Vilkija

Early last week, leaders of the Society for Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Heritage in Lithuania, Rabbi Elchanan Baron and Rabbi Eli Meir Cohen, led a group to Europe as part of an ongoing initiative to preserve and restore old Jewish cemeteries.

The plan was that they would meet up with a team of volunteers from the Christian Society for Penitence and Reconciliation (a group who wish to make amends for the hundreds of instances where Jewish cemeteries were destroyed by Christians over the course of centuries) to erect new tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Vilkija, Lithuania. But a torrential rainstorm pounded Lithuania, so strong it felled trees. As the cemetery is located in a forest, doing any work there was dangerous, and Rabbi Baron and Rabbi Cohen were resigned to wait until the storm subsided. It rained throughout Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday, it stopped, and Rabbi Baron and Rabbi Cohen, together with their group, turned up at the cemetery for a prescheduled ceremony with government officials — and stopped short. They saw no fewer than 28 newly re-erected tombstones.

The Society members were there, all smiles.

“How did this happen?” Rabbi Baron asked them.

“It was a huge storm,” one of the men, Kees Lavooij, explained.

“It rained to the right of us, it rained to the left of us. But it didn’t rain on the cemetery. We worked all day yesterday.”

The crowd applauded, and Rabbi Baron asked, “Can you explain that?”

“There’s only one explanation,” Mr. Lavooij replied and lifted his index finger and pointed upward.

On Tishah B’Av, 65 years after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, the Romans crushed the last Jewish holdout with the massacre of the city of Beitar, where, according to sources, hundreds of thousands of Jews were slain. Yet the Romans would not allow the corpses to be buried. They remained in the open fields under the beating hot August sun. But then a miracle happened: The bodies didn’t rot. It took months (some sources say years) until 15 Av, when the Romans allowed the corpses to be collected and buried — and they were all intact. By way of this miracle, the Jewish people saw a ray of light in one of Jewish history’s darkest periods. And now, with this miracle, Hashem continued to shine a light upon us through the darkness of galus, reminding us that a glorious future awaits.

After three somber articles about the dire situation of the cemeteries in Lithuania, an avid reader commented that my articles were getting a bit morose.

Tongue-in-cheek, he asked if I could “jazz it up,” especially since the Nine Days had passed. Honestly, it’s hard to “jazz up” an article dealing with a dire situation, but I suppose that his comment was a bit providential.

My visit to the Vilkija (Vilkie) cemetery, a small suburb right outside of Kovna, was actually preceded by a ceremony at a nearby park, where a large statue of Louis Armstrong, the African-American King of Jazz, stood proudly.

Those of you who pore over the Yated may have read about Mr. Armstrong’s amazing connection to the town of Vilkija and how his foundation memorialized him there. He had worked for the Karnofsky family, émigrés from Vilkija who fled due to the bitter persecution in Lithuania and settled in New Orleans. They bought young Louis his first cornet, and from there he went on to trumpet and become America’s foremost jazz musician. Despite his fame and fortune, he had tremendous affinity, through gratitude, for the Jewish people, always wearing a Mogein Dovid and a mezuzah around his large neck. He also spoke Yiddish and acknowledged that not only were blacks a persecuted minority in mid-20th century America, but he was astounded by the amount of prejudice “other whites” had toward Jews.

You’d think that this little piece of history has nothing to do with restoring a bais hakevaros in a shtetel in Lithuania, but fascinatingly enough, and with tremendous Hashgocha Elyonah, it does.

To restore a cemetery, you need the cooperation of many parties. Unfortunately, the Lithuanian governments, both nationally and locally, have been at best apathetic, if not antagonistic, toward attempts at restoration, as it affirms the large Jewish presence in their cities and towns prior to the Holocaust. This, of course, leads to questions among the populace and an uncovering of the truth about what happened between 1941 and 1943, when 96 percent of the Jewish population was murdered through Lithuanian initiation and utmost collaboration.

But pressure, political and otherwise, always helps. Believe it or not, the United States has a special agency to help protect and preserve sites connected to American citizens. It is known as The Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.

Many lay leaders worked diligently, along with Rabbi Elchonon Baron, Rabbi Eli Mayer Cohen, and so many others, to restore and preserve the dignity of the Jewish cemeteries. Among them is Jack Lyons, an American industrialist (Lyon Auctions) of Lithuanian descent who shares the passion and is partnering with Rabbi Baron in restoring Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania.

During the Trump administration, the Chair of the Commission, a friend of mine and a tremendous askan in our community and worldwide was an observant Jew, Paul Packer, who worked to gain the cooperation of foreign governments to preserve the sanctity of the mekomos hakedoshim in Europe. President Biden replaced him and others with new appointees. He appointed an African-American woman named Starlet “Star” Jones Lugo to chair the commission. She is not Jewish. Why would she care about the Vilkija cemetery near Kovno? How would she even know?

Enter Louis Armstrong, among others.

Let me backtrack. Nothing to do with Ms. Jones, Rabbi Elchonon Baron is always looking to help restore cemeteries, but for that, a few criteria must be met. The cemetery can’t be totally destroyed or have buildings on it. The cemetery has to be in a central and accessible location, and the municipality must be amenable to the restoration. A woman, Milda Jakulita, from Matzeva.org, suggested to try to restore the cemetery in Vilkija, which was not destroyed and lay in a forest in that town near Kovno. It met all the criteria.

Enter tremendous Hashgocha Protis.

A while back, in spring of 2023, Ms. Jones visited Shnipishok to understand the issues concerning the cemetery. She had heard about the memorial park in Vilkija honoring the memory of Louis Armstrong, and because of the amazing African-American connection, she visited it as well. She learned about the Karnofsky-Armstrong connection and realized that in Vilkija lies a true and deep American Heritage connection. But at the time, her visit to Vilkija had nothing to do with the cemetery. It had only to do with Mr. Armstrong and his Jewish connection.

Her trip to Vilkija was moving. She commented at the park ceremony, “A Jewish community lived here. They worked, then came to the United States, and raised a young African-American boy who later became one of the world’s most famous artists. This is what shows the connection between Lithuania and the United States, Jews and black Americans, and all Americans.”

With the newly-found connection between Vilkija and the US, the askanim, who had previously set their sights on Vilkija, sprang into action. Through the efforts of the aforementioned preservation partner, Jack Lyon, who was a friend of former commission member Gary Lavine, Ms. Jones found out about the cemetery that lay unattended for decades, not far from the park at which she just spoke. They beseeched her to help restore it.

Ms. Jones agreed with the need for American support of the cemetery restoration project, as it contained remains of many forebears of prominent Americans. After all, the Karnofsky family, now a prominent family in the United States, has relatives buried there, as do members of the Shoham family, whose forebear, the last rov of Vilkija, was murdered there. The Rosen family, descendants of the famed Rav Moshe Rosen, the Neizer Hakodesh, also have relatives buried there. Rav Rosen, who immigrated to America, was the son-in-law of Rav Hillel Dovid Trivesh, a great gaon who was a talmid of Rav Yisroel Salanter and the publisher of HaPisgah, the first Torah choveres in the Russian Empire and a foundation for Torah journals in our time.

Official American support gave impetus for the local governments to get on board, and it most certainly did.

The objectives for restoring the cemetery, which lay unattended and unkempt in the middle of a forest not far from the statue of Mr. Armstrong were as follows:

• Establishing accurate boundaries for the cemetery, as it is presently part of a forest. For that, they needed aerial photos from World War II taken by US Army reconnaissance planes while the US was at war with Germany, which occupied Lithuania.
• Clearing the cemetery area of 80 years of unchecked growth.
• Attempting to find more gravestones under the growth as well as in surrounding areas.
• Restoring collapsed and damaged gravestones.
• Erecting a durable perimeter fence and appropriate gate area to ensure the protection of the cemetery for the foreseeable future.
• Preparing access roads, parking, and signage.
• Researching and establishing a memorial to Vilkija’s martyred Jewish community.
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Ms. Star actually wrote a letter about her feelings in which she expressed the following:

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“You may not know this, but I actually visited Vilkija last spring. I have been to the beautiful Louis Armstrong memorial amphitheater on the river, and I agree that the Karnofsky story is an amazing one that connects Lithuania, its Jewish community, and descendants directly to the USA and our mission here at the Commission. That is why I was so happy to meet with Mr. Jack Lyon and learn about his desire to restore this particular cemetery. As I shared with Mr. Lyon, the Commission agrees with the significance of this project and will be happy to support it in the future.”

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Armed with that support, the endeavor took a turn that was both fascinating and encouraging. The aid came not only through the help of the Chairwoman of the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage, but also from another amazing group of gentiles, led by Kees Lavooij, the spokesman of the Dutch Society for Penitence and Reconciliation, who came to the aid of this mammoth project.

Two weeks ago, on a mission sponsored by Kosher West of Lakewood, New Jersey, I was zocheh to join the dedication ceremony and restoration activity of the Vilkija cemetery. It included some fascinating highlights that I will detail next week.

A Japanese ambassador, a Dutch ambassador, and the vice-mayor of a Lithuanian city walk into a cemetery. It sounds like the opening lines of a joke, but it wasn’t. This wasn’t the start of a joke. It really happened, and it was actually the beginning of some very serious reconciliation.

The convergence of these dignitaries occurred just outside the cemetery in Vilkie, a small town near Kovno. The group included more than just ambassadors and other international dignitaries from a wide array of countries. It also included descendants of Vilkie, kollel members, rabbonim, and lay leaders from Lakewood. But more importantly, it represented a unique experience and undertaking that, hopefully, can take place in other shtetlach and cities across Lithuania and Eastern Europe.

We are all familiar with the names of the famous Litvisher cities. Vilna, Kovno, Telshe, Ponovezh, and Kelm are known to everyone. As the son of a Lithuanian refugee, the Yiddish names of Lithuanian cities like Memel (Klapedia), Vilkomir (Ukmergė), Shavel, Rakashik, Ramaleis, and Keydan are familiar to me. After all, these are some of the towns where my father learned or where other yeshivos were established. We also know cities by the names of the gaonim who were called by their shtetlach: Reb Nochum Trocker, Reb Chaim Stuchiner, Reb Leizer Vobolniker, and so on. But there were other cities and other gaonim that did not make the roll call of the famed cities of Lita. Nevertheless, that does not diminish their greatness. They, too, had rabbonim who were gaonim leading them, but, unfortunately, some of those names were lost to history, or at least lost to the lay yeshiva bochur, whose sense of history only comes from the names of the gaonim whose works have become famous or from the places in history that were home to citadels of Torah. But there were hundreds of other holy shtetlach that dotted the map of Lithuania.

One of them was the town of Vilkie, whose rov, Rav Hillel Dovid Trivesh, was a gaon olam, the father-in-law of Rav Moshe Rosen, the great gaon and author of Neizer Hakodesh. He was a mechaber seforim and the publisher of Lithuania’s first Torah journal, HaPisgah, lauded by Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky and others for its clear efforts to battle the purge of Haskalah.

One of the greatest problems in countries that had large Jewish populations that were decimated by the Nazis and their eager collaborators during World War II remains to this day. Truth be told, like Har Sinai after the Torah was given and the presence of the Shechinah left, there is no longer any kedusha between the walls of those former citadels of Torah. They make for great tourist attractions and definitely tug at the heartstrings of those with an emotional connection to the once-holy buildings, the roshei yeshiva, and the bochurim who filled the halls with a kol Torah, and the visitors who yearn for a connection to the past. But they are mere buildings. Cemeteries, however, remain sacred and halachically untouchable. The presence of a cemetery in the middle of an Eastern European city, whether in Lithuania or Ukraine, is a pronouncement shouting from the depths of the earth, “The Jews once lived here! There were 70,000 Jews here! This was once not a Lithuanian city! This was not a Ukrainian city! This was not a Soviet city! This was a Jewish city!”

For that very reason, it is a dagger in the heart of the pride of nationalists who want to erase the memory of a formidable Jewish presence from the landscape of their history. For that very reason, the Soviets and Lithuanians smashed and uprooted every gravestone in so many cemeteries in Kovno and Vilna. Even to this day, the concept of cordoning off a large area and fencing it in with a declaration that this large area was once a Jewish cemetery is difficult for many Lithuanian government leaders whose nationalistic pride, tinged with anti-Semitism, would rather forget that there was ever sacred Jewish ground in what is now a central part of Vilna.

That is why the gathering of so many international leaders along with representatives of Lithuanian municipalities to rededicate the cemetery in Vilkie was no joke. It was a powerful statement of penitence and reconciliation from official Lithuanian leadership. Among those who came was Japanese Ambassador Tetsu Ozakis, whose feelings for the Jews of Kovno must be deep-rooted due to the kindness of a previous Japanese ambassador, Sempo Sugihara, who helped hundreds of Yidden escape Kovno in 1940 by issuing transit visas through Kobe, Japan, on their way to a “destination” on the island of Curacao.

The rededication also included the ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Jack Twiss Quarles van Ufford. After all, there is a deep-rooted connection between the Netherlands and the Jewish community of Kovno. Dutch businessman-turned-diplomat Jan Zwartendijk was the one who stamped 2,435 visas, including all of the Mirrer Yeshiva bochurim’s passports and those of so many others, with the words “An entrance visa is not required for the admission of aliens to Surinam, Curaçao, and other Dutch possessions.”

The ceremony was also attended by the renowned former European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, heart surgeon, and member of the European Parliament Vytenis Andriukaitis. Like many members of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP), Mr. Andriukaitis has shown great interest in trying to preserve and re-establish the important heritage sites of the Jewish community, especially the cemeteries.

Although Mayor Valerijas Makunas of the Kovno Regional Municipality, who has been supporting the restoration of Jewish heritage sites such as cemeteries and the renovation of the beautiful brick shul in Seishishok, was not able to attend, he sent Vice-Mayor Paulius Visockas. The vice-mayor spoke about the efforts of the Kaunas District Municipality to perpetuate the memory and cultural heritage of the Litvaks, emphasizing that all Holocaust sites in the territory of the municipality are protected and maintained together with the Litvaks of the United States.

It was probably the first time since before the Holocaust that so many Lithuanian nationals gathered to support the re-establishment of a holy Jewish site.

Sponsored by Kosher West of Lakewood, the ceremony was organized and led by Rabbi Elchonon Baron and Rabbi Eli Mayer Cohen, who are doing their utmost to preserve and restore cemeteries in Lithuania. The ceremony took place a few hundred yards from the actual cemetery, in a park honoring the memory of Louis Armstrong, whose jazz career was started and supported by the Karnovski family, who were refugees from Vilkie.

But the miracles continued as we moved from the park to the actual cemetery. It was a climb up a mountain into a forest clearing. Fortunately, the municipality built sturdy steps to make the trek easier. The actual cemetery was nestled away in the middle of a forest, and it seems that the only elements that caused its erosion were the elements of time and the forces of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s nature. I only saw a few matzeivos. Most were sunken into the ground, simply due to the amount of time they had stood through more than a century of rain, wind, and storms.

We were greeted by an amazing sight. On the grounds and hard at work were members of the Christian Society for Penitence and Reconciliation. They were founded to help restore Jewish cemeteries as an atonement for Christians who destroyed Jewish cemeteries. They were hard at work restoring the fallen tombstones, brushing them off, and resetting them. They were also digging to find the sunken ones and carefully lifting them while guarding the integrity of the actual burial sites.

They had been working throughout the week, and a torrential rainstorm that passed through the region the previous day did not stop them. They looked up at us as one laughed and said, “It was a Mah-bull!” But it did not stop them. Kees Lavooij, the leader of the group who spoke at the ceremony, explained, “It rained to the right and it rained to the left of us. But the sun shone on us!”

When I arrived with Rabbi Baron, they had already found and reset 17 fallen stones. By the time this article goes to print, they will have restored close to 70. Indeed, the sun is finally shining on a bais hakevaros in Lita.