The Jewish cemetery is a cultural heritage site protected by the Lithuanian government, meaning that in order to build upon it they must first consider the implications.
April 23, 2020, marked the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon.
Fleeing a Galilean plague, a handful of the Vilna Gaon’s students rewrote the holy city’s history
During the pandemic, the community also marked two important events: the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon and the 75th anniversary since the end of the Second World War.
The synagogue originally had five floors, two of which were underground, and could host up to 5,000 worshipers.
According to the website of the Bank of Lithuania, the commemorative 10-Euro coin will be released in the second quarter of 2020.
In addition, during the excavation a prayer book survived the Holocaust, hundreds of coins from the 16th to 20th centuries and buttons of Napoleon's army, which passed through Vilna.
"The many thousands buried here have no descendants or relatives to stand up for the integrity and dignity of their graves precisely because of the Holocaust," says a Vilnius-based scholar.
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