• October 10, 2014
  • 222

Public discussion about the project of the renewal of the memorial in Ponary

Yesterday in the Tolerance Centre in Vilnius there was a public presentation of the project of the renewal of the memorial in Ponary and the discussion about this topic. 16 projects discussed were the works sent for the international competition announced by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum.

During the conference, the works were discussed by the following reviewers: chairman of the Lithuanian Union of Architects , the head of the Department of Architecture of Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, prof. Marius Pranas Šaliamoras, the lecturer of the Vilnius Gediminas University, dr Tomas Grunskis and a landscape architect, the author of the project of revitalisation of the Bernardyński Garden, Jurga Silvija Večerskytė-Šimeliūnė. The projects were also assessed by the foreign experts: curator of the Holocaust Museum in the USA Jacek Nowakowski and the Director of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, dr Piotr Cywiński.

The Director of Gaon Museum, Markas Zingeris, in the conversation with Wilnoteka mentioned the criteria that he considers the most important in the assessment of the projects. These are: the accordance with the historical context, the harmony with nature and how they will influence the recipient.

In the years 1941-1944 in Ponarski forest there were mass murders of 100,000 people. Ponary are the biggest place of Holocaust in Lithuania and one of the biggest in Europe. Together with Jews, thousands of Poles and other nationalities were shot there.

Translated by Marta Wojtowicz within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.

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