March of the living 2014 — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Thus it was that only the Fayn family and I participated in the 2014 March of the Living. We could not give up carrying the Israeli flag and the Beit Vilna flag, and a bouquet of flowers on behalf of Beit Vilna.

We were accompanied by Saulius Pilinkus, the Cultural Attaché of the Lithuanian Embassy in Israel, and several other people from the Lithuanian intelligentsia in Vilna, who came to participate in the event, students from the Jewish school in Vilna, and the Israeli Ambassador to Lithuania and Latvia.

The March took place in its usual format with representatives of the Lithuanian government, representatives of the community and so on, as well as Fania Brantsovsky Iga Makuteniene , and others.

After the official ceremony, and the laying of wreaths, the Fayn family and I - in the tradition of the Beit Vilna March of the Living – went to light memorial candles at one of the pits of the mass murder of Jews in Ponar, in memory of those who perished.

Later, we went to the Lithuanian Government Building where Yad Vashem medals were presented to the Righteous Among the Nations – those who had saved Jews.

The family of the late Tabu Larionova Gimbitzkaite received the Righteous Among the Nations medal in her name and in her honor. Tabu worked with my mother for several years as master of ceremonies at my mother's concerts throughout what was once the Soviet Union.

At the same time as Yad Vashem's distribution of certificates to honor the Righteous Among the Nations, an exhibition on "Lithuanian Jews During the Soviet Period" was held at the Vilna Gaon State Museum. At two sites in the exhibition can be seen a picture of the Larionov family holding a certificate of honor from Yad Vashem, on the left a portrait of my mother Nechama Lipschitz during one of her performances, and above is seen a portrait of one of the great Lithuanian poets of the twentieth century - Hirsch Osherowitz, Prisoner of Zion, who died in Israel after making aliyah and at the top right, a picture of myself as a child with my mother Nechama Lipschitz.