History

The Jewish history in Lithuania dates back to the mid 14^th century, when Jewish communities migrated there after the Grand Duke Gediminas invited foreign artisans and merchants to come to Lithuania. At that time, Jews were famous for being fine tradesman and artisans, and were leaving Western Europe due to plague and the persecution that resulted from being falsely accused for the plague’s beginning. This migration is the reason that what is now Poland and Lithuania had some of the largest Jewish communities in Europe from the 1300’s until WWII. In Vilnius, the Jewish community totaled 100,000 at its largest, over a third of the population. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of the North”, experiencing a cultural flourishing with over 100 synagogues, secular and Jewish study centers (yeshivas), arts, theater, and was known as a world center for Yiddish learning.

What happened next is complicated and very sad. During the Holocaust, 90-95% of Lithuania’s Jewish community was lost. Most were not sent to concentration camps but were killed in Lithuania, in or outside their villages. A dark spot in Lithuanian history is that like elsewhere, the Nazi's use of psychological warfare and physical force resulted in most of the murders being carried out by Lithuanians. There is a subtle but palpable shame about this part of Lithuania's history, and some anger and Anti-Semitism still lingers as well. You can sense the country is moving forward, our visit to Vilnius, this history aside, was filled with food and beauty.

We learned about much of the Jewish history of Lithuania at the Jewish State Museum’s Center for Tolerance. In addition to their detailed exhibition on Jewish Life in Lithuania, they have many beautiful artifacts and artwork on display.

A photo of the old Great Synagogue of Vilnius

An old photograph of one of the main streets in the Jewish neighborhood in Vilnius.

This neighborhood today.









The remaining synagogue in central Vilnius.












10km outside of Vilnius is the small town of Panerai. In the forest outside of town is where over 70,000 Jews were murdered during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania. There are monuments spread throughout the otherwise beautiful forest. The scale is haunting.

A video of the Panerai forest memorial.



One of over a dozen memorials placed by individuals and organizations over the past 60 years.









Today, Panerai is a small train station, a market, and a cluster of modest homes.

We also visited the Museum for Genocide Victims, which chronicles the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviets from 1940-41 and 1944-1990 and by the Germans during WWII. The small museum is located in the old KGB headquarters and jail—from the outside, a neoclassical stone structure taking up an entire city block in the center of town. Lining the walls of the exterior are bricks with names of Lithuanians that lost their lives in that building, it was like a huge gravestone. Inside, hundreds of artifacts from the time period are displayed and described in dozens of small chambers that were originally used for KGB offices, interrogation rooms, etc. The number of artifacts made an impression on us, ranging from small pieces of cloth embroidered with slogans of freedom and perseverance, sent to family members in Siberian labor camps, to hundreds of photographs of partisan fighters, young men and women who literally lived in bunkers in the forests of Lithuania and fought a guerrilla war with the Red Army for 10 years following WWII. It was a war of resistance and half lost their lives. Today, anti-Soviet sentiment still exists, as the country recently passed a law banning the use of Soviet symbols.

A farmer turned newspaper editor and military chief for the partisans. Here you can see the day-to-day existence of the partisan resistance in this photograph.









Young partisan women in their leisure time, 1950’s.

Vilnius

We took a four hour bus ride across Lithuania to Vilnius. Vilnius is where Lesley’s maternal great grandfather Nathan Takefman is from. Nathan immigrated to Canada with his family when he was a teenager c. 1910. We decided to rent an apartment for a week in Vilnius because a) we wanted to do some research on the Takefman’s and b) after our apartment stay in Copenhagen, we realized how nice it was to have a home base. Out of a train station brochure, we scored this sweet apartment from Regina of Regina House. She is a lovely woman who lives around the corner and rents several apartments in the Old Town.

Our courtyard.












The front of our apartment building (we forgot to take any pictures inside)









The neighborhood, you’ll notice that Vilnius has charming churches everywhere.









A didelis (big) potato pancake, at a cute little underground tavern. Vilnius has quite a few of these cave-dwellings for a café, a beer, a snack, maybe more. They are charming.












One of the main drags in the old town










Vilnius is rapidly becoming a hip, European city. All over the city there are places like Cozy where we had our first dinner—fusion, Mediterranean, dj’s, candles, style, really nice food--inhabiting the old, Baroque buildings.
























Uzupio, a neighborhood on an island just east of Old Town. They’ve declared their independence and have a nice constitution posted along the main square, with everything from “everyone has a right to live by the river” to “no one has the right to make someone else feel guilty.”









The locks on this bridge into Uzupio were put here by couples as a symbol of their unbreakable union.









Uzupio’s central piazza












With the old churches, cobblestones, terra cotta tile, and the obvious dolce vita of the people, Vilnius feels a lot like an Italian city. They have good pizza too .









And lovely cafes where you can grab a coffee or a light lunch.












This is Joe’s favorite place to eat in the whole world: Pilies Kepyklete. Seriously, we came back three times..










The “refreshing salad”—grapes, cucumber, lettuce, feta, olives, tomatoes, pumpkin seeds, and a few ribbons of melon, all with a light vinaigrette.












Mushroom dumplings with sour cream—they look heavy but these were truly pillows, filled with wild mushroom ragu, the sour cream melted by the heat of the dumplings.












Meat crepe---imagine a crepe filled with a bolognese sauce, sour cream on the side. My oh my.












And to top it all off, two perfect espressos and a walnut pastry—a tart shell filled with the freshest walnuts lightly drizzled with caramel.









The place.









Vilnius University, a Jesuit university and Eastern Europe’s oldest founded in the late 1500’s. It’s a beautiful campus inside old town, with 13 courtyards surrounded by baroque buildings.












The main cathedral and bell tower









Brick baroque









Typical Vilnius street












Working on the blog we were forced to get late night grub. Burger House, not bad.












Burger House’s artwork









This is how they sell roses at the flower market.









The State Historical Archives north of town. We applied for a copy of my great-grandfather’s birth certificate here. Without knowing the specific synagogue that he belonged to, it may be hard to find. We’re hoping to return to the States to find a copy in our pile of mail.

In Vilnius, we first discovered the joy of communicating via photographs. Since our Lithuanian is quite limited (we have a basic phrase book), we tracked down the appropriate state archive office by flashing a photo of my great grandfather, me pointing to it and then to me, and then saying father’s father’s father (‘vater’ was the only family term we knew at that point). In addition to leading us further along our path, this stragey typically resulted in beautiful, brief connections and smiles.

They like smoked fish.









The sales girls where Lesley found a sweet pair of boots and Joe found a sweet wallet.










Main square old town









A lunch of soup on a rainy day---beef stew for Joe and sour cream of onion for Les. Les’ had hers with a cup of ciaocollato, an espresso cup filled with thick chocolate, maybe cocoa, sugar and cream. It was a day of cream for Les..












The indoor market









Dinner at a french bistro: Endive salad with hard-boiled egg and chicken liver pate on toast. Steak frites and veal medallions with vegetables and a mushroom sauce. We enjoyed a nice bottle of wine and the interesting music selection (Guns N Roses’ Appetite for Destruction)
























Back to our favorite place for coffee, Lithuanian brandy, and a treat. As if we needed a treat (did we mention we are on our honeymoon?)












An absolutely stunning fall day. We climbed the hill to the old Gediminus Castle.




































View of Vilnius from the top of the castle tower


Traveling in the fall is very special—changing leaves, crisp days, large appetites.

Being in Vilnius for a week, we looked into some of the local cultural activities. We got tickets to the state opera house’s performance of Verdi’s La Balla Maschera (The Masked Ball). Standby tickets were $5—by standby they mean standing, but everyone sat in aisles once the performance started.












A pre-performance aperitif.

A full house. The artistic direction was quite modern—chain link fence, guns, futuristic masquerade costumes. It was great—several hours of musical fantasy and dedicated artistry. We floated out of the theatre.

…and filled ourselves with mussels and frites and really strong belgian beer at Rene’s









A typical way Vilnius’ians take lunch is in small cafeteria-style buffets/coffee and pastry shops where one can mix and match from a selection of prepared foods (and get dessert to boot). This is one such place.









Everything is priced by weight, so you can get just what you want. In this case, we got a stuffed cabbage with a scoop of mashed potatoes and a dollop of sour cream, a little carrot salad, a little cabbage salad, one chicken kiev, a slice of brown bread, and a taste each of the two casseroles of the day—a savory strata and a noodle dish.









One of Lithuania’s national dishes are ceppelani’s, translated into zeppelins. As in blimps. You can see why. The texture is somewhat gelatinous gnocchi, stuffed with meat, topped with sour cream, and pork crackling sauce. There were two….

You’ll notice that the blog is increasingly focused on food, what better way is there to experience a culture.