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We will celebrate the 103rd anniversary on February 16. The names of the signatories, which are repeated in public every year, show that for us it is not only a historical date, but a triumph of the personal self-determination of specific peoples, the result of which – a free and sovereign state – we are all happy and proud. In the context of February 16, let us remember another group of people, whom I call Signatories of Conscience, people whose self-determination results in hundreds of lives saved.
During various commemorations of the Holocaust, I often hear the pride that almost 900 Lithuanians have been declared righteous from the nations of the world, but I miss their names and stories. I miss the context. And the context is very simple: the citizens of the first Republic of Lithuania, the same ones who created the young state, responded to the Jewish cry for help. Did you think that the generation that hid the persecuted Jews in their houses, apartments, and basements was the same that created the first republic of Lithuania?
Photo by Kęstutis Pleita / Faina Kukliansky
Is this the same generation whose artistic, scientific and political achievements make us proud today, whose works and destinies we cite as an example of state-building? Among them are the family of Steponas Kairis, the engineer signatory of February 16, the President of the Republic of Lithuania Kazys Grinius, and the daughter of one of the most famous Lithuanian creators MKČiurlionis Danutė Čiurlionytė with her husband Vladimiras Zubovas, the family From the writer. Balis Sruoga, the family of the writer Liudas Mažylis himself, who found the original of the Lithuanian Independence Act in the German archives. Ona Jablonskytė – Landsbergienė and marti Jadvyga Jablonskienė, daughter of Jonas Jablonskis, the creator of the common Lithuanian language. And where not necessarily professors and presidents, but ordinary villagers who have been able to make the right choice. These are names that are inseparable from the history of Lithuania. Why don’t we want to build a monument to them, the signatories of the Lithuanian Conscience?
Why don’t we want to build a monument to them, the signatories of the Lithuanian Conscience?
The monument would perpetuate those symbolic connections between people that some now want to assign to different fields or artificially created categories. But history shows that the signers of Consciousness are higher than the categories we have created. Here is the righteous nation of the world Konstancija Bražėnienė, who rescued Jews during the war and then deported to Siberia, is the mother of Nijolė Bražėnaitė, the wife of the legendary guerrilla Juozas Lukša-Daumantas. His feat also does not have a monument that reflects the complex history of the Bražėnai family and the whole of Lithuania, and there are many such families in Lithuania.
Each year, rescuers receive the Rescue Cross of the Dying, and their children and grandchildren, who have received awards in recent years, are proud not only of their family and family history. They are proud of the history of Lithuania, which had room for courage, sacrifice, humanity and conscience. And gratitude. The surviving Jews, their children, and even their grandchildren are grateful to the rescuers. But we don’t have a place to visit to light a candle of respect and remembrance, we don’t have a place to talk about the miracle of survival.
There is another monument that is missing in our society. It is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. Some would say that all of Lithuania is full of “monuments”: gravel pits and memorial stones next to them with inscriptions, often intended for “Soviet citizens”. However, the Holocaust Memorial is not dedicated to a specific place, to a specific person; there is no stone so large that it can contain the names of almost 200,000 Jews murdered in Lithuania. No, this monument is also a symbol, just like Vytis, Kalvelė or the monument to J.Basanavičius is a symbol. Standing on the streets of our cities, they show that this person or phenomenon is important to us and worthy of public memory. Not individual, limited to photos and family memories, but a social memory that we all share and pass on.
Photo by Kęstutis Pleita / Faina Kukliansky
There was hope that the Paneriai Memorial could fill this void in public memory in the context of the Holocaust. The place where all the delegations of politicians and diplomats who arrive in Lithuania go, which is visited by the fourth generation of the world’s Jews, who want to honor all the generations buried in the wells of Paneriai, has more than enough strength. But the project is stalling. Only a few pine-covered hills with a modest white brick chamber may still appear to a passerby who ignores Panerai. Monument? Even clear arrows are missing from this huge tomb.
Lithuania needs it. It is necessary so that the public memory can accept the history of the Holocaust and, at the same time, the history of the Lithuanian Jews.
And yet, the National Monument to the Victims of the Holocaust is necessary not only for the Jewish community, the litvaks or diplomats. Lithuania needs it. It is necessary so that the public memory can accept the history of the Holocaust and, at the same time, the history of the Lithuanian Jews. It is necessary because in this country we like to build monuments to those who are important to us. And I prefer to participate in the debate on what type of monument to build than in the debate on whether we need such a monument. Necessary. Acknowledge to ourselves once and for all that both terrible crimes and great miracles have taken place on this earth. And that the story of the two monuments has an end.
Faina Kukliansky is the president of the Lithuanian Jewish community (Litvak).
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