Memorial to be built in Lithuanian town where no Jews remain

ANT KATZ

The twist, however, is that the trio – a famous sculptor, an accomplished architect and an artist – are expected to raise their own funds and cover the building costs.

Over the course of three centuries, Jewish culture thrived in this Lithuanian town, known to its Jewish population as Yurburg. Records show over 2 000 Jewish surnames listed in the town that date back to 1815 and that the Jewish population peaked at 7 000 at the end of the 19th century. At the time about 70 per cent of the businesses there were owned by local Jews.

By the late 1930s only around 2 000 Jews remained in the town. They were among the first victims of the Nazis. Today there is not one Jew left in the town.

The town want the Litvak memorial to stand at the site renamed Synagogue Square, where the town’s massive Major Synagogue complex once stood.

The town’s mayor, Skirmantas Mockevicius, heard and read interviews with a well-known Israeli-Lithuanian sculptor David Zundelovitch – in which the sculptor said his father had been born in Jurbarkas. The mayor contacted Israeli Ambassador Amir Maimon and said he “thought it would be symbolic that a memorial to the Jewish community would be made by a descendant of this very community”, Zundelovitch’s daughter, Anna, told SA Jewish Report.

Ambassador Maimon phoned Zundelovitch in Israel in April 2016 and forwarded the personal letter from the mayor, asking if Zundelovitch might consider creating a memorial to the erstwhile Jewish residents of Jurbarkas, explains Anna.

Jurbarkas lies about 180 km east by road from the capital city of Vilnius. The town, which today has a population of 13 000, was among the first to fall when the Nazis invaded.

Zundelovitch, who made aliya in 1990, agreed to create a statue. The statue, however, grew into a huge memorial project.

What remains of the Sundelowitz/Zundelovitch families, are scattered around the world, including Anna’s cousin, Selwyn Sundelowitz who lives in Johannesburg. Their grandfather got out before the war.

The family is collaborating with two international NGOs, says Anna, making huge efforts to find contributors among Yurburg community descendants in the US. The organisations are: Outset Contemporary Art Fund, which receives contributions for this project in Israel, and the Friends of the Yurburg Jewish Cemetery.

“My cousin Anna Zundelovitch (an architect and interior designer who made aliya with her family) has been the commissioned architect for the project and her father David, the sculptor,” Selwyn told the SA Jewish Report. Anna’s brother, Greg Zundelovitch, is the art director and visual artist for the project.

Anna envisages “a sculptural space” and not simply “just a statue in the middle of a square”. It will redefine the current layout of the new Synagogue Square, she says.

Anna explained that when the Nazis occupied Lithuania, Jurbarkas was one of the first towns they took over. “The first ‘action’ was on July 3, 1941, when they executed 300 people.” These included the leaders of the Jewish community, the community rabbis and elite Lithuanian liberals who could stand up to the Nazis.

Later, in a series of actions, the rest of the Jews were murdered in the woods around town. In the beginning of September 1941, Jurbarkas was declared Judenfrei (free of Jews).

She is at pains to point out that the Nazis only issued the orders, while the “work” (killing the Jews) was carried out “by Lithuanians living in this very town. They murdered their own neighbours and took their properties without hesitation,” she says.

“This memorial is not about the Holocaust and its victims,” says Anna. “The Second World War was the end of the Jewish community in this town, but we think that the legacy of more than 300 years of Jewish culture is at least as meaningful as its end.”

However, while the Lithuanian authorities invited the erection of the tribute to their Litvaks and have made the space available, they won’t pay for it. The mayor is, however, expected to start a local fundraising campaign this month, Anna told the SA Jewish Report. This has led to the Sundelowitz/Zundelovitch families around the world going on a frenetic fundraising drive.

“We managed to collect about 40 000 euros in Israel alone in two weeks” in June, says Anna. “To complete this memorial, we need 180 000 euros, so we still have some work to do.” She is asking “the global Litvak community” to “contribute and support it”.

“Our concept consists of many symbolic solutions, says Anna. For instance, they intend to mention about 2 000 surnames of all Jewish families ever registered in Jurbarkas. “These surnames will be written in Yiddish and in English so descendants of this community can easily locate their own surname,” she explains. They believe that this will offer “the best description of a community as a whole”, by presenting the individuals who made it.

“Another symbol is the main axis that defines the composition – a thin line of black polished granite that crosses the whole square and is directed towards Jerusalem,” she says. Jerusalem is holy to both Catholics (Lithuanians are mostly Catholic) and Jews.

They see this as relating to “a bridge between the two nations and two religions. The beginning of the axis will be at ground level and rise progressively higher, carrying the names of the Righteous Among the Nations from the vicinity. Among them are the two families who saved the child, Aharon Barak, who grew up to be the president of the Israeli Supreme Court.

What happened to reduce the Jewish population from 7 000 to 2 000 in a few decades?

They followed the money. “With the installation of railroad in Lithuania, Jurbarkas lost its position as a river port,” says Anna. A large part of the population “left either to other Lithuanian towns (as my closer family did) or abroad (as Selwyn’s grandparents did) to Germany, Russia, France, UK, US and SA.”

The fact that the Lithuanians initiated this project, says Anna, and want a memorial to the Jews in the centre of their town, “shows that something is changing in Lithuania itself”