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Vilna - A City of Ghosts

03/08/2012 11:26:48 AM

Aug3

From Our Travelogue 
 
The bus comes to a stop on the tarmac. "Oh no," I hear mummy sigh as her face drops. She has just spotted the plane that is to take us to Helsinki on our way to Warsaw (three times the distance, but less than half the price... when you gotta save, you gotta save...) It's powered by propellers. "I didn't think they made these any more!"
 
And Vilna today? Now, on the streets where Jews once walked, studied, and argued, there are quaint street cafes. On Jew Street (yes, there's a street by that name) you can buy amateurish paintings of Jewish street life. Or were they caricatures...? Hard to tell. What is beyond dispute is that Vilna today is no more than a caricature of what it once was. A city where 40% of the population was Jewish is now almost empty of Jews. 
 
A few examples to give some perspective of the tragedy that befell glorious Vilna:
 
1) The estate that Baron Hirsch bought to house the needy Jews of the Old City in the nineteenth century is now a guest house, no more than a plaque on the wall informing the visitor of its former status. 
 
2) Vilna's large Mikveh complex has become a public bathhouse, open to all and sundry, from Thursday evening until Sunday each week.
 
3) The famous Romm Brothers printing press building where the Vilna Shas was printed has been restored to its former splendor on the outside. Inside, it is today an upmarket apartment complex. 
 
(An interesting anecdote... There are actually two buildings, one which was restored and the other not. In between the two there is a courtyard, not visible from the street. Curious, I wanted to check out the courtyard so found a hole in the fence through which to climb. Mummy was a bit nervous but our tour guide told me not to worry... if someone asked what I was doing there I should just say that the building belonged to my grandfather and I was coming to claim it... I should mention that Rita, who was truly informative, articulate and with a good sense of humour, was not Jewish... 
 
Another interesting observation... The unrestored building has in one place a window grill in the shape of a Magen David, an inconspicuous reminder of its once proud Jewish past.)
 
4) The huge occupational school that Baron Hirsch built is now an apartment complex. Actually, the story is more sinister than that... During the war the complex served as a slave labour camp for over a thousand women who hid their children for several years from the Nazis in the basement. Four days before liberation the Jewish children and their mothers were informed upon, murdered and buried in the courtyard - where today non-Jewish children run and play.
 
The same is true of all private and public Jewish property. Other than the Choral Shul, they are no longer in Jewish hands. To paraphrase the words of the prophet, they have not only murdered us, but also stolen our money... This is in stark contrast to Russia where public Jewish property has been, and is, being returned to the Jewish Community.
 
And the tens of thousands of Jews who once gave Vilna it's vibrancy? 
 
Europe is unequalled in its art, architecture, literature - all those disciplines that celebrate the beauty of humanity. Unfortunately, however, history has shown that a very thin veneer separates this outer spendour from the bestiality that lies just beneath the European surface. The most vicious and senseless wars, and peerless atrocities, have occurred on that continent. In a not dissimilar manner, Europe's beautiful forests hide mankind's ugliest secrets.  In one such forest, P, not ten kilometers from Vilna,  there is a circle of green lawn about fifty meters in diameter. If you dare put your ear to the ground, you might just hear the terrified screams and deafening silence of the last generation of Vilna's Jews.
 
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As if the Nazi tragedy wasn't enough the Communists added another of their own. The Jewish cemeteries of the city were harvested of their headstones which were used as foundations for buildings.  The cemetery where the Vilna Gaon was buried was turned into a Sports Centre. The only remains that were saved were those of the Gaon himself, the ashes of the famed Ger Tzeddek Count Podotzky (who was burned at the stake for converting to Judaism), and two or three others. We visited both the original burying place, as well as the Ohel in which these remains were reinterred.
 
Speaking of the Gaon, how could a visit to Vilna's old town be complete without a visit to his Shule and adjacent home? But the Germans managed to bomb these too out of existence, an ugly Communist period building standing in its place. The only reminder of the illustrious Gaon - a statue. Does it look like him? Not really.  Like  modern day Vilna itself, it's an amateurish replica.  Or perhaps a caricature...
 
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Is  there a silver lining to this dark pall? That is a question only G-d can answer and for that we must await Moshiach. In the mean time, let's focus on some golden people. 

 
Vilna was not initially on our agenda. But mummy claims that there is substance to the rumor that she is descended from the Gaon on her mum's side. Who am I to argue? It also didn't hurt that so many of our congregants trace their roots to Lita. So, off to Vilna we went.
 
This would have been all but impossible if not for the Lubavitcher shliach Rabbi Sholom Ber Krinsky. He arranged a driver to pick us up from the station, allowed us to stay in Chabad House (a massive converted hotel that was donated by an anonymous South African of Lithuanian descent), and ensured that we had all our meals catered for during our twenty six hour stay in town.
 
Mummy and I are in total wonder at these young Shluchim, so far away from family and friends, who have built such a warm community. We weren't there long enough to see all their work, but the day camp and school that they run for the community,  and the foster home that they maintain for neglected Jewish children, were more than enough to inspire.
 
We would love to take a group of our congregants on a tour of Jewish Lita under the direction of Rabbi and Rebbetzin Krinsky.  Perhaps more important, though, would be the forging of a partnership between those congregants whose roots lie in Lithuania and the work that Rabbi and Rebbetzen Krinsky are doing today. Lita, as it once was, may no longer be, but Jewish sparks still exist in that blood-soaked land.  Let's give the Krinskys a hand in stoking the embers of that once vibrant community.  Who knows what greatness may still arise.
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