  Yom
HaShoah Rally
Article by Rambam Sophomore Ariel Lindenfeld
At 10:00 Am on Sunday April 18, 2004 students and
faculty of Rambam Mesivta High School rallied against
the Lithuanian government in front of the Lithuanian
Consulate in New York City. This day was chosen to
rally because it wasYom Hashoah also known
as “Holocaust Memorial Day.”
The rally was organized in order to bring attention
to the fact that the Lithuanian government has yet
to put on trial even one of the twelve Nazi war criminals
extradited from the U.S. to Lithuania.
Specific
attention was focused on Vladas Zajanckauskas, who
is a current resident of Millbury, Massachusetts.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Zajanckauskas “actively
participated in the notorious operation to clear
and destroy the Warsaw Ghetto” and also “trained
other men who carried out the liquidation.”
  The
rally was covered by NBC News 4 at 6:00 and 11:00
PM editions. The story also appeared in the A.P.
and the J.T.A.
News of the rally also appeared in The Boston Globe and the
Boston Herald. The story also made its way to the front covers
of several papers in Lithuania.
The Boston Globe reported: “Reached at his
home in Millbury, Zajanckauskas said he rejects the
allegations against him. "It's not true," he
said. "I have nothing else to say. I got lawyers;
talk to my lawyers."”
Click below to read news stories:
Boston
Globe
Boston
Herald
At the rally a Rambam Mesivta student read the following
eyewitness account from Joesph Gar, a Holocaust survivor
(excerpted from Lithuania Crime and Punishment Volume
5 Page 47):
“The following shocking event bears witness
to the barbaric massacres at the 7th Fort: While
the arrested Jews were kept there, a basketball match
was being staged between a German military team and
a Lithuanian selection. Since the latter were experienced
players, having won more than once the European championship
before WWII, they succeeded in beating the Germans.
Each member of the winning team was "rewarded" with
the privilege of killing ten Jews at the 7th Fort.
One Lithuanian officer was so carried away by his
lust for blood, that he alone killed hundreds. Out
of belated "remorse", he shot himself after
a few days.”
Zoli Honig, 15, a sophomore at
Rambam Mesivta, read the following eyewitness account
of a German photographer on June 24, 1941 (excerpted
from Lithuania: Crime and Punishment Volume 5 Page
51):
“The way to the road was completely blocked
by a wall of people. I was confronted by the following
scene in the left corner of the yard there was a
group of men aged between thirty and fifty. There
must have been forty to fifty of them. They were
herded together and kept under guard by some civilians.
The civilians were armed with rifles and wore armbands,
as can be seen in the pictures I took. A young man
- he must have been a Lithuanian - ...with rolled-up
sleeves was armed with an iron crowbar. He dragged
out one man at a time from the group and struck him
with the crowbar with one or more blows on the back
of his head. Within three quarters of an hour he
had beaten to death the entire group of forty-five
to fifty people in this way. I took a series of photographs
of the victims...After the entire group have been
beaten to death,the young man put the crowbar to
one side, fetched an accordion and went and stood
on the mountain of corpses and played the Lithuanian
national anthem. I recognized the tune and was informed
by bystanders that this was the national anthem.
The behavior of the civilians present (women and
children) was unbelievable. After each man had been
killed they began to clap and when the national anthem
started up they joined in singing and clapping. In
the front row there were women with small children
in their arms who stayed there right until the end
of the whole proceedings."
Rabbi Yotav Eliach also spoke movingly about the
dozens of his family members that were killed by
Lithuanians during the Holocaust. The protesters
then directed their attention to the Lithuanian Consulate
and chanted, "Confront your bloody past," “Do
what’s right- extradite” and “Put
the twelve on trial.”
The rally concluded with a memorial prayer for the
victims of WWII.
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