Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum commemorated The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, strengthening ties with foreign partners: the three day seminar „Holocaust, the Collaboration and the Mass Murder in Lithuania“ was organized on the 20th to 22nd of January, 2016. 44 teachers from various corners of Lithuania gathered at the Tolerance Center. The seminar was organized together with the Memorial de la Shoah (France) and The International Historical Commission (Lithuania).

Lectures were held not only on the theme of Holocaust history in Europe and Lithuania, collaboration, but also on the other mass murders and their remembrance. Teachers were listening the lectures, delivered by world known historians: Philippe Boukara and Georges Bensoussan from Memorial de la Shoah, Christian Ingrao and Nicolas Werth from the L’Institut d’histoire du temps présent (France),  Tomislav Dulic from Uppsala University (Sweden), Alain Blum from Centre franco-russe de Moscou (Russia), Prof. Saulius Sužiedėlis from Millersville University (USA), as well as the doctors of the History Science Arūnas Bubnys, Nerijus Šepetys and the Judaic expert Dr. Lara Lempert. Prof. Sužiedėlis also was reading the lecture of Christoph Dieckmann, who was not able to come to Vilnius due to family obstacles. Both history researchers earlier worked on the history research books: “Murders of Prisoners of War and of Civilian Population in Lithuania 1941-1944 (2005), and “The Persecution and Mass Murder of Lithuanian Jews during Summer and Fall of 1941“ (2006). 

The participants of the seminar were greeted by the Director of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum Markas Zingeris, Ambassador-at-Large Dainius Junevičius from the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Ambassador of the Republic of France to Lithuania Philippe Jeantaud, Chief specialist from the Ministry of Education and Science Rimantas Jokmaitis, Executive Director of The International Historical Commission Ronaldas Račinskas and the Head of the International Relations of the Memorial de la Shoah Bruno Boyer.

Director of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum talks to Prof. Saulius Sužiedėlis
VGSJM Director Markas Zingeris talks to H. E. Ambassador of France Phillipe Jeantaud, Director of the French Institute in Lithuania Frederic Bellido and the Executive Director of the International Historical Commission Ronaldas Račinskas	Organizer of the seminar Bruno Boyer, Head of the International Relations Department of the Memorial de la Shoah, taks to Kamilė Rupeikaitė, Deputy Director of VGSJM
Dainius Junevičius, Ambassador-at-Large from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania greeted the audience	Rimantas Jokimaitis, Chief specialist from the Ministry of Science and Education in Lithuania addressed the teachers
Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum is collecting, preserving and presenting the material and spiritual heritage of Lithuanian Jews with the aim to fill the vast cultural gap in the narrative of Lithuanian history and the worldview of its inhabitants resulting from the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. The branches of the Museum represent the different aspects of Jewish historic, cultural and artistic heritage as well as the Holocaust tragedy. We‘re waiting for the visitors at the Tolerance center (Naugarduko Str.10/2, Vilnius), the Holocaust exhibition (Pamėnkalnio Str. 12, Vilnius) and the Memorial of Paneriai (Agrastų Str. 15, Vilnius).
Seminar moments captured