3. Lithuania

             Trakai, Lithuania

  

          Karaite Kanesa in Trakai, Lithuania

Who at the Karaites? Are they Jewish?

The Karaites represent a sect that studies the Old Testament but rejects Talmud or any Rabbinical interpretation of the Torah. They study and pray in Hebrew but do not consider themselves to be Jewish. 

Our tour group is confused at first, believing, when we visit the Karaites Kanesa in Trakai outside Vilnius, that they are a Jewish sect. We chat to an elderly Karaite outside the synagogue, who explains that they don't consider themselves to be Jewish and are often identified more closely with Muslims of which they are not, either. 

           

              Karaite elder

Karaites don't proselytise so therefore the Karaite population is diminishing. They don't object to intermarriage by casting out those that marry out but prefer their youngsters to stay within the fold. Must pose a problem with a population of 100 Karaites in Trakai!       

Karaite restaurateur who hosts us for lunch

This Karaite leader, above, addresses us at his restaurant confirming our growing belief that Karaites aren't Jewish. They have Turkish roots and Muslims might identify with them as much as Jews do, or don't. Their kashrut laws are limited to excluding pork while they eat shellfish and mix milk and meat. We are served delicious cucumber soup with potato and a tasty lamb stew in a ceramic pot.

            

The Nazis didn't persecute the Karaites because they checked with the Rabbinate to find out if the Karaites were Jewish and the Rabbinate protectively said no.

The colourful wooden housing and quaint Karaite culture attract lots of tourists.

           

The 15th century red-brick Trakai Castle is the stereotypical setting for medieval adventure stories. This mighty fortress was built for protection against the Crusaders and later became the residence of Lithuanian dukes. 

          

                Trakai Castle

The Trakai Castle is on an island in the Lake Galve and you roam up and down its wooden staircases and in and out of its multitudinous chambers oggling at the medieval treasures - gleaming jewellery, dark furniture, delicate porcelain figurines and crockery, and lavishly embroidered garments, some arranged in dioramas.

      

      

      

     

              Life in the Trakai Castle

It's a salve for the soul for its talent in returning you to your childhood fantasies of knights, bridges, moats and victorious battles.

The castle is an antidote after our visit to its alter-ego, the Ninth Fort, that we see the day before in Kanaus, outside Vilnius. 

The Ninth Fort is a former WW1 site for imprisonment and torture and WW2 site for KGB and Nazi interrogation, torture and the overnight transit quarters en route to the death camps or immediate march to the next-door killing fields.

      

Chilly, dark concrete corridors, rooms and isolation cells trigger images of horrible, sadistic entrapment. Photographic evidence of the victims of massacre; remnants of personal items of the innocent murdered and 3D reproductions and simulations of KGB interrogation rooms and ghetto interiors leave me feeling that there can be no answers to the extreme actions of humanity.

   

      Simulated KGB interrogation

      Ninth Fort prison keys

Contrast that to our prior visit in Kanaus  to the Japanese Consulate of Lithuania and home to Chiune Sugihara and his family from the crucial years of 1939 to 1940.

 Sugihara, righteous gentile, who in 1940 goes against the orders of his Japanese superiors then allied with the Nazis, and signs visas to save 6,000 Jews from Hitler's Final Solution.

    

Members of tour group at Sugihara's house

Our tour group vicariously experience my joy and gratitude on entering Sugihara's house, viewing the moving Japanese DVD that tells his story with English and Hebrew subtitles. The rooms filled with displays - photographs of Sugihara's survivors and copies of the databases of visa recipients.

    

Simon Davidovich, director of the museum, giving an address, who shows me Dad and Roza's entries on the database, which I photograph. Dad had spoken about visiting Sugihara's house and getting on well with the charming Sugihara. Sugihara strong-willed, having resisted his stern father's plans for him to become a doctor and succeeding in becoming a diplomat and one with a conscience at that. When Chiune was being deported and being relocated to Berlin by train, he was still signing visas from the train window.

 Story of righteous gentile, Sugihara

In 1928, after much searching in vain, the Jewish community finds Sugihara and honours his actions. He is represented at Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile.

Dad, Betar chief in Lomze, was warned that the anti-Zionist KGB were after him and that he should leave Poland. He asked his parents and brothers to flee to safety with him but they didn't. Dad was interrogated by the KGB whose bullies broke his arm, and, permanently maimed, Dad told his children he'd had a sporting injury.

It's a wonderful emotional visit to Sugihara's house and then to Dad and Roza's flat in Vilnius. Fred and his wife, Sue, accompany me to the apartment with Lyn and Ian.

They urge me to knock at the door which I do, expecting an elderly, anti-Semitic, ex-Nazi Ukrainian couple to answer the door and suspect me of trying to reclaim Jewish property! Instead a couple of friendly, open young students welcome us inside (me, Sue, Lynn) 

                      Sue and Lyn 

and urge me to look around and tell my story. A spacious, sunny flat with large rooms in a good area.

                              Fred and Ian

I feel like I'm walking in Dad's steps - in his flat, around his and Roza's street - visiting the shule just round the corner 

       

    The Choral Synagogue,Vilnius 

and going to Sugihara's house in Kanaus outside of Kiev. Visiting the nearby sites of massacre, Ponary and the Ninth Fort, 

brings home the close shave Dad and Roza had thanks to Sugihara's transit visa.  

We're lucky we're here. So hard to conceive of what Dad and Roza and Mum went through at their young ages, starting out life full of youthful hope for the future and facing all this fear and horror and managing to survive it. It's far more confronting when you're here.

11/5 Raugyklos Gatve (Street) where Dad and Roza resided in Vilnius

The street Dad lived in

Two lovely young students renting the apartment with their dog

On the balcony of Dad and Roza's 1940s residence

I often think about how Dad and Roza travelled far and with difficulty as Roza was already ill, seemingly with consumption which turns out to be tuberculosis and ends her life in Australia, leaving Jack a semi-orphan.

Not far from where Dad and Roza lived is a lovely spacious park where the Gaon of Vilno shines his light on Rabbi Fred Morgan while he reverentially expounds on the power and spiritual status of this 18th century sage and scholar of Kabbalah and secular sciences.

   

I've been inundated with questions about how I achieved the lighting effect in this shot but it's clearly not my fault. I defer to the Gaon of Vilno.

I am invited to address our group who wants to hear the story of my visit to 11/5 Raugyklos Gatve. I tell them Dad's story and how moved I am being supported by the tour group. My address flowed from my heart as Dad's address had drawn me to experience with him each step he might have taken in Vilnius and each sight and site he may have set eyes on. (I felt you there with me.)