This is a story of facing and coming to terms with history. Accepting Zagare was something all of us found ourselves doing – in Zagare – on July 13, 2012.
By STEVE LINDESARA MANOBLA interviews Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkas in 1998(photo credit: JOY HALL)
The following excerpt is from the preface to Sara Manobla’s book, Zagare: Litvaks and Lithuanians Confront the Past.This is a story of facing and coming to terms with history. Accepting Zagare was something all of us found ourselves doing – in Zagare – on July 13, 2012.From its inception, the project of erecting a plaque in the town square commemorating the annihilation in 1941 of the town’s entire Jewish community was a joint undertaking by Jews of the Zagarean descent, together with local Lithuanians led by Valdas Balciunas. At no stage was it a gesture of revenge or a settling of accounts. Accepting, acknowledging, remembering and educating – these were our goals.In a letter written after we returned home from Zagare, one of our group, filmmaker Rod Freedman, wrote: “I think the word ‘reconciliation’ is appropriate – for me personally, and because of Valdas’s attitude and other non- Jews whom we met. We’re not talking about meeting with the perpetrators; it’s almost too late for that now, so it’s not about reconciling with those who participate, or about forgiving. For me, it’s about acknowledgment and showing respect.”Paying tribute to those noble Lithuanians who risked their lives and the lives of their families to save Jews in distress was also part of our mission. The testimony of Ruth Yoffe, a Holocaust survivor living in Jerusalem, would enable us to pay homage to a Zagarean family who had rescued her and her grandmother Batya: the Levinskas family were to be honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority as Righteous Among the Nations, and would be remembered on our memorial dedication day alongside those who had been killed.We were a group of eight, descendants of the families that had left Zagare – in good time – before World War II. Our ancestors had fled in order to escape persecution and make a better life for their children. We came from England, America, South Africa, Australia and Israel looking for roots and for a connection with a place and history inherited from our parents and grandparents.Each of us had a different perception of Zagare and what it meant to us. My initial engagement developed through my interest in Jewish genealogy and family history; it continued through my involvement with the struggle of Soviet Jewry, promoting the cause of refuseniks who wished to immigrate to Israel.There were those in our little band who had come to say Kaddish for their relatives murdered in 1941, and to lay a flower on the mass grave. There were those who genuinely wished to reach out to the young generation of the town and help them to improve their lives. When we met in Zagare we all found ourselves striving to come to terms with the perceptions of the other people we met on the way. Acceptance could be an all-embracing word for this process of coming to terms and for what I would like to believe we accomplished – not forgiving, not forgetting, but a measure of tolerance, respect, hope, listening, supporting, agreeing, accepting and letting go, all sorely needed in our world today.
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