Exhibition

“Righteous Among the Nations.
Unafraid to Die, They Became Immortal.”
 

We often hear and rejoice in people from all over the world who do good deeds – philanthropists, patrons, volunteers, stars donating large sums of money or celebrities establishing various foundations. However, we don't have to look far for examples of good and courageous deeds – From our history, we see people who did good deeds but were forced to do them silently because they risked not only their own lives but also the lives of their families. These are the Righteous Among the Nations. Through their actions, they have proven that the only thing that matters is morality, and morality must be stronger than fear.

The Righteous Among the Nations are people who, while not being Jews and not seeking profit, helped and saved Jews during the Holocaust. This status is awarded to a person by Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust memorial center in Israel. The criteria that the Righteous must meet are very strict. In Lithuania, the majority of Jews living here were killed during the Holocaust. It is a pity and a shame that there were people who contributed to the massacre of Jews. Some explained that they had no choice but to follow the instructions of the government, while others looked for ways to seize other people's property. The Righteous found the strength to resist the pressure of the environment and the government. They proved that there is always a choice. It doesn't matter gender, age, social status or profession - everyone can choose. Helping Jews during the German occupation was one of the riskiest possible acts. Punishments for helping in the occupied countries varied. In Lithuania, the punishment was the most severe – not only the rescuer, but also his family were threatened with death. Despite the threats, the morality of the righteous was stronger than fear. In percentage terms, Lithuania's righteous people are in second place in the world. According to official Yad Vashem data for 2023, there were 924 righteous people in Lithuania. This number grows every year due to new testimonies.

The idea for this exhibition came from the desire to thank the people who saved humanity in Lithuania. With this exhibition, we thank everyone who has helped others. And those who are not on the Yad Vashem lists. In some cases, the rescued did not contact Yad Vashem, the investigation lacked testimonies, the names were forgotten, or, unfortunately, neither the rescued nor the rescuers survived. After listening to the stories of relatives, we will hear stories about how someone's grandfather used to transport goods to the ghetto with a double-bottomed wagon, and how a grandmother would give her granddaughter a loaf of bread, which the little one had to throw over the fence at an agreed place. And even if they are not on the list, we are grateful to them, because in this way they saved Lithuania. We thank those who felt a duty and had enough determination to help other people when it was needed. This was quiet but deeply meaningful resistance to evil.

On March 15, 2023, we presented the first exhibition "Righteous Among the Nations. Not Afraid to Die, They Became Immortal". During it, we presented 22 people. On March 15, 2024, we will open the second part of the exhibition - we will present 40 Righteous Ones in total. At the top of each description, you will find brief information about how old the person was at the time they saved Jews, what they were doing at that time, and how many people they saved. There are stories in which it is not clear in what exact year the rescue took place, so for the sake of generalization, we calculated the age in all the top lines by subtracting the year of birth from 1941. Often, the stories or facts between Lithuanian and Israeli sources differ slightly. When writing about the rescue, we used Yad Vashem information as the main source. In the line where we write how many people the Righteous One saved, we also relied on Yad Vashem data, which only speaks of identified saved Jews. So, even if history shows that there were more Jews saved, we write about this in the text, but the top line remains the official, researched number. Let us keep in mind that some of the Righteous helped not only Jews.

In this exhibition, we present one Righteous One, who was granted the status in an unprecedented manner, because the people he rescued persisted in seeking his recognition. There are stories that tell that even within the same family, views differed radically – Rescuers deliberately hid Jews hidden in homes, even from their own family members.. This once again proves how important one person's decision can be, and reminds us that the opportunity to choose is always there. It is very unfortunate, but the fate of many Righteous, people whose courage and deeds seem hard to imagine, after the war was simply tragic - some died in exile, others, having lost their lands, lived on the verge of poverty. The vast majority went to work in assigned jobs to support their families.

In 2018, architect Tauras Budzys initiated a project to commemorate the Righteous Among the Nations, marking the graves, cenotaphs and memorial sites of the Righteous with a uniform commemorative sign. Since 2022, the project has been partially funded by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania and the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Center. The righteous presented in this exhibition have been selected from the nearly 400 whose graves Tauras has already managed to find and mark.

A miller from Samogitia, when an acquaintance who had sheltered Jews came to him, replied to his request to secretly grind flour at night, "Visi prisidėkime prie gerų darbų”. And this “all” was enough for 24 people to survive.Let us be proud of such people! May their behavior inspire us to do good deeds. Let us hope that we will never have to make such heroic choices again, but simple and good everyday actions are also important. And if we ever think that we are limited in something, that we have no other choice, let us turn to the stories of the Righteous. They were threatened with death for making the right choice. Let us remember this and be brave.

​

​