600 Lithuanian students march in memory of Holocaust victims

600 non-Jewish Lithuanian students and their teachers took part in March of the Living commemorations across Lithuania this week, retracing the history of Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust and marching to sites where Lithuanian Jews were murdered 85 years ago.

The events were organised by the International Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Lithuania and the European March of the Living, as part of Lithuania’s National Memorial Day for the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews.

23 September marks the anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto in 1943; events held on the day brought together students and teachers for marches, testimony readings and memorial ceremonies.

On Tuesday 22 September, 450 students took part in a March of the Living commemoration in Vilnius and Ponary, honouring the 70,000 Jews murdered at Ponary. They learned the story of the Rakevičius family, recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for risking their lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust.

Jaroslavas and Teklė Rakevičius and their four sons, Juozas, Zenonas, Česlovas and Algimantas, helped Jews escape from the Kaunas Ghetto and hid them on their farm. The four young brothers kept watch day and night and sought out neighbours willing to provide additional hiding places, knowing that discovery would put the lives of the entire family at risk.

Among those they helped save was Aharon Barak, then an eight-year-old Jewish boy who was smuggled out of the Kaunas Ghetto in a sack. Barak survived the Holocaust and later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel.

Years later, Algimantas Rakevičius described the motivation behind his family’s actions simply: “We could not allow innocent people to be killed.”

On Wednesday,150 students from Radviliškis marched three kilometers (1.8 miles) from the centre of the town to a forest clearing where 300 Jewish men were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in July 1941.

There, they held a memorial ceremony, read excerpts from testimonies and placed stones of remembrance at the monument commemorating the Jewish victims. The students made the journey in the rain, retracing the route from the town to the site where members of their community were murdered 85 years ago.

Radviliškis was one of hundreds of Lithuanian towns and villages whose centuries-old Jewish communities were destroyed during the Holocaust. Before the war, Jewish life was spread across 297 shtetls throughout Lithuania. Following the Nazi invasion in June 1941, mass shootings rapidly spread across the country, with Jewish communities murdered at killing sites in forests and fields near the towns in which they had lived.

The marches sought to confront students with both sides of this history: the role played by Lithuanian collaborators in the murder of their Jewish neighbours, alongside the comparatively few Lithuanians who risked their own lives to rescue Jews and were later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.

Michel Gourary, executive director of the European March of the Living, said: “To see 600 young non-Jewish Lithuanians walk with their teachers to the places where Jewish communities were murdered 85 years ago carries enormous meaning. Lithuania’s history includes the painful reality of collaboration in the murder of its Jewish population, but also points of light in those who refused to remain indifferent and risked everything to save Jews.

“The Rakevičius brothers were young people just like the students marching today. Their example reminds us that when we see hatred, we have a choice. At a time when antisemitism is again rising across Europe, young people must not remain indifferent. They must recognise hatred, confront it and choose to act.”

Between July 1941 and August 1944, approximately 70,000 people, most of them Lithuanian Jews, were murdered by the Nazis and their local collaborators at Ponary, today known as Paneriai, outside Vilnius. The site became one of the most prominent symbols of the mass murder of Eastern European Jews during the Holocaust.

Before the Holocaust, approximately 200,000 Jews lived in Lithuania. The mass shootings became known as the “Holocaust by Bullets,” in which Jews were taken from their homes and communities and murdered in nearby forests, fields and mass graves.

March of the Living holds commemorative and educational events throughout Europe during the year, alongside its annual March from Auschwitz to Birkenau.