74 Years since the Liquidation Yad Vashem 2017
The address given by Mickey Kantor, the Chairperson of the Association at the Ceremony Commemorating 74 years since the Liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto.
Dear friends, families of Vilna, Kovno, Švenčionys and all Lithuanians, Mr. Adminas Bugdonas Lithuanian ambassador to Israel and my friends, the embassy staff.
Each person's 'ego' is the sum total of the combination of his memories and his will, uniting the past and the present.
Ahad Ha'am is the penname of Asher Ginsburg who lived in Ukraine towards the end of the 19th century. He was one of the philosophers of Zionism, the founder and proponent of spiritual Zionism, and one of the leading formulators of national-secular Jewish identity.
One of the most significant experiences burned into my very essence is the experience of memorial ceremonies that the State of Israel has held from its inception; some are connected to the IDF's fallen soldiers and others to those who perished in the Holocaust. A similar fate befell them all.
These are the collective Jewish and national memories that are engraved deep in my mind. For as long as I can remember, the memory of standing together, in the schoolyard, at my high school, during my army service and in civilian life, accompanies me.
The Jewish nation has a strong sense of togetherness against evil forces and, despite all that has happened we are here.
In addition to that, I bear the wound of my private memory; we were such a small family, father, mother, my younger brother and me, in our modest home in Herzliya.
As a child, these memories were harsh reminders of a similar fate: grieving silent parents during the day, whispering to one another during the evening and crying out at night. There was an unwritten covenant and decision to be a source of comfort for them, trying to bring them as much joy and happiness to cover up their grief and to compensate for their loss with all the possible good.
Yes, the memories of the events of the Holocaust and its lessons are an integral part of our perception of our identity as individuals, as the children of survivors of that Holocaust, on the one hand but, on the other hand – also for us as a nation. We insist on continuing to remember and recall and consolidate it as part of our identity, as part of our personality as children of the second generation and as members of the collective of the Jewish people in the State of Israel. Yes, we fervently believe in the nature of man. What happened then may burst forth even more forcefully again now or in the future, if we allow forgetfulness replace all these memories. If we allow the memory and its lessons to be shredded by stormy current events, the forgetting that will dominate mankind may give rise to memories of new knowledge and forgetting can only bring darkness, denial and oblivion. It is so simple.
Why do we not allow ourselves to forget Amalek, in spite of the fact that this memory has threatened out peace of mind for many years? Because forgetting enables man to forget the evil and remember the good and start over again, which will eventually lead to further holocausts.
It is such a tragic historical fact –the Holocaust of the Jews of Vilna and the vicinity and Lithuania was so cruel that it defies the limits of the human mind: it has exterminated people, families, dreams that encapsulated all that a nation contains –culture, religion, art and craftsmanship, love for humankind and a love of life – the whole world of a living, vibrant community that had been involved for so many generations in a loving, facilitating homeland.
Unfortunately, many of these dastardly acts were committed by evil Lithuanians, neighbors and colleagues of our fathers with whom they had lived for generations. It is hard to forget and it is wrong to do so.
In the name of the Association of Jews from Vilna and the vicinity in Israel, survivors and their families, the naval unit of seafaring vessels whose representatives are here with us today to commemorate 74 years since the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto and Lithuanian Jewry and in the name of our children and grandchildren and the Jewish nation, I ask you, the honorable Lithuanian ambassador to Israel, Mr. Adminus Bugdonas, who, in common with the former Lithuanian ambassadors to Israel, has shown an open mind and a willingness to invest great efforts to continue fostering the relations between our two nations.
I further ask you, in the name of my friends here, not to stop expanding the minds of your fellow Lithuanians, to encourage them and to teach them this painful episode in the country's history, to make then confront it openly and bravely and to remove any obstacles on this significant path!
You have our full support to instruct them tirelessly and fearlessly and to teach them to recognize the good and possible that is in each one of us and to choose tolerance as the key to the hearts of the Lithuanian nation through the ages.
Our ego is the sum total of our memories, our awareness and our wills, the union of our past with the future that we will create.
Because we are here: to remember it all, not to forget and not to allow it to be forgotten.
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