The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of Lithuanian Jewish children that were killed
during the Holocaust.

23 September 2009, on the 20th anniversary of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum and the Day of the Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews, a new permanent modern exhibit titled Rescued Lithuanian Jewish Child Tells about Shoah was opened in the Museum’s Tolerance Centre (Naugarduko St 10/2).

The exhibit Rescued Lithuanian Jewish Child Tells about Shoah is comprised of the memoirs, videos, documentaries and pictures of Holocaust witnesses. Our goal is to tell the society of Lithuania – and especially the young generation – about the Holocaust not from textbooks but from the stories told by living people. Unique and authentic material speaks about the Holocaust which took place on Lithuanian soil during World War II, about the loss of loved ones and miraculous salvation, and about the feelings, stress and fear of persecuted children that accompanied them throughout the entire war.

Rescuers Jonas and Elena Adomaičiai with their grandson

The biggest challenge for the designers of this project was to find a way to fit all the desired information in a rather small room while making the presentation appealing, structured and easy to understand.
It took quite some time to design the right layout of the room until the solution was made to centre the exhibit around a statue of a child. This statue became the symbol of the new exhibit.
Multilayered nature of the topic analysed in the exhibit has been expressed through the use of different materials. Wooden panels contain stories of children, while memoirs of rescuers are presented on transparent luminous panels. The most stable and interconnecting part of the exhibit – the historical context – is displayed on concrete walls inlaid with metal plates and shapes the environment which moulded the lives of the heroes of the exhibit.
A unique accent of the exhibit is an interactive memorial dedicated to the memory of Lithuanian Jewish children that were killed during the Holocaust.
The unique installation of light, video and sound designed exclusively for this exhibit interactively involves the visitors. Each guest can pick up a stone and leave it the memorial to honour the dead according to the Jewish tradition. Then a lullaby “Shtiler, Shtiler...” is played. The melody of this song, which is sung to children to this day, was written by a then 11-year-old boy, prisoner of the Vilnius Ghetto, and now a famous pianist Alexander Tamir (Alik Wolkowiski). A rising wave of light floods the pictures of children on concrete walls. The visitors of the memorial look at authentic pre-war pictures and meet the glances of children, whose names and exact places of death were recorded, and children whose names and fates remain unknown to us...

Authors of the exhibit:
Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum:
Project Manager Danutė Selčinskaja Danute.Selcinskaja@jmuseum.lt
Museum workers Daiva Osipovaitė, Ruta Kaplinskaja, Ana Bogatyriova, Renata Kripaitė
UAB „Terra media”, www.terramedia.lt

The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum is sincerely grateful to the following organisations and persons for the provided financial support of the exhibition Rescued Lithuanian Jewish Child Tells about Shoah:
Task Force Fund for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education Remembrance and Research
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
Ministry of Culture and Culture Support Foundation of the Republic of Lithuania
Mr. Jonathan Bear, Telesforas Laucevičius and other private sponsors who have contributed to the remembrance of the rescuers of Jews

The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum kindly invites pupils and their teachers as well as all residents and guests of Vilnius City to learn the historical lesson of Holocaust in the exhibit Rescued Lithuanian Jewish Child Tells about Shoah opened in the Tolerance Centre.

Information on excursions:
Danutė Selčinskaja, tel. No.: (85) 261 5729
Ieva Šadzevičienė, tel. No.: (85) 262 9666

Tolerance Centre (Naugarduko St 10/2, Vilnius) opening hours:
Monday to Thursday: 10 am – 6 pm
Friday: 10 am – 4 pm
Saturday: Closed
Sunday: 10 am – 4 pm