March of the living 2010 — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

The March of the Living 2010 by Leah Kessel

When we were growing up in Ramatayim, our neighbors were a family who had come from Kovno in Lithuania. The fact that we were all "Lithuanians" was a common bond and we became more than just family. Rachel Shapira, the mother, brought the Kovno culture to Ramatayim. She would drag all the children to the theater and to concerts in Tel Aviv by bus regardless of the rain or the heat. Some of the most famous actors of the time such as Shmuel Rodensky and Klatchkin were very close friends of hers. Of course, we all had to learn to play the piano!!

Rachel Shapira was a friend and classmate of Leah Goldberg at the Schwebbe high school in Kovno. They remained friendly even after they both came to Israel in 1935.

At the beginning of the 90's, after Lithuania had become an independent state, the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture invited Rachel Shapira's two sons, Professor Amos Shapira and Mulli Shapira (who was in charge of the Israeli army radio station's cultural program for many years), to visit Kovno. When they returned from the visit they told us of their experiences but were very angry that there was no memorial or memorial plaque at all to Leah Goldberg in Kovno.

My sister took the initiative and, together with Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė , who was then the Lithuanian ambassador to Israel, they broached the subject to Kovno City Hall. However, the Kovno municipality refused to hang a plaque claiming that Leah Goldberg had not been born in Kovno. Asta suggested using a lobby of some sort against the municipality. My sister, who was a member of a voluntary women's organization called "Soroptimists", discovered that there was also a branch of the organization in Kovno. With the help of that group, permission was granted to hang a plaque on the wall of the high school in Kovno. The ambassador then suggested that the plaque be unveiled when the Association of Jews from Vilna and the vicinity participates in its traditional March of the Living. And so it was.

My sister and I joined the group of the March of the Living in 2010. We went to Kovno to make the last-minute arrangements and, on the 11/4/2010 the group of the March of the Living came to the high school in Kovno. Members of the Jewish community in Kovno came to the ceremony and the mayor also turned up at the last minute.

The Kovno Soroptimists brought a pine tree which they planted during the ceremony. They got the idea from one of Leah Goldberg's poems which expressed her feelings about her life between two motherlands:

Twice I was planted with you

And with you, pines, I grew

In two different places I dropped roots

At the end of the ceremony we joined the March of the Living group for the rest of the trip around Vilna.

Sometime later the Lithuanian ambassador, Darius Degutis asked my sister why she had worked so hard to get a plaque for Leah Goldberg. She responded: "I did it to honor the memory of Rachel Shapira."