In Lithuania, 600 schoolchildren took part in honoring Holocaust victims — Jerusalem Post

In Lithuania, about 600 non-Jewish high school students took part in March of the Living commemorative events in Vilnius, Paneriai and other locations connected with the Holocaust. According to the Jerusalem Post, the events took place on September 22–23, 2026, as part of the National Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews.

Students and teachers visited mass killing sites, read testimonies and took part in memorial ceremonies. The National Day of Remembrance is observed on September 23, the anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto, carried out by the Nazis on September 23–24, 1943.

In Paneriai, near Vilnius, between July 1941 and August 1944, the Nazis and local collaborators killed approximately 70,000 people, most of them Lithuanian Jews. This crime was part of the mass shootings of Jewish communities in Lithuania following the Nazi invasion in June 1941.

March in Radviliškis

One hundred and fifty schoolchildren from the city of Radviliškis walked three kilometers from the city center to a forest clearing where, in July 1941, the Nazis and their collaborators killed 300 Jewish men. Near the monument to the victims, ceremony participants read excerpts from testimonies and laid memorial stones.

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Before the war, Jewish communities existed in 297 Lithuanian towns. After the Nazi invasion, mass shootings quickly spread across the country: Jews were killed in forests, fields and near the settlements where they had lived for generations.

A story of rescue

As part of the educational program, the schoolchildren also learned about the Rakavičius family, recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. Jaroslavas and Teklė Rakavičius, together with their four sons, helped Jews escape from the Kaunas Ghetto and hid them on their farm.

Among those saved was Aharon Barak, who was eight years old at the time. He was taken out of the Kaunas Ghetto in a sack; he later became president of Israel's Supreme Court and a justice of that court. According to the organizers, the purpose of the marches was to show students the role of Lithuanian collaborators in the killing of Jews, as well as examples of the few people who risked their lives to save them.