both staff and students, who were expelled from the university, losing ability to continue their academic careers or studies, because of the actions of the totalitarian regimes and their local collaborators. The stimulus to rethink the University's relationship with its past was a short electronic letter that the University received from Israel professor of medicine Moshe Lapidoth in the summer of 2016. He requested to honor symbolically the memory of his uncle Chlaunė Meištovskis, who had been a student in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Vilnius University. After successfully completing eight semesters of study of physics and chemistry, his scholarship was terminated and he was expelled from the University on 1 July 1941 for the reason of Jewish nationality. During the national-socialist occupation of Lithuania, on 27 June, the order of Justinas Vaičaitis, head of the Higher Education Department of the Education Board for Vilnius City and Region was implemented. Following that order the rector of the University began dismissing staff members of Jewish origin, as well as those who took an active part in the University's sovietization.Memory DiplomaIn September 2016 a commission was established to carry out a historical research, to formulate evaluation criteria for nomination, to identify the names of those expelled from the University, assess their biographical facts, and to return them symbolically to the field of historical memory of Vilnius University. A closer look into the destiny of the members of the academic community revealed that more than one event scattered them in different directions, or even took their lives: the start of the first soviet occupation on 15 June 1940, Nazy occupation and the Holocaust, followed by the second soviet occupation, which lasted more than five decades. These events dramatically changed Lithuania and the University community. Assessing the impact of the totalitarian regimes on Vilnius University community, paying tribute to victims are the main objectives of the long term project Grįžtanti atmintis - Recovering Memory.This long term project is a great incentive to learn more about the history of the most famous University in Lithuania, to fill in some of its blank pages or rewrite others and an opportunity for the academic community to look back at a very painful periods that affected so many lives. Understanding and recognizing unretouched history in a responsible way creates a foundation for a strong, open academic community. The symbolic Memory Diploma of Vilnius University has been established in commemoration of those who were forcibly denied the opportunity to be members of the University academic community. We expect that the Memory Diploma award ceremony will become a traditional event of Vilnius University.Today, after some preliminary research, we can say that there will be about a thousand candidates for the Memory Diploma. At the beginning of the Nazy occupation, about 650 Jews, 80 Poles, and one German professor whose wife was Jewish were expelled from Vilnius University. Several hundred Lithuanians were also denied the opportunity to work or study at the University during the first and second soviet occupations. All of these people deserve the Memory Diploma. This symbolic diploma will not be awarded to those who were expelled for reasons not related to the activities of the totalitarian regimes, to those who collaborated with the political or police organizations of the totalitarian regimes, or committed crimes against humanity.

In 2018, a certificate was awarded to Ze'ev-Wolf Cernotsky, whose story is presented by Saul Tzur of Kibbutz Nir David: My parents immigrated to Israel from Vilnius in 1938 and established Kibbutz Amir in the Hula Valley. Most of their family members remained in Vilnius and were murdered in the Ponary forest. The names of the executed family members: the family of the mother - father Aryeh Leib Levin, his wife Leah, brother Saul, his wife Pania and their little daughter Rochla and brother Shalom. Mother Mania's older sister moved to Russia before the war but no contact was made between them after the war.

Dad's Family - Yitzhak Tzernotsky, Mother Esther and Brother Ze'ev Wolf. Dad's older brother moved to Russia before the war, and lived in Poland for years. Over the years my parents told me very little about my grandparents and their family's experiences. Only about 5 years before my mother's death in 2004, she gave me letters sent from Vilnius in 1940-1941 from my mother's and my father's parents and her brother Saul that I was named after. Among other things, she gave me the original invitation for her brother Saul's wedding in Vilnius in 1936. She couldn't attend the wedding, but she kept the invitation with her all those years and eventually handed it to me. The letters really moved me, because we are a generation who grew up without grandparents, and here are some tangible things from them that I never knew existed.About 3 years ago I read in the papers, an article by Professor Lapidot of Herzliya, who applied to the University of Vilnius for a diploma for his relative whose university studies were discontinued because of the war. Indeed, the university welcomed it, and launched a project called "Recovering Memory," which aims to give diplomas to students whose studies were discontinued due to the war, both those killed in the Holocaust and those who survived. The certificates are awarded to Jews, Poles and Lithuanians.I remembered that my grandfather's letters mentioned that my father's brother Ze'ev Wolf is studying at the University of Vilnius. I contacted Professor Lapidot and he referred me to the University of Vilnius. I passed them the letters on Ze'ev Wolf, but due to language problems I left the matter. In March 2018, I received a message from Lapidot, saying that Vilnius University would like to invite me and my family to the diploma awarding to Wolf, my father's brother. The university sent me the papers they had about a him, and a picture of him just like the one I had.

In April-2018, just on Holocaust Day, we went to Vilna. My sister Esther and her daughter Daphne, my brother Gadi's son Roy, Tamar, my wife and I. The ceremony at the university was very impressive and exciting, attended by the Israeli ambassador to Lithuania. Before the trip, we contacted an Israeli guide who lives for many years in Vilnius. We sent him the addresses where my father and mother lived, as well as the address where brother Saul lived and he was able to find the addresses. We visited the three houses that exist to date. We also visited the Ponary forest and there, near the memorial to the murdered Jews we did a short ceremony in memory of our dear family members who were murdered here. The trip to Vilnius was very exciting and difficult and it closed a family circle that was open for many years.