Kaunas festival dedicated to Jewish memory

Jewish memory is the theme of Kaunas European Capital of Culture 2022, a project funded by municipalities and the national government.

The Lithuanian city was named European Capital of Culture 2022 by the European Commission jury in 2017, sparking a project to explore its identity through art and culture and to speak about relevant current issues. Most of Kaunas’ 2022 programme will be dedicated to projects that speak about the city’s Jewish history.

One of the most important elements of the project is the book, Jews of Kaunas. It describes what was once one of the largest ethnic groups in Kaunas from the 15th century onwards, the settlement of Jews in the city, the most important names of the Kaunasians who lived and worked in the city, their contribution to education, medicine, industry, business, culture, and other spheres of life, and touches on history’s painful elements.

The rich Jewish history of Kaunas will also be represented in more than 20 art projects – exhibitions, concerts, and performances featuring artists from South Africa, Israel, France, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States.

It kicks off with the exhibition, “What we don’t remember” by South African artist William Kentridge, one of the world’s most formidable “Litvaks”, which will be open all year round at the M.K.Čiurlionis National Museum of Art. In this exhibition, the artist hopes to fill in the gaps in our memory and, at the same time, talk to us about what we do not remember, consciously or unconsciously.

In the summer of 2022, events dedicated to the Holocaust and the Kaunas Ghetto will be presented. Several will take place at Kaunas 9th Fort. Audiences in Kaunas and in Esch-sur-Alsette will be invited to revisit a tragic story from World War II in an interdisciplinary project that sheds light on the traumatic past of the two cities.

At the end of the summer, UK artist Jenny Kagan’s exhibition, “Out of Darkness” will be presented, in which the artist will revive her parents’ stories about their experiences in Kaunas during the Holocaust. And on 23 September, the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Lithuanian Jews, the Kaunas Youth Project will present a performance, “Youth Speaks about War” in which young citizens invite the audience to listen to forgotten stories of World War II and consider the challenges of history.

From 29 to 30 September, as part of the Litvak Forum, artists, academics, and representatives of the cultural world will speak about the role of culture and art in perpetuating Jewish memory and heritage, the Litvak identity, and other relevant topics.

One of the forum’s largest musical projects, the Kaunas Cantata, will be presented. The cantata was written especially for Kaunas by composer Philip Miller in collaboration with Kagan and local musicians. The programme includes a concert of Yiddish songs performed by Marija Krupoves, and a traveling klezmer orchestra will evoke the Jewish memory in Kaunas district towns.

• A detailed programme can be found at: https://kaunas2022.eu/en/programme/