INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ALLIANCE
“We share a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honour those who stood against it.”
-- Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
On 23 September Lithuania marked the National Memorial Day for the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews on the anniversary of the destruction of Vilnius ghetto.
On 23 September 1943 the Vilnius Ghetto was liquidated by the Nazis and their local collaborators. Some of the victims were sent to various concentration camps and the rest to their death in Paneriai (Ponar), the biggest killing site in Lithuania.
The Secretariat of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania invited schools and other educational institutions to mark the 23 September – the Memorial Day for the Genocide of the Lithuanian Jews.
On 28 April, Lithuania hosted the 6th March of the Living, which is dedicated to Yom HaShoah - the Holocaust Remembrance Day - in Israel and in many other countries.
On 6 November, 200 students from five Lithuanian gymnasiums met with the players of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team and paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust at the Paneriai memorial.
On 23 September the International Historical Commission invited almost 200 Lithuanian educational institutions to participate in the civic initiative “Memory Road” to retrace the memory of numerous Lithuanian Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust.
In 1994, the 23rd of September was declared the National Memorial Day for the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews. Since then every year on 23 September a solemn ceremony is held at the Holocaust Memorial Complex in Ponar (Paneriai).
On 1 August Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė together with President Shimon Peres of Israel, who is currently on a state visit to Lithuania, honored the memory of the victims of the Holocaust at the Paneriai Memorial.
On 4 April 2013 the “March of the Living” started its seven-day program in Lithuania.
23 September is the Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews.