A Memorial Evening for Michael Shemyavitz 2019 — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

In memory of Michael Shemyavitz on the first anniversary of his death.

Michael Shemyavitz, who was the chairman for many years and honorary president of the Association, passed away in 2018. His family, members of the Association and friends gathered at Bet Vilna for a moving memorial evening.

Mickey Kantor, the chairperson of the Association, gave the opening address and spoke of her joint work with Michael.

Michael's wife Paula, his children and grandchildren talked about him and showed a power point presentation in his memory.

Ephraim Lapid addressed the audience:

Paula, Yossi, Mickey  and dear friends,

Approximately 220,000 Jews lived in Lithuania under the German occupation and only 3.6% of them, about 8,000, survived the war. These are the highest figures in Europe among the Jewish communities. Almost all the Jews who were exterminated in Lithuania were liquidated one by one, mostly by gunfire, not far from their homes and at the mass murder site at Ponary outside Vilna; many of them were murdered by Lithuanians who collaborated with the Nazis.

Towards the very end of the war, approximately 30,000 Jews were deported from Vilna: 5,000 elderly people and children were deported to the death camps at Auschwitz and Sobibor, 15,000 were sent to labor camps in Latvia and Estonia where almost all of them died and 10,000 were deported from the Kovno and Šiauliai Ghettoes to concentration camps in Germany where most of them also died.

Besides the incredibly high ratio of Jews who were exterminated in Lithuania, there are two other noteworthy aspects of the terrible happenings in this country:

The first is the vast number of Lithuanians who played an active role in the extermination, thereby facilitating the execution of the Final Solution and extending it. Research by Professor Ephraim Zuroff shows that no fewer than twenty thousand people played a role in the mass murder of the Jews: from encouraging and assisting the murderers to actually shooting victims.

The second aspect is the role that the political leadership of Lithuania played before the war when many of them fled from the Soviet occupation in 1940 to Berlin, where they set up "the Lithuanian Activist Front". This body supported the Third Reich enthusiastically and actively encouraged the local population to participate in the mass murders of the Jews. Despite their tarnished past they are celebrated as heroes in democratic Lithuania. Even some of the most renowned heroes of the post-war anti-Soviet resistance movement, who persecuted the Jews and participated in their mass murder, receive public recognition although one would have been expected that these crimes would prevent them from being decorated as heroes. That is the situation in Lithuania and other places in Eastern Europe in the post-Communist period.

Michael Shemyavitz, a Holocaust survivor, settled down, had a family and worked selflessly for the public good. He headed the Association and the special bond he created with one of the naval departments renewed not only Michael's inner strength but also that of the members of the Association, as it is said in the Song of the Partisans:

Do not say: this is the final road,

Daylight was obscured by the clouds.

The day that we yearn for will come,

And our steps will thunder: "we are here!"

We could have seen two associations, the Association of Vilna and the Association of Lithuania with different worldviews and different work modes. We heard Michael's worldview about the past and the present many times. For example, in June, 2011, during a visit to Bet Vilna by the Minister of Defense of Lithuania, Michael said: "We will never forget what the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators did. Even as we welcome the current Lithuanian government and its representatives who are doing their best to turn over a new leaf, we will continue to teach the younger generations about the terrible Holocaust."