NAMES. The person is not a number
Marking the Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews on September 23, the names of Holocaust victims will be read out at different locations around Lithuania. More than 90% of the Jews who lived in our country were murdered during World War II. The Names civic initiative invites everyone to remember the people of Lithuanian brutally murdered by reading their names out loud.
Readings of the names in public in Lithuanian cities and towns has been going on for eight years now. Participants say this form of Holocaust remembrance really helps them to feel at the personal level the scope of the tragedy.
“When you read in your own voice the names, surnames and professions of these people who lived here, you can no longer pretend they didn’t exist, you can no longer pretend that that person never lived, and the statistics become more than numbers. In this way the courage appears to look at history more openly,” Milda Jakulytė-Vasil says.
Lithuanians are also invited to visit nearest Jewish mass murder sites.
The Day of Genocide of Lithuanian Jews is September 23, the final day in 1943 when the Vilnius ghetto was liquidated.
If you want to hold a reading of the names in your community this year, you will find contact information at the end of this text, where you can also find more information about readings and how to conduct them.
This series of Holocaust commemoration events is completely due to the efforts of volunteers. There is no one organizer of events, it is the initiative of a broad group which coordinates via facebook.
For more information, see https://vardu.wordpress.com/ and the VARDAI page on facebook
Contact:
Milda Jakulytė-Vasil
telephone: 861237573
email: milda.jakulyte@lostshtetl.com
NAMES:
- Lithuania, the World:
SEPTEMBER 23, 10 AM – 8 PM Vilnius time (UTC/GMT +3) on zoom, please book your time (5 min) in advance shorturl.at/gkCR2
It’s a great opportunity to participate from any place in the world. Some hours are booked for towns that have public readings that day.
Zoom room https://zoom.us/j/99496765955
- Vilnius:
SEPTEMBER 23, 5 PM – 7 PM Names of Vilnius ghetto prisoners in the park at Naugarduko/Pylimo (where Paviljonas and Chaika are located)
If planing to come to read NAMES in Vilnius please book your 5 minutes any time 5 PM – 7 PM shorturl.at/gkCR2
- Kaunas
- Dieveniškės (Divenishok, Jevenishok) 23the of September, 9 AM, the main square of the town (former Market place)
- Eišiškės (Eishishok) 23th of September 12 AM, the main square of the town (former Market place)
- Šeduva (Shadeve) 23th of September, 12 AM, at Stela
- Dusetos
- Kėdainiai
- Ukmergė (Vilkomir) 17th of September 2.30 PM at the Great Synagogue Vienuolyno str. 2
- Seirijai
- Semeliškės (Semilishok) 10th of October
- Šeduva
- Šiauliai
- Švėkšna
- Tytuvėnai
- Liučiūnai (Kaunas district) 28th of August
- Anykščiai (Anykšt) 22th of July
- Akmenė (Akmian, Akmejan) 4th of August
Vardai 