‘This year, while commemorating 80 years since the beginning of the Holocaust, we have talked a lot about this tragedy. I welcome that, for, as prominent thinker Leonidas Donskis once said, discussing uncomfortable topics can save us from the recurrence of nightmares of the past. Indifferent or cowardly silence, he said, is the midwife of hatred.
However, no words could convey the full extent and pain of the tragedy that has taken place. After all, we are speaking about the trauma whose effects we still feel. Yet certain things we definitely need to realise, and allow them enter our hearts and minds.
The Holocaust is not just a tragedy of the Jewish nation, but rather a terrible catastrophe that has impoverished and robbed the entire humanity. We can only dream of the world we would live in if the Litvak culture could have continued to flourish, and if those killed had had an opportunity to continue to create their own unique destinies.
We are talking about the Holocaust first and foremost to reaffirm that we remember the lesson of the tragedy and are committed to doing everything we can to prevent it from happening again. As long as the painful memory is alive, and as long as we feel affected by the events that happened 80 years ago, we have hope that we will not allow that to happen again, that we will cherish all the fragments of the polyphonic Lithuania that had been destroyed, and, most importantly, that we will try to remain human towards each other.
I truly understand how difficult it is to tell about the tragedy that happened eighty years ago to a young generation, to whom it may seem as yet another horror thriller. Therefore, stories of Holocaust survivors, fostering empathy, and warning about how easily hatred makes a nest in a person’s life are of special importance. I am glad that you succeed in this, that you have the courage to learn constantly, and to raise uncomfortable questions. It is highly important that development of tolerance is related not only to transmission of important information, but that it also changes a youngster person’s personality and fosters a more mature relationship with the world and other people.
Let me thank all the staff of the Tolerance Centres who foster compassion and understanding and make hatred melt away on a daily basis. Thank you to everyone who constantly reminds us that uniqueness and otherness are the most precious gift to all of us. Thank you for raising your voices and encouraging others to utter words that heal traumas of memory.
I believe that the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust tragedy will not be just a formal tribute, and that the Holocaust will be discussed, and tolerance will continue to be fostered until respect for the dignity and uniqueness of the other person become part of our identity,’ said the Head of Government.
Almost 50 teachers from schools hosting Tolerance Education Centres, set up at the initiative of the International Commission, have attended the event. They were the main organisers of the Holocaust remembrance commemorations this year. Participants of the event have received a book by Arūnas Bubnys ‘Holocaust in Lithuanian Province in 1941’.
The event has paid tribute to the national project ‘Memory Road 1941-2021’ that had been organised to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the destruction of Jewish communities in the towns and cities of Lithuania.
