In 2011, Vilna Gaon museum of Jewish history launched virtual exhibition www.rescuedchild.lt (www.issigelbejesvaikas.lt), which presents stories of rescued Jew children and their rescues during Nazi occupation in Lithuania. This virtual exhibition consists of unique testimonies of Holocaust survivors, video and audio interviews, miraculously preserved family pictures of the rescued people and their rescuers, documentaries. We continue this work with the rescued people and their rescuers till this day; we examine every single case and still get inquiries from the survivors, rescuers and their descendants who search for information about their parents or grandparents, so our virtual exhibition is regularly updated with new information and data.
By 2020, as many as 915 citizens of Lithuania have been recognised as Righteous among the Nations, most of them are also awarded with the Lithuanian State award – the Cross of Salvation.
The virtual exhibition was created by using Adobe Flash plugin. Unfortunately, this valuable authentic information is inaccessible today to the visitors using mobile devices (iPhone, iPad), Apple laptops as well as other modern laptops. The website will not be reachable to anyone after December 2020. Our goal is to make the virtual exhibition accessible for everyone and for future generations, therefore we need to renew the software.
Your contribution could help us to preserve the Holocaust memory and spread these stories worldwide by renewing the virtual exhibition‘s website, which is counted to cost 5 500 EUR. Thank you in advance for your kind support!
Together we can make it happen!
Moshe Rosenblum: After the war my parents kept warm, heartfelt, and truly close relations with our rescuers until their very last days. These are the people enabled us to avoid the terrible fate of almost all Lithuanian Jews. I also have a family, two sons and grandchildren. They have been rescued too.
Danutė Pomerancaitė-Mazurkevich: My mother succeeded at meeting Elena Petrauskienė in the city. She agreed to rescue me. The problem was how to get me out of the ghetto. A doctor was found who gave me a lot of sedatives and told them to put me in a potato sack. Balys Simanavičius had to take me out of the ghetto. I was given quite a high dose of drugs, and I could have died...
Judita Zakšteinaitė-Varenbergienė: One morning, the teacher woke me up. „Juditele, get up“ We‘re taking you to your mother“. I gathered the few belongings I owned, and silently we left the Orphanage Home. Across the street was Panevėžys Church; near the church was a rectory. The teacher and I crossed to the church and entered the rectory, where there waited a man, not tall, with a kind, sincere face. He had tears in his eyes. He took my face in his shaking hands and gently said: „Don‘t be afraid, my child. Don‘t cry. I will be your father and mother, because you have lost your home“.
Ariela Abramovich Sef: My parents did not take me home right after the Germans retreated. I refused to part with Mama Julija. I did not recognise my father, saying “Good day Pan, good day Pan (or Good day Sir)”. As soon as it was explained to me that I had other parents, I started sobbing, clinging on to Mama Julija’s skirt. It was only after my parents had visited me several times that Mama Julija was able to pull me away from he.
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More information about the virtual exhibition and our
museum: http://www.jmuseum.lt/lt/
Also Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tolerance.center.lt/
