Wiesenthal Center assists Holocaust memorial ceremony in Lithuania

This is the second year that the Center is supporting the initiative launched by Lithuanian author Ruta Vanagaite to focus on neglected mass murder sites in Lithuania.

At the ceremony, the Center's director of Eastern European affairs Dr. Efraim Zuroff (pictured)emphasized the importance of such events which note the role of local collaborators in the Shoah in Lithuania, in contrast to government sponsored memorials which purposely hide them. RutaVanagaite spoke about the more than 500 children murdered at Naujanerai, and the impact on Lithuania of the annihilation of its flourishing Jewish community.

The event was given excellent coverage by www.delfi.lt, the country's largest and most influential news website.

Watch the video of the Holocaust memorial ceremony held on Sunday, September 24, in Naujaneriai, on the outskirts of Vilna. It wasprepared by non-Jewish Lithuanian high school students who were inspired by the book written by Ruta Vanagaite and Efraim Zuroff, MÅ«siškiai; Kelionė Su Priešu (Our People; Journey With anEnemy) and a terrific teacher to make an hour-long documentary last year on the Shoa in Lithuania, which was entitled "The Forgotten," and are now making an additional movie on the historyof Lithuanian Jewry.

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center: Tel: 972-2-563-1274 or Tel: 972-50-721-4156, join the Center on Facebook, ww.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal and @EZuroff for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the UnitedStates. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).