Exhibition “Between Life and Death” to Open at VMU
The exhibition “Between Life and Death”, organised by the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS), will be held at Vytautas Magnus University from 19 April to 20 May. The opening of the exhibition will take place on Friday, 19 April at 16:00 in the 2nd floor foyer at Donelaičio g. 52, Kaunas.
“Between Life and Death” is an exhibition about the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. The exhibition presents stories of rescue in twelve European countries: Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Italy, Romania, and Ukraine. It also includes a special panel dedicated to diplomats from Denmark, Great Britain, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. The exhibition features the stories of survivors and rescuers, emphasising the complexity of human relationships under extreme conditions. The testimonies are displayed against a broader historical background to better understand the local opportunities/conditions for Jewish survival and assistance.
Jay Winter, the Charles J. Stille Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University, will be visiting the University for the exhibition opening. He is a specialist on World War I and its impact on the 20th century. The professor will give a public lecture on 19 April at 14:00 in room 203 at K. Donelaičio g. 52.
Jay Winter is a specialist on the Great War. He is the author of Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (1995); The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century (1996); Rene Cassin and Human Rights (2013); The Cultural history of war in the twentieth century and after (2022), and most recently, The Day the Great War ended, 24 July 2023: The Civilianization of war (2022). He holds honorary degrees from the universities of Graz, Leuven, and Paris.
Lecture “The Odyssey of the Mir Yeshiva from Vilna to Singapore and beyond” is essay on the Mir Yeshiva to present it as a lecture in Kaunas, where the Mir yeshiva, among many others, found shelter in 1941, before fleeing to Shanghai.
The story of the escape to the Far East of Mir Yeshiva, along with thousands of other Jewish refugees during WWII, thanks largely to visas issued by the Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk and the Japanese consul-general to Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara.
After the war, most of the Jewish refugees from the Shanghai ghetto left for Palestine and the United States. Among them were survivors from the Mir Yeshiva, many of whom rejoined the yeshiva in Jerusalem.
The exhibition will take place 19 April – 20 May, 2024
Exhibition organiser: European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS)
The event will be photographed and/or filmed; therefore, please note that you might be featured in photos or videos which can be published in various media.
