European studies blog

Exploring Europe at the British Library

24 January 2025

Beyond Traditional Monuments: Commemorating the Lost Jewish Community of Kaunas

For centuries Lithuania was an important spiritual and cultural centre of Jewish life. The biggest Jewish communities were in Vilnius (‘Jerusalem of the North’) and Kaunas, the second biggest city in Lithuania. Before the Nazi invasion in June 1941, around 240,000 Jews lived in Lithuania; only several thousand – around 5% – survived the Holocaust.

In the interwar period Kaunas, a temporary capital of Lithuania, had a flourishing, vibrant and dynamic Jewish community. At one point a third of the inhabitants of Kaunas – 33,000 people – were Jewish. The city had around 40 synagogues and prayer houses, including the Slobodka yeshiva, one of the largest and best known yeshivas in Europe.

Painting of the Old Synagogue in Kaunas

Gerardas Bagdonavičius, The Old Synagogue in the Old Town, 1930. Reproduced in Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, Synagogues in Lithuania: a catalogue (Vilnius, 2010). YD.2011.b.2062

The Jewish educational network consisted of numerous Yiddish and Hebrew schools. There was a flourishing artistic and music scene. The city had a Yiddish and a Hebrew theatre, several daily Jewish newspapers, sports clubs and youth organisations. Jewish political organisations were thriving. Social welfare organisations and charitable societies took care of those less fortunate; the Kaunas Jewish Hospital cared for both Jewish and non-Jewish patients. In 1920 the Central Jewish bank was established in Kaunas, leading a network of 85 Jewish banks.

Black and white photograph of a pillar covered in posters advertising cultural events in Lithuanian and Yiddish

Posters advertising cultural events in Lithuanian and Yiddish, image from Hidden history of the Kovno Ghetto, general editor Dennis B. Klein (Boston, 1997). LB.31.c.9499

Black and white photograph of a football match

Football match in the Kaunas Maccabi Stadium between the Kovas Club of Šančiai and the Maccabi Sports Club, April 25, 1926, image from Žydųgyvenimas Kaune iki holokausto (Vilnius, 2021). YF.2023.a.2399

Black and white photograph of the Jewish Central Bank in Kaunas

Central Jewish Bank. Image from Wikimedia Commons

During the Nazi occupation the Kaunas Jewish community was almost completely destroyed. How to commemorate those who perished in such tragic circumstances?

The 11th Kaunas Biennial, which took place in 2017, explored the theme of monuments. What is a monument? Is our understanding of monuments changing? Is there a need for different kinds of commemoration? During the biennial the participating artists created, among others, a number of site-specific performances and installations referencing Kaunas’ Jewish past.

The artist Jenny Kagan, whose parents survived the Kaunas Ghetto, in her installation Murmuration, using a video projection and LED lighting, evoked the memory of the lost Jewish community. A brightly lit up building of a former Hasidic synagogue (the lights followed the rhythm of street lighting) on closer inspection turned out to be empty and derelict. The emptiness of the building is reminiscent of an empty sky from which starlings, known for their murmurations, quickly disappear, their numbers drastically declining.

Colour photograph of an old synagogue at night, lit from within

Murmuration, from Yra ir nėra = There and not there: (im)possibility of a monument (Kaunas, 2018) [awaiting shelfmark]

Colour photograph of a derelict synagogue door with one panel open at the bottom

Paulina Pukytė curated several performances and installations for the 11th Kaunas Biennial. One of them was At Noon in Democrats’ Square. Every day at noon, from 15 October to 30 November 2017, in the Vilijampolė district of Kaunas, a singer stood facing the empty space which once was Demokratų Square. The singer sang two songs in Yiddish: Yankele and My Yiddishe Mame. The performance lasted 7 minutes.

Colour photograph of a woman singing in a city square

At Noon in Democrats’ Square, from Yra ir nėra

Vilijampolė, also known as Slobodka, on the right bank of the Neris River, was the site of the Kaunas Ghetto where thousands of Jews perished during the Holocaust. On 29 October, 1941, the day of the so called ‘Great Action’, around 27,000 Jews were forced to assemble on Demokratų Square. Men, women and children stood there for hours while a selection took place. Those deemed strong enough to work were temporarily saved; the rest, 9,200 of them, were executed the next day in Fort IX, part of the city‘s fortifications turned into a temporary prison.

At Noon at Democrats Square was a commemoration of those who perished as a result of the ‘Great Action’.

Paulina Pukytė, the chief curator of the 11th Kaunas Biennial, is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator and critic, and lecturer at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. She will talk about the (im)possibility of monuments at the Holocaust Memorial Day event, held at the British Library on 27th of January.

Ela Kucharska-Beard, Curator Slavonic and East European Collections

References and further reading:

Paulina Pukytė, Kas yra = Something is (Vilnius, 2021) [awaiting shelfmark] 

 Arūnas Bubnys, Kaunas ghetto 1941-1944 (Vilnius, 2014). YD.2016.a.992 

 Martin Winstone, The Holocaust Sites of Europe : an Historical Guide (London, 2015). YC.2016.a.6368 

 Nick Sayers, The Jews of Lithuania: a Journey Through the Long Twentieth Century (London, 2024)

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