Jews in lithuania

Lithuanian students retrace Holocaust history on memorial day, confront country's role in massacres

Around 600 non-Jewish Lithuanian students participated in the March of the Living commemorations held in Vilnius and Ponary, Lithuania, where 70,000 people were killed during the Holocaust.

|ByMILLA WOLMAN
Lithuanian teenagers marched to sites where Jews from their towns were murdered during the Holocaust.
The Malisoff family sits for a photo in 1907. Pavel Malisoff and his wife Michla sit in the center.

How a new tool in Lithuania helps people read letters from their Jewish ancestors

The tool also has the potential to support the descendants of Jews who were persecuted during the Holocaust as they prepare materials to confirm their eligibility for repatriation or citizenship.

|BySHIRA LI BARTOV/JTA
Workers excavate the central floor and bimah of the Great Synagogue in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 22, 2026. (Shira Li Bartov)

Archaeologists uncover treasures of Vilnius’ Great Synagogue as Lithuanian Jews dispute its future

Vilnius was a major center of Jewish thought, famed for both its religious tradition and modern secular Jewish culture. It was home to the 18th-century Vilna Gaon, a highly influential sage.

|BySHIRA LI BARTOV/JTA
LITHUANIA’S PRESIDENTIAL palace in the foreground, as seen from the tower of Vilnius University.

Vilnius marks 700 years, but Lithuanian Jews reflect on darker era

Vilnius 700 events are scheduled through the end of the year, ensuring that the tensions over history and memory in the city continue to simmer.

|ByEMILY TAMKIN/JTA

Litvaks, Jews in Lithuania and antisemitism

Lithuania’s Jews persevere

JANUARY 19, 2019ByGREER FAY CASHMAN
Fania Brancovskaja, Vilna’s last Holocaust survivor, in the library of the Yiddish Institute of the University of Vilnius

Netanyahu at site of Ponary massacre: ‘Israel is strong, proud, forever’

Zuroff says Netanyahu’s praise of Lithuania’s Holocaust memory is ‘a disgrace’.

AUGUST 26, 2018ByHERB KEINON
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during Friday's commemoration of Holocaust victims and ceremony for the Righteous Among the Nations in Vilnius, Lithuania

Netanyahu should not tolerate Holocaust distortion in Lithuania

The time has come for Israel’s leadership to fulfill its role as the guardian of Holocaust memory.

AUGUST 23, 2018ByEFRAIM ZUROFF
A man walks past a sign at a commemoration place during the March of the Living to honor Holocaust victims in Paneriai near Vilnius, Lithuania

Lithuanian bill would ban books critical of the country

The proposed law is said to be "one of the most blatant and harshest" laws curtailing free speech in Europe.

APRIL 3, 2018ByJTA
Vilnius, Lithuania

Lithuanian court nullifies Jewish community elections

The Dec. 21 ruling is the latest development in the fight against what many Lithuanian Jews consider a power grab by the community’s president, Faina Kukliansky.

DECEMBER 28, 2017ByJTA
Vilnius, Lithuania

Memories from the ashes

Max Leibowitz recalls his roots in Lithuania

NOVEMBER 29, 2017ByPETER BAILEY
A sign in Yiddish, Hebrew and Lithuanian saying,‘In this place the Hitlerist murderers and their local helpers in the year of 1941 murdered 250 Jews, children, women and men’

Why is Lithuania honoring perpetrators of the Holocaust?

Kazys Skirpa is just an example of the world celebrating defective heroes.

NOVEMBER 29, 2017ByGRANT ARTHUR GOCHIN
Kazys Skirpa, the Lithuanian representative to Germany who first proposed ethnic cleansing of Jews to Hitler, has streets named in his honor in two major Lithuanian cities

Writer censored for accusing Lithuanian hero of Holocaust crimes

The recall of Vanagaitė’s books came one day after she revealed that she is in a relationship with Efraim Zuroff, an Israeli Nazi hunter

OCTOBER 30, 2017ByCNAAN LIPHSHIZ/JTA
Vilnius, Lithuania

Why Naujaneriai is also important

Among the victims were 512 men, 744 women and 511 children, who were buried in a grave some 20-meters long and 2-meters wide.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017ByEFRAIM ZUROFF
A RED rose is seen at the commemoration place during the March of the Living to honor Holocaust victims in Paneriai, near Vilnius.

Lithuanian FM: ‘Holocaust memory is important, but ties with Israel are the future’

Lithuania has been a staunch diplomatic ally for Israel, particularly at the UN and the within the EU.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017ByTOVAH LAZAROFF
LITHUANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER Linas Linkevicius presents Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a replica of a little girl from a Holocaust memorial in Lithuania during their meeting in Jerusalem on Monday.