The following entry is an excerpt of  Selma Horwitz Jackson's travel diary. Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, she now resides in New South Wales, Australia. Schlepping Day 1 - On the Road from Vilnius Sunday, 30th June 1996. Regina and Valera, with his wife Linda, fetched us in the minibus, and we left at 9 a.m. for Anykst, where my maternal Grandmother Rachel bat Yehuda Yakov Schneider's family came from. They had a shoe shop. Anykst is an hour's drive from Vilnius on the dual highway to Ponevys, which was built 10 years ago. Haystacks and Friesland cows [are] alongside the highway. When we reached Kurkliai, we went looking for the old wooden shul, which is the only one left. An elderly gentleman on a bicycle showed us the way between houses and fields. In this area there are Jersey cows. It is easy to imagine how the Jews were herded into the wooden synagogue and set alight! We then went to the Forest of Anykst - Puntuho Akmuo - two kilometres before Anykst where earlier photographs show Jewish youth enjoying their camp holidays. There is a huge rounded stone… and in 1933 the faces of two Lithuanian pilots were cut into the rock face as a memorial to them. It was here that the Jewish resistance gathered in the 1940s. Aniksht Jewish Cemetery & Synagogue We then went to the Anykst Jewish Cemetery, which was on the way into Anyksciai.  [View the “Cemetery” section of this website from the top menu bar to read Selma's comments about it.] We drove into the shtetl, a lovely town, bigger than I thought. Regina showed us where the synagogue and Jewish houses used to be and where a big concert hall now stands. I thought nothing more about it! We walked along Synagogos gatve (street), Baznyeios gatve, and took a photograph of a two-storey brick building on the corner of Baznyeios and Saltupio gatve.   Great Grandparents’ House & the Village Green During lunch, had I looked at the map in the book "Anyksciai 9" which I had bought at the museum on the hill, I would have [noticed] that my Great Grandparents' house at no. 7 Saltupio gatve was just across the road from the [two-storey brick building which I had [photographed earlier]! So near but oh so far. It was not meant to be that I would stand outside my Great Grandparents' house! I have since received photographs of the house, for which I thank Daiva Gadliauskaite of the Anykst Museum. The house has been renumbered No. 3 Saltupio gatve. The village green in the centre of the village is beautiful and lush, and each house has a covered well. The Museum & the Wagon The people on the main street are all nicely dressed in Western style. I couldn't believe that I was actually standing in Anykst! We drove to the museum which used to be a pharmacy, but before we went inside, there was a commotion. We saw that a horse and cart had overturned, throwing an elderly man, woman and a dog out onto the road. The lady's head was bleeding badly. The ladies at the museum bandaged her head, while Steven and Gordon helped put the wagon together again! I then realized what the horse and cart were like that my Dad and his mother used to [take] from Kvedarna (Chveidan) to Klaipeda (Memel). By motor car today on good roads it is a long way, so what was it like in the early 1900s! It was here at the museum that I bought the book on Anyksciai which has the 1925 map of the streets, houses and the names of who stayed where!. If you have been to Anykščiai, please write down your memories of the visit and send them to us so that we may share them with other Anykščiai landsleit. Scanned or copied pictures would also be most welcome!     Schlepping