Obj. ID: 45574
Jewish Funerary Art Monument to the victims of the Vilnius Ghetto in the Third (Šeškinė) Jewish Cemetery in Vilnius, Lithuania, 1989
Who is Commemorated?
Victims of the Vilnius ghetto.
Description:
The monument is located at the southern edge of the section of the cemetery where people who died in the Vilnius Ghetto are commemorated. Its façade faces the graves, while its western side turns toward the main pathway of the cemetery.
The monument consists of a central granite stele located inside a gate made of two granite piers and a horizontal granite uneven slab inscribed with the dates “1941-1942.” These dates probably refer to those who died in the ghetto and were buried in this cemetery.
The left (eastern) pier is crude, with diagonal carvings, while the right (western) one is polished and bears a Hebrew inscription.
The central stele bears a white Star of David and a short Lithuanian inscription “Ghetto victims” on the white field. Its upper part has wide and narrow white stripes. Similar strips appear also on the stele’s basis and on the crude pier. Only a wide white strip appears in the lower part of the polished pier.
A donor’s inscription is made on the western side of the slab, facing the pathway.
Inscriptions:
On the slab:
1941-1942
On the central stele, in Lithuanian:
Geto
aukos
Translation: Victims of the ghetto.
On the right, polished pier, in Hebrew:
קדושי הגיטו היהודי
בווילנה שנהרגו, הומתו
ונספו על קידוש
השם על ידי הצוררים
הנאצים ימ"ש [יימח שמם] בשנות
השואה תש"א-
תש"ב יזכרם אלהים
לטובה עם שאר
צדיקי עולם הגנוזים
בבית עלמין זה.
ויקויים בהם חזון
הנביא וניקיתי דמם
לא ניקיתי [יואל ד, כא]. כי דורש
דמים אותם זכר לא
שכח צעקת ענווים [תהילים ט, יג].
ת.נ.צ.ב.ה.
Translation: Martyrs of the Jewish ghetto in Vilnius that were murdered, killed, and perished for the sanctification of the name by the hateful Nazis, may their names be blotted out, in the years 1941-1942. May God remember them for good with other righteous of the world buried in this cemetery. And the vision of the prophet will be fulfilled, “Thus, I will treat as innocent their blood, which I have not treated as innocent” [Joel 4:21, in the Vulgate 3:21]. “For he who avenges blood remembers, he does not ignore the cries of the afflicted” [Ps. 9:13, in the Vulgate 9:12]. May their souls be bound in the bundle of life.
On the western side of the slab, in Hebrew and English:
In Hebrew:
נתרם ע"י משפחת
ישעיהו אפשטיין
תל אביב תש"נ
Translation: Donated by the family of Yeshayahu Epstein, Tel Aviv, 1990
In English:
Donated by Fam.
Shaya Epstein
Tel-Aviv 1990
Commissioned by
Family of Yeshayahu (Shaya) Epstein
sub-set tree:
Overall width - 220 cm
Right pier, width - 70 cm
Right pier, thickness - 43 cm
Central stele, width - 51
Left pier, width - 47 cm
The monument was funded by Yeshayahu Epstein, a Vilna naitive who lived in Tel Aviv (his father Zeev is buried here) and unveiled on November 8, 1989, in the presence of Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the former Chief Rabbi of the Israeli Defense Forces and Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel.
Agranovskii, Genrikh and Irina Guzenberg. Vilnius: Po sledam Litovskogo Ierusalima. Pamiatnye mesta ereiskoi istorii i kul’tury, 2nd ed. (Vilnius: The Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, 2016)., 688.
Guzenberg, Irina, Vilnius: Sites of Jewish Memory. A Concise Guide. Second revised and supplemented edition. Trans. Svetlana Shatalova (Vilnius: Pavilniai Publishers, 2019)., 70.
Guzenberg, Irina, Vilnius: Traces of the Jewish Jerusalem of Lithuania. Memorable Sites of Jewish History and Culture. A Guidebook (Vilnius: Pavilniai, 2021)., 704.
Guzenberg, Irina. Vilnius: Pamiatnye mesta evreiskoi istorii i kul'tury (Vilnius: Pavilniai, 2013)., 68.
Itzhak Alfasi (ed.), Vilna yerushalayim de-lita hareva! haita ve-einena od (Tel Aviv, 1993), 15.