September 2024
During Michael and Inna Rogatchi visit to Lithuania to participate in the program of events celebrating traditional annual European Days of Jewish Culture 2024, The Rogatchi Foundation delegation also took part in several meaningful commemorative events in Jonava.
The co-founders of the Foundation visited a special memorial to the victims of the Shoah in Jonava. The memorial which was opened many years ago on the very site of a mass execution of local Jews, in the outskirts of Jonava, is very well maintained. As many other memorials of the kind, both in Lithuania and Poland, the site bears its tangible atmosphere of horror at the place of annihilation of over 2 000 people.
Jonava, which was a predominantly Jewish town in Lithuania before WWII, has suffered badly. This story is told in the new exhibition at the Jonava Museum called Shtetl Mirage, which was produced recently, in commemoration of the days of memory of Jewish victims in Lithuania ( 23d September). Inna and Michael Rogatchi together with a delegation of cultural figures from Vilnius had attended the new exhibition at the Jonava Museum.
In a separate building belonging to the Jonava Museum, artist Felix Palauskauskas toured the delegation through his unique installation built in memory of the Jewish victims of the Shoah. As the artist explained the ideas and background of his important work, all present during that uneasy experience have got an impression of an incredible actuality of this haunting installation dedicated to the experiences of the Shoah and WWII with the current situation with the Israeli hostages kept by the terrorists for almost an year by the time of the events in inhuman conditions.
Inna Rogatchi spoke about it and the striking parallels between history and current moment in her speech later on the day at the commemorative event at the Grigory Kanovich Public Library of Jonava municipality.
More about the series of the commemorative events – in the Inna Rogatchi’s essay One Day in Jonava.