A translation of the article by Nijole Padoriene from the newspaper "Auksine Varpa" , 27 September 2003

With a needle in the heart 

 

"May be you won't believe? A life is only a short wink between eternities." 

These are the words of a woman who pushed a needle into her heart in 1942. You can read about it in the book prepared by a generous Dutch couple Dora and Arnold Boom. This couple is interested in Jewish history and its remains in Lithuania and they didn't pass our district either, in honour of those who didn't survive and didn't born. In honour of those who never saw the face of his (her) mother. Emotional meetings, stories of contemporaries - it's material for a future book. It's impossible not to feel the needle in the heart which opens a bloody wound for those who suffered in ghettos.. 
A call from the heart brought to this place Frieda Igdal from the USA. Her mother Ruth asked Frieda to find the son of Berta Gegeckiene. She hugged Zenonas, cried and laughed at the same time during their unbelievable meeting and she told her mum into video what she is feeling.

 

Tears were washing Frieda's cheeks while walking in Pakruojis streets. She was making a videofilm of the places where her dearest people lived, worked, prayed, studied and went into their death. We were often shocked by the woman asking questions such as: "did anybody see or remember when the innocent people were shot, did anybody help them?" 

With memorial candles and a kaddish prayer she honoured her grandfather at the Jewish cemetery and she honoured her grandmother and her aunt at the long grave on the Morkakalnis hill, where the Jews of Pakruojis were shot in 1941. As if it were a wailing wall, she pushed herself at the wall which remained in her grandmother's yard. The wall is of her family's cattle shed ( near the present book-shop). Frieda collected some stones from the yard. Later she put them at the monument at Morkakalnis.

 

Grandfather Moishe Shapiro
Grandmother Frada Katz Shapiro holding daughter Edka
                    Aunt Liebseh(Liebske) Shapiro
   

Copyright © 2005 Dora Boom

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