Category: Art & Memory

 SPACE, IMAGES, PEOPLE

Essays series about  new historical museum in Lithuania

Part 1 analysing the architectural aspects of the museum can be read here – https://www.innarogatchi.com/?p=824

Part 2. IMAGES & DESTINIES

 INTERIOR DESIGN AND ITS IMAGINARY 

None from many international visitors to the Lost Shtetl Museum in Seduva, Lithuania special commemorative event for the victims of the 1941 massacre in August 2025, almost a month prior to the museum’s official opening, was prepared for the level of sophistication of its interior design and permanent exhibition that we saw.

Top-notch quality of presentation, advanced modern interior design produced by the leading in the world the US RAA,  Ralph Appelbaum Associates managed to encapsulate the story of the Shoah in the concrete shtetl in Seduva, one of over 200 shtetls that had been all around Lithuania before WWII, into a wide context of the Shoah as such. The number of the shtetls in Lithuania varies according to different experts and institutions, between 200 as it is indicated in the museum’s core exhibition, 270 according to the Yad Vashem Black List of the Depopulated Jewish Villages in the WWII,  and about 400 as it is cited at the Litvak Heritage site. 

 Nothing has been missed in the narrative of the core exhibition of the museum. In an extrapolated way, the presentation of the ultimate tragedy of Jews from a small place in northern Lithuania tells about so many of them in a heart-warming detail, tactfully and simply, with  love which is palpable in the entire story. One can say that the Lost Shtetl museum in its many parts, aspects and details projects two significant lines: attention to detail and love to the people. And one does not see a lot of it in historical museums, especially newly opened ones. 

In this way, the story of Jews of Lithuania gets on the universal orbit of the Shoah in general and of the intentional and methodical murder and annihilation of Jews of Europe. This essentially important line comes from the permanent exhibition in the new Lost Shtetl Museum in Lithuania clearly and strongly, but not too pressurising. It comes in a technically elaborative and truly very well done way, placing the narrative of the events almost a century old ( as there are plenty of pre-war stories, very justly) in a superbly modern way. And it does the trick of grabbing a visitor’s attention and keeping it. 

I was especially touched by the animation on the floor of the main gallery of the museum. The children’s drawings that the curatorial group of the museum produced as a result of their educational program, are bringing an absolutely right and very fine accent into the whole presentation, which is  filled with photos of all sizes , all kinds of high-tech installations, all of them at the place and tasteful, and authentic artefacts, including , admirably, many donations by the descendants of the Seduva and other Lithuanian Jews from all around the world , which all treated with respect and love, as it should be.

But those appearing – disappearing – re-appearing different charming kids’ drawings that have their own  non-stop dance on the floor  of the main gallery , brings so much of life and gentleness into the heavy pile of difficult, sad and tragic facts told and shown in the main gallery hall, the centre of the core exhibition. This gentle dance of unpretentious children’s visions which is an integral part of life in general, perceived from that floor like a soundless melody, a thin and delicate, as an enlightening thread of life that re-appearing once and again after its total disappearance. Very thoughtful and gently beautiful, to me.

The museum contains nine galleries, and many people were deeply impressed by truly haunting The Last Journey which has been truly masterly designed. 

To counter-balance that inevitably haunting emotions at the museum that tells about the life interrupted and annihilated, there is a very welcoming design of the foyer where all known shtetls of Lithuania are presented in a beautiful way. There was not a single person in a jam-packed museum’s premises at the pre-opening event in August 2025 who was not touched by this steady light coming from the wall of Jewish communities. 

In general, the way and level of the interior design and its production at the  Lost Shtetl Museum, as well as the presentation of its permanent exhibition affects the visitors to its best. ” It is just great, very informative and so modern” – said to me a dear friend and colleague, MEP Petras Austrevicius who did travel to the event specifically, and who was grasped by everything he saw, as we all were.

The interior design and the core exhibition for this new museum envisioned and produced by Rick Sobel and his RAA, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, team, is simply superb.

The Beauty of Remembrance: Exclusive Exhibits

 Inside many galleries of the new Lost Shtetl Museum which opens in September 2025, there are a couple of places which are tactfully located a bit off the mainstream route of the core exhibition. The place that refers to a synagogue is quite special to me.

Its design is suggestive, simple but not simplistic. It features some elements of a Judaic religious rite and some symbols, all explained. It is equipped very well with all high-end technical tools belonging to the modern museums.

Such a quiet place for meditation and a thought-corner, often in the form of a synagogue-prototype can be found in many Jewish and Holocaust themes museums world-wide, such as Jewish Centre in Oswieciem ( the town itself, not the camp), or the big and justly famous recreated synagogue in the  POLIN Museum and many others.

But one magnificent exhibit in the Synagogue Hall of the Lost Shtetl Museum made it exceptional. In the centre of an intimate synagogue hall, there is a purposefully extra-large superb box of pure beauty.

It is a modern-day crystal-engraved replica of a very special  Jewish art and ritual object, wooden Torah Ark, Aron Kodesh, which was made in the early 19th century for the synagogue in Valkininkai, 50 km from Vilnius. 

As it happened, luckily, at some stage that magnificent  Ark which was the subject of general and registered admiration,  was photographed, with few very old photos surviving, incredibly.  That has permitted the museum’s team and commissioned artists to reconstruct, or actually re-create it in the new material, with new  light effect, and, above all, with added metaphorical deep meaning that came with time perspective.

There is no synagogue today, not in Valkininkai, nor in Seduva, where there also were two large synagogues, or, for that matter, nowhere in over  200 shtetls all over Lithuania which all had been whipped out completely and cruelly in 1941 and thereafter.

There are also a very few Jewish people left in Lithuania, with many of us visiting the places of our families regularly, but still, there is a huge void in the sense of life and spirituality which is simply insuperable, and this is the fact of life and history.

The beautiful, fine and enlightened crystal-engraved replica of Aron Kodesh in the museum’s Synagogue hall projects engaging echo of the core of Jewishness reflected in the authentic for Lithuanian Jewish cultural and artistic tradition ( in the same way of authentic finery and beauty as it is very successfully done in the POLIN with regard to the parts of the museum telling on artistic tradition and its characteristics in the Polish Jewish religious rites and customs).

This very special piece of art attracts attention and keeps it. The technique itself is very demanding. I have followed it for years, among the other subjects of applied Jewish art. The crystal engraving is traced to the Venice school of engraving since the 13th century  ( after it first appeared in  Europe in France a bit earlier). Continuing the non-interrupted tradition in Venice ever since, there is also a special Jewish branch of it, some great masters who are producing beautiful artistic Jewish-themes engravings still today.

To make it in the size  and in the detail in which it is done for the exhibit in the  Lost Shtetl Museum is a colossally demanding job, and it is a great craft, even if it is done with the help of machinery, not entirely by hand. This job was done extremely well.

The lighting for the Torah Ark t is also done both professionally and thoughtfully , as it does create, additionally to general lighting, a volume- and 3D-effects , which are bearing an extra-message in such subject as Aron Kodesh, adding there an extra-dimension of the layers of enlightened time and memory of the life and people destroyed.

This special and beautiful modern art subject re-creating the disappeared wooden Torah Ark of destroyed synagogue of eliminated shtetl in Lithuania truly enlightens our and future generations memory in a fine and beautiful way.

As my dear friend and good colleague, director general of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arunas Gelunas mentioned after observing the  museum, “ it is a great gift to Lithuania, in many senses”.  And this beautiful modern Aron Kodesh evokes the same response.

Quiet Whispers of the Heart:  the Soul-talk of the Original Art

The visual narrative of modern museums is getting increasingly challenging: where is the right balance between a top-notch end of the constantly developing hi-tech solutions and steady unique images of traditional art? Success of a visual narrative of any new museum depends on a right balance of this tricky objective to a serious degree.

In the Lost Shtetl Museum that opens towards the end of September 2025, in their very nice prototype of a synagogue, there are three pieces of original art, two originals and one digital reconstruction of a rare and special piece that has been found in the Jewish abandoned house in 1944 and which original is preserved at the Yad Vashem. 

Among the two original artworks, the work of Rafael Chwoles, a very good and soulful Jewish artist, is gentle, talented and warm. It is a Cheder scene.

The other work here is the replica of that embroidered work that was found back in 1944  in an abandoned Jewish home in Lithuania by a Jewish soldier, and which original is preserved in Yad Vashem.

In my view, as stunning as they can be, smashing hi-tech visuals that do perform their function of education really in a superb way, just cannot beat these quiet whispers of the heart , as they possess the bits of souls of the people who created it.

Both pieces of soulful art are situated at the calm and thoughtful synagogue hall of the museum.

The Real Thing: Magnets for Remembrance 

As we were visiting and observing the new Lost Shtetl Museum in Seduva, we saw a couple of authentic elements from the annihilated life that have a magnetic effect.

The tragedy of several European countries of which the Jewish population was annihilated entirely and with an extraordinary zealotry, such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, is that together with people, their material culture was destroyed and whipped away, too. Also, to make the horror doubled, after WWII, anything still standing around has been literally whipped away by the Soviet authorities, with shocking enthusiasm.

Those who are working in the field of culture and museums, are well aware of the very serious difficulties to find authentic pieces of once superbly thriving Jewish culture in the Baltic states. That’s why those very few existing pieces are also very sad ones. It is such a hopeless reminder of the world lost.

In the Lost Shtetl Museum’s thoughtful and calm synagogue hall, there are two of those authentic fragments of the past, both wooden pieces. One is part of the synagogue in Seda, some 35 km from Seduva town, and another part of the Seduva synagogue.

Both of those pieces are presented very well, masterly. And it is a tremendous luck for the museum that at least some of the authentic pieces of both synagogues in Seduva have been found. The real materials always bear its authenticity, its in-born feeling of time, the physicality of senses, in this case, the sense of memory. In my view, nothing, just nothing can replace material culture which is instrumental for our authentic perception, understanding, feeling and remembering the time and life past. Without it, not a bit of compassion would never become possible, due to the threats of human psychology. 

There is also one more real artifact displayed in the museum which evokes a feeling of inevitable sadness over the world and lives lost in it, and also a warm gratitude for its existence and presence in our life today. Those doors from a Jewish house in Kaunas with the place for mezuzah on it are both sad and moving, And they are very much in place in this core exhibition. It is like a silent song of remembrance. 

All other means can and are very helpful in adding the knowledge, they work at the different faculties of the human brain.

The real things are giving you a sense which nothing can replace. And that’s why material culture is such an essential part of civility.

But how sad those fragments of two synagogues in Seduva are. Just a few wooden planks of the buildings which housed so much life in all its facets for so long.

The real things, magnets for remembrance.

 CUSHIONS OF NATURE AS A PART OF MEMORIAL LANDSCAPE  .

LANDSCAPE & EMOTIONS

A site always matters for created and re-created places of memory, whatever aspect of memory people address in their effort to commemorate it. There are arguably more demanding sites than the ones connected to the Holocaust and the emptied places of previously intense and thriving Jewish life that has been eradicated.

Seduva in Lithuania is one of such quite demanding places. From one side, there is wide and open serene and very large natural landscape in and around the place of one of so many non-exiting anymore shtetls. From another side, everyone who steps in at this place today knows that mass murder had a place just very near from this quiet place.

When our talented and sensitive leading Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamäki first came to see the site of his future Lost Shtetl Museum, back in May 2016, which, interestingly, was his very first visit to Lithuania,  the vision of his unique complex of buildings which opens in Seduva in September 2025,  was to large extent dictated by the landscape of this part of Lithuania and the nature surrounding the place. 

With regard to the core exhibition inside the building for which the leading RAA, Ralph Appelbaum Associates US company was responsible, it is ultra-modern, done with talent, taste and measure,  and  is very impressive and intense.

In a contrast to that serious and harrowing , in certain parts, impressiveness of the museum narrative which tells as of people’s stories, as of horror beyond horror in The Last Journey part of the core exhibition displaying a sheer fraught in an elaborative haunting galleries which are designed to project a personal sensation that refers directly and powerfully to the horrific last journey of about 700 Jewish children, women, elderly and men who were brought to their awful death by the local Nazi enthusiasts supervised by two German soldiers. As it was in the Babyn Yar, the same model and the system of organising and command of the mass murders of the civil Jewish population in those countries.

To balance emotionally after such an uneasy experience for visitors  it was decided to set a memorial garden around the building and stretch it to some substantial distance at the museum territory. That task was entrusted to a well-known ENEA Italian-Swiss company specialising in landscape architecture. The museum’s site provides a very good introduction to their memorial garden.

Being there in person, I can mention that it is designed to be a soothing place and it relies on the local type of plants, trees and flowers. Many people who visited the place liked it a lot.

A distinguished part of the museum’s exterior landscape is a beautiful, well set, dignified and meaningful fountain on the way to the main entrance. It projects an essential in Judaism symbolism of a circle, combining it with another equally important symbol and meaning of water. That part and that piece of landscape art has been designed and made exceptionally well.

Put together in a simple but  elegant way, those two core symbols of Judaism create the picture of continuity, the continuity of life, thoughts and reflections, and  memory. It sets up the tune for visitors both before they are entering the museum and after they are living it, in the right tonality of dignity and reflections on the unique value of human life. It is a worthy and important element of the memorial complex around the special new history museum in Seduva. 

So much needed today at both societal and individual level. Needed for seeing the critically unfair world today through the lenses of humanity. 

 August – September 2025. 

Seduva – Vilnius – Finland

The first exhibition in Lithuania and the world to mark the 100th anniversary of  the legendary institution

The Path of Remembrance is a 6-part series of a reviewing essay of a special commemorative exhibition, and is part of Inna Rogatchi project from her Art & Memory series of international projects.

By Inna Rogatchi ©

Part I. 

The first exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of YIVO

In the beginning of March 2025, an unusual, special and warm exhibition opened in the heart of Vilnius, at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Titled as You Shall Not Make an Image. Commandments, Daily Life and Change, and occupying two floors of a very well maintained popular museum in the downtown of the Lithuanian capital, the exhibition is significant in several respects. 

By referring  in a multi-sided way  to the story of the legendary historical institution of YIVO, it is the first exhibition in Lithuania and the world to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the institution. With several more exhibitions to commemorate the important date on the way , later this year, in various Jewish cultural institutions of Lithuania, this exhibition is the first one, it is organised by a national cultural institution and is funded by the Lithuanian Ministry for Culture. It would be notable and commendable in any case, but today, in the atmosphere of either negligence or distancing from anything Jewish anywhere world-wide, this gesture is significantly meaningful. 

I first heard about the plans for the YIVO commemorative exhibition two years ago, when discussing a series of block-busting Chagall exhibitions with the Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arunas Gelunas. “ And of course, in 2025, we would have the 100th anniversary of YIVO” – Dr Gelunas has mentioned – “ which we would celebrate in the best way possible”. – “ Of course”, I did agree knowing the academic background of the man who leads the Lithuanian National Museum of Art for the second term now, who previously was the Minister of Culture in his country and who represented it as Lithuania’s Ambassador in UNESCO. It was half a year before October 7th. Many things have changed, sometimes drastically, in the activities of so many cultural institutions world-wide. But the commitment of one of the leading cultural institutions of Lithuania and its leaders stayed. 

Now, prior to the exhibition’s opening, Dr Gelunas remembers with a palpable pleasure on how this special project has began: “ Our common friend Jonathan ( Brent, the director of YIVO) during one of his visits here raised the topic of the forthcoming 100th anniversary of our beloved institution, and of course, my initial reaction was “Absolutely. We will do it”.  

The idea of Dr Gelunas was to create a special exhibition dedicated to YIVO and its story in the year of the institution’s 100th anniversary, and to do it pointedly in the heart of Vilnius, in the beautiful, carefully restored and meticulously maintained central museum of the Vilnius Picture Gallery, which occupies one of the wings of famous 18th century Chodkevicius Palace. To have the exhibition there had the purpose to make it visible, known and visited by as many people as possible, both those who live in Lithuania and  those many who are coming to visit. The centrality of the place and a Jewish-themed exhibition in a non-Jewish cultural institution, well-known and of a national representation, were well-thought  lines of the director Gelunas’ thinking and planning. But not only. 

“ For years, I dreamed of organising a Jewish-themed exhibition in one, or several of our ( The Lithuanian National Museum of Art) museums. I really did –  Arunas was sharing with me his reflections during our tour of just finishing exposition. – Lithuania of many and many countries does have its richest Jewish history, it has accumulated so much knowledge, culture, heritage and legacy of Jewish life, its art, its science, its literature. It all was developing here in the thriving and versified way for centuries. We are proud of it and are grateful for that. Jewish cultural heritage is an organic part of the Lithuanian national heritage, absolutely so, this is the fact of life, science and history. And it is the richness of our cultural heritage. So to celebrate it, in the year of the 100th anniversary of such a unique institution as YIVO, it has to be in Lithuania, it has to be in Vilnius, and it has to be in the national museum, right in the heart of Vilnius. There is a real pleasure for me and our team to do it, and it was a pleasure to work on it” – said the director of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art Dr Arunas Gelunas. 

As soon as a curatorial team was formed to start to work on this special project, the destination of them was New York, where YIVO institute works for 85 years by now, in one of the most dramatic stories of culture and memory of our times. 

Re-Creating with Love: Curatorial Approach

For two of three curators of the exhibition, the Vilnius Picture Gallery director Aiste Bimbiryte and  curator Gabija Kasparaviciute-Kaminskiene, it was the first professional encounter with the theme of Jewish heritage. The third curator, to whom they referred as ‘the box of knowledge’ is a well-known in Lithuania expert in the field , professor of the University of Vilnius Jurgite Verbikiene. 

When I learned that two of three curators of the exhibition presenting the Jewish heritage in Lithuania via the lens of the history of YIVO Institute had no previous experience with the theme, I asked both Aiste and Gabija what were their starting point for this demanding, multi-directional serious project that took a year of intense work. “

 When I started to think about this exhibition, initially I had an impression that there are many taboos in Jewish culture. The taboos which could institute a sort of a barrier which for people who are not experts in arts and culture would be difficult to overcome. But I was wrong. When I started to examine, to research and to learn, and to work with specialists, I realised that this is not the case altogether, and never was. As soon as that first and only hurdle for me personally was overcomed, the work on this international exhibition was a sheer pleasure, and the source of a massive learning, for which I am very grateful” – said director of the Vilnius Picture Gallery Aiste Bimbiryte, herself is an University teacher who specialises on the history of fashion. 

“ For me, it was the pleasure of discovery – said Gabija Kasparaviciute-Kaminskiene, who is studying for her BA, specialising on a women artists of the 18th and 19th century , – and  as for an art historian, it was very interesting for me to look into the roots of the Jewish art, in many of its original sources, including books and manuscripts.  It also was important to work on a public project. Our exhibition presents things which are known to the specialists in Jewish heritage, of course, but we were trying to find special and importantly, authentic objects which would be attractive for the general public. Another curatorially interesting aspect during the last year of the work was discovery and presentation of those Jewish symbols which have different meaning from what is generally believed about it, which was a very happy, meaningful and engaging re-discovery”. 

Both Aiste and Gabija spent a week in New York in 2024, working intensely with their colleagues at YIVO going through the institute’s incredible archive, its collections and materials in order to distill the choice of the documents, original artworks and artefacts to be present at the exhibition in Vilnius. Importantly, most of the forty objects from YIVO presented in Vilnius are originals, with several copies among them. The materials from New York are quite substantial, it is over 20% of the entire large exhibition with its over 180 very different objects to be seen, from the rare books and manuscripts to Chagall’s hand-written  correspondence, and from a very rare and simply brilliant wooden carved sculpture of the 18th century to vivid and special original of Emanuel Mane-Katz painting of a happy Rabbi in a yellow robe. 

Thoughtful cooperation

The large exhibition is the fruit of an elaborate and thoughtful cooperation of not less than 20 major  cultural institutions, including YIVO in New York and the Chagall Committee in France, with which the Lithuanian National Museum of Art has forged of an extremely productive cooperation materialised in two major and unique exhibitions in 2023 and 2024, and who did contribute in providing the possibility to exhibit some parts of Chagall’s correspondence with YIVO, with some had-written letters and cards, which is a special magnet, to me. 

Among the other partners are National Library of Lithuania with its incredible Department of Judaica and generally, one of the richest European cultural institutions, Lithuanian State National Archive, fine National MK Ciurlionis Art Museum, Lithuanian National Museum, important Library of the University of Vilnius, Vilna Gaon Museum, and several regional museums, many of which have truly special objects. Among those museums Pakruojis, Ziezmariai, Birzai, Alkam, Samogitian and Trakai museums, as well as Panevezys Diocese and Church Heritage museum of Lithuania.  Two leading private art collections in Lithuania, TARTLE Art Foundation and the Dr Jaunius Gumbis Collection of Lithuanian Art contributed very good original artworks for the exhibition, too. As everyone in the artfield of knows, to coordinate the effort between just a few institutions is a serious undertaking that requires a lot of time and effort. To run the exhibition with twenty partners, some of them major international cultural institutions, is truly a very demanding effort which in this case went on  smoothly and productively, for which the organisers are truly grateful. And so do we, all those who are coming to this unusual exhibition to find so many gems in a wide variety of genres,  and from a hugely expanded period, starting from the 15th century onward. 

Implementation: Loving Care

For those visitors who are familiar with many exhibitions of the various institutions of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, with its eleven museums under the roof of the national cultural institution, the quality of presentation during the last several years is taken for granted. Having a privilege to be able to compare the way of exhibiting taken as a standard in the museums of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art with many other museums, both inside and outside Lithuania, I can happily mention that the level of presentation there is of a top world class. This is absolutely important, demonstrating not only the level of professionalism but also the level of respect towards museum visitors. It has always been like that, starting from the Louvre. 

The location and history of a museum as such do not necessarily guarantee the quality of presentation in a museum, as we all know well. The outrageous history of a virtual hijacking of the unique Vasari Corridor in Florence after the Uffici had become a target of a brutal mob terror attack in 1994, which had continued until very recently, is probably the most dramatic but just one of many sadly existing samples of neglecting the fundamental rules of exhibiting in too many museums world-wide today, due to a various reasons, from poorly educated staff to wrongly understood concepts. Or just simply due to not caring much. 

This is fortunately not the case for any exhibition organised in any museum of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, where the level and detail of presentation is classically high. Dr Arunas Gelunas, the Director General of the museum, did set it as a standard, with the team, of which  many people were  hired anew, after Dr Gelunas started to lead the national museum of art back in 2019. 

“ When we started ( back in 2019), I was especially concerned by the technical conditions and presentation practices in our museums, but  in this one, in the Vilnius Picture Gallery, the old and famous palace which is located in the heart of the capital, I knew that before anything else, and in parallel with hiring the new team to run the museum, we needed to re-equip it. We did it by changing practically everything, from exhibition boxes, stands and vitrines to the top-end professional museum light system, which is a half of the success in every museum today. It was elaborate, time and resources consuming effort, but  we knew that before any new program should start, the museum should be re-made to be at the top international presentation level.  In parallel, we were hiring a new team, and when these both must-stages of our renewed Vilnius Picture Gallery museum were accomplished, we were able to take a deep breath of satisfaction, and to start to build on and develop our programs and exhibitions there, in this great premises in a star location in Vilnius. So, we are doubly glad to host our exhibition which tells about the unique history and way of YIVO from Vilnius a hundred years ago to New York eighty years ago , with happiness of rediscovery of many incredible things 35 years ago and joint work on it, with return to Vilnius from New York for this exhibition, first to mark the noble 100th anniversary of YIVO, these days. It has been quite a journey” – summarised Dr Gelunas.   And it was, indeed. 

Both, the architect of the YIVO commemorating exhibition Auste Kuliesiute-Semete and the exhibition’s designer Migle Datkunaite were also supposedly thinking of incorporating this idea of a way, the route of memory, the path of remembrance into their very thorough and masterly concept of the exhibition. In the case of this show, it was both the abundance of the material and artifacts from one side, and the objective to produce a laconic in outline and modern in style exhibition, from another.  Those factors posed a certain challenge for the  architect and designer. Both Auste Kuliesiute-Semete and Migle Datkunaite are recognised professionals in their field, and both are working with the Lithuanian National Museum of Art of many if its dizzying number of exhibitions, from 50 to 70 annually. 

Architectural concept of this exhibition indeed resembles a path. In a visually organic way, it is lays down  a zigzag of the YIVO story and the Jewish life in Lithuania and its forced relocation beyond the ocean, escaping the war and the Holocaust. The design of the exhibition is both somber and sophisticated, with much attention paid by the designer Migle Datkunaite to every detail, from the colours and its shades in every of many rooms on two floors of the museum, to the charming and pointed details, such as six dots on every annotation card throughout the exhibition, both large and smaller ones. 

Those dots in the Migle Datkunaite personal design symbolises the six days of creation in the basic concept of Judaism. And it also, very personally and charmingly, refers to a milestone book by the founder of YIVO, great Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich, Di shvartse pintelekh, The Little Black Dots ( 1939), that has set the standard for written Yiddish for the masses, and has become the first YIVO published book in the institute’s Popular series. 

The tragedy speaks volumes here, as very soon, in two years, there will be no masses to learn classical Yiddish, in Lithuania for sure, and then, the YIVO so well-meant Popular series would stop for a very long and completely tragic time, as the date of the publication of their first book in it coincided with the beginning of the Second World War. 

So there were no takers any longer for the YIVO Popular series, for the reason of genocide unleashed all over Europe against the Jews. And the YIVO itself as an educational centre and institution had to move the far, the better running for its life. The destination was New York. 

About the gems and highlights of the first in Lithuania and the world the YIVO 100th anniversary commemorative exhibition in Vilnius is told in the Part II of the essay. 

March 2025, Vilnius

IR ©. 

You Shall Not Make an Image. Commandments, Daily Life and Change exhibition at the Vilnius Picture Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania. March 5 – September 14, 2025.