OPINION
A Melancholy Pilgrimage
To Lithuanian Homeland
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L
Tory was a survivor of the Kovno
ithuania has been for many
ghetto
and former secretary of the ghet-
years a veritable jewel in the
to's
elected
Jewish Council. He was also
crown of Jewish scholarship,
the
author
of
a critically acclaimed vol-
epitomized by such towering
ume,
The
Dial),
of the Kovno Ghetto,
talmudic scholars as the Gaon of Vilna,
which was published in Hebrew and
Kovno's Rabbi Yitzhak Elchanan Spec-
subsequently translated into English by
tor and Rabbi Israel Salanter.
Martin Gilbert and re-published by
Such yeshivot of world renown as
Harvard University Press.
Slobodka, Telsh, Ponievezh
It was the influence of
and others furnished religious
Avraham
Tory and his pam-
leaders to countless Jewish
phlets
that
finally induced me
communities in Europe and
to re-visit the country of my
beyond.
youth. I persuaded my son,
Lithuania gained indepen-
George Leikin, to join me on
dence from tsarist rule after
this pilgrimage of rediscovery,
World War I and was man-
a mission I considered too
dated by the League of
daunting to tackle alone.
Nations to grant autonomy
Our first stop in Lithuania
and safeguard the civil and
EZE KIEL
was
Vilno (Vilnius), the capi-
religious rights of its ethnic
LEI KIN
tal,
which
because of its piv-
minorities. The period of Jew-
Spec ial to
otal
role
in
Jewish history was
ish autonomy in Lithuania
The Jew ish News known as "Jerusalem of
was marked by an efflores-
Lithuania." During the life-
cence of Jewish creativity in
time
of
the
Gaon, Rabbi Eliahu (1720-
many spheres, notably in the field of
1797),
Vilno
was the spiritual center of
intensive Zionist activity and Hebrew
Jews
across
Europe.
Today, some 1,500
culture.
Jews
remain,
subsisting
mainly on gov-
Zionist leaders began scouring acade-
ernment
pensions
disbursed
by a Jewish
mic institutions in search of Hebrew-
Bureau headed by Dr. Alperowitz. Our
speaking personnel to direct and staff
visit to the bureau coincided with a con-
newly established Hebrew high schools
cert in honor of Israel's 50th anniversary
(gimnasias) where all subjects were
and attended by the Israeli ambassador,
taught in modern Hebrew.
Oded Ben-Hur, and Lithuania's presi-
Soon, similar Hebrew schools were
dent,
Valdas Adamukus. The Paneriai
founded in Vilno, Kovno and other
Forest,
near Vilno, is the site of the Nazi
major Lithuanian cities. Daily Yiddish
murder
of Minds 70,000 Jews and a
newspapers blossomed in Vilno and
solitary
synagogue
displaying the legend
Kovno and Zionist groups, reflecting
"a House of Prayer is a sacred
various ideological leanings, lent vitality
place for all peoples" is the only
and versatility to Lithuania's cultural
religious relic remaining of a
landscape. Poet laureate Chaim Nach-
once
flourishing Jewish com-
man Bialik referred to Lithuania as "the
munity.
A branch of Chabad-
only bastion of Hebrew culture in the
Diaspora."
My link with Lithuania, and especial-
ly the city of Mariampole, where I spent
my teenage years studying in and gradu-
ating from the Diaspora's first Hebrew
high school, was kept alive by my inti-
mate contacts with Israel's large but
diminishing community of Lithuanian
ohm (immigrants).
For a number of years, I maintained
close contact with distinguished Israeli
attorney Avraham Tory, who managed
to form a loose organization of former
Lithuanians that — under his leadership
— published significant brochures and
sponsored public events memorializing
Lithuanian Jewry, which attracted
nationwide attention.
Ezekiel Leikin is executive vice presi-
dent of the Zionist Organization of
America/Metro Detroit District. The
Southfield resident was born in Vilnius
(Vilno), Lithuania, in 1913.
Lubavitch in Vilno is attempting to
rekindle the dying embers of Jewish life:
The Kovno ghetto and the 9th Fort
will rank in infamy with such better
known killing sites as Bergen-Belsen and
Dachau. The Nazis and their Lithuan-
ian collaborators reduced the Jewish
population of Kovno from 37,000 to
2,500 in the course of three years. In
1943, the Germans began to prepare
the Kovno ghetto as a concentration L -\
camp; nearly all its occupants were
deported to death camps.
One monument in memory of those
who perished at the 9th Fort stands out
as one of the most awe-inspiring of the
Holocaust memorials built anywhere. It
is a high monument, which on closer
inspection, reveals tortured images of
men and women raising their hands
from the killing fields juxtaposed agairik
images of other humans in a state of
descent into the earth. This extraordi-
nary piece of architecture, by a non-Jew-
ish sculptor, was financed by Lithuanian
Jewish societies throughout the world.
Kovno's remaining 500 Jews subsist
on $80 a month from governmental
pensions, supplemented by a monthly
stipend to the community of $10,000 n)
from a South African Jewish philan-
thropist and a subvention from the
American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee.
The affairs of the aging Jewish corn-
munity are handled by a remarkable
woman, Asia Guterman, secretary of the
Bureau of Jewish Affairs, who is not a
Inset: This monument stands at the 9th Fort in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. The
19th century fort was built to defend against western aggression. The site marks
where Nazis and Lithuanian fascists killed 3,000 Jews. Above: Carved into the mon-
ument are bodies of murdered Jews stretched out in the fort's pits.