The Children’s Aktion in the Kaunas Ghetto took place in 1944, during the later stages of World War II.
Around 1,700 Jewish children and elderly individuals were forcibly removed from the ghetto by Nazi forces and then killed. This event is part of a larger pattern of systematic genocide against the Jewish population during the Holocaust.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community commemorated eighty years since this tragic event in a solemn ceremony.
During the conmemoration, Faina Kukliansky, Chairwoman of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, noted that there are no surviving documents listing the residents of the Kaunas Ghetto. As a result, the names and surnames of some of the people who were imprisioned and then killed, remains unknown, illustrating the brutality of the Nazi regime against the Jewish people.
Numerous distinguished guests attended the commemoration, including the Ambassador of the State of Israel to Lithuania Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein and German Ambassador to Lithuania Cornelius Zimmermann.
Subsequently, the Lithuanian Jewish community hosted a free concert at the Great Hall of Vytautas Magnus University. The melodies performed during the concert were dedicated to those who perished at the hands of the Nazis.
