Sunday, September 15, 2019

Scandinavia and the Baltics - Driving from Kovno to Riga

Early Sunday morning, we were picked up by Meny and began our drive north in the direction of Riga. 

Our first stop would be Kedainiai, a small town with a population of 25,000. In Jewish ciircles, the town was known as Kaidan.

Jews first came to Kaidan in the early 1600s and built their first synagogue in the Old Market Square in the late 1600’s. 

By the late 1700’s, the Old Market Square was the centre of Jewish life and was formally renamed as the Jewish Market Square. A majority of the commercial businesses in town were run by Jewish merchants. 

Members of the noted rabbinic family called Katzenellenbogen were the rabbinical leaders of Kaidan and it was for this reason that the young scholar, Eliyahu Ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, later to be known simply as the Gaon of Vilna, arrived in 1727 in Kaidan as a young boy of seven to continue his studies. He remained there for several years and married a Kaidan young lady, Chana. 

Back in the days before the Shoah, Jews lived in the centre of this town. It was a hub of regional activity and just opposite the city square stood two synagogues. We all know the joke: 

 A fellow is shipwrecked on an island. Years later, when he is rescued, they notice that he has built two synagogues (shuls). “Why do you have 2 Shuls? You are only one person on this island”, he is asked. “Well one is where I pray, and the other I would not think of stepping into!”. 

Well, the first 2 Shuls of Kaidan were built right next to each other and they are still standing. One was called the Summer Shul and the other was the Winter Shul. In front of each is a artistic memorial to the victims of the Shoah. 










The first synagogue that was built in the Market Square burnt down and in its place, a new stone synagogue, called the Summer or Big Synagogue was built and completed in 1807. It was claimed by local residents that this synagogue was the most beautiful in all of Lithuania. In 1837, right next to it, was built the Little of Winter Synagogue. Not as aesthetically beautiful as the Summer Synagogue, the Winter Synagogue had heating. Between the two, there was a gate and on top of the gate stood a sundial which would cast shadows on a clockface which instead of numbers had Hebrew letters. 

Kaidan was occupied by the German army in the summer of 1941. On August 28, most of the 3000 Jews of Kedainiai, a community that had existed for 500 years and which had great relations with the non Jewish citizens in the area, were killed by the Nazis with the aid of the local Lithuanian population. 

The Summer Synagogue was turned into a stable. When the war ended and Lithuania came under Soviet control, the square was renamed National Square and both synagogues were turned into warehouses.

One of the synagogues was open and after paying the attendant the entry fee, we viewed the interior as well as the small museum upstairs of some of the remnants of bygone days, including old Jewish texts that were published in Kedainiai just before the outbreak of WWII. 


There were famous pictures of the Mir Yeshiva heads Rav Finkel and Rav Schmulevitz featured in the museum, and we learned that the famous Mir Yeshiva was in Kaidan for a period of time during the war. 


In August 1939, the Nazis and the Soviets signed the Molotov Ribbentrop treaty which divided Poland in two. Refugees began to stream to Lithuania and specifically to Vilnius, as at this moment in time, Lithuania was independent and the safest place to be. Among the refugees were groups of students from various yeshivot and they re-established their institutions there. 

When the students of the famous Mir Yeshiva came to Vilna, they found an overcrowded city with no place to settle, and so in early 1940, they arrived in Kaidan. They were welcomed there, local synagogues provided place for them to continue their studies and there was room for housing for the students and their families. 

Kaidan was also the cucumber growing centre of the area, and groups of refugees involved themselves in agriculture to prepare themselves for Aliya to Palestine, where movement was already underway to establish the State of Israel. This experience in agriculture would help them make the adjustment to Moshav or Kibbutz life easier. 

But their stay in Kaidan would prove to be short lived. In June 1940, just months after they had arrived, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets. The leadership of the Yeshiva decided to break up into smaller units and move to small local villages where they could plan their next steps. 

They then heard about the opportunity to acquire Dutch and Japanese visas in Kovno from Vice Consul Chiune Sugihara, and as they say the rest is history. By August 1940, they were on their way to the Far East. The Mir Yeshiva today is one of the largest Jewish schools of Higher Learning in the world. 

Today we talk about the need for stability. Stability in your home, your family, your educational opportunities, the workplace. Just think about the strength of these people and their leaders. 

Flee your home in late 1939; arrive in Vilna; leave Vilna and arrive in Kaidan in early 1940. By June 1940 move to small villages. by August 1940, secure visas for a journey to Kobe and Shanghai thousands of miles away in countries with strange cultures and strange languages. A a few years later sail across the ocean to Canada, the USA, Israel and other countries to begin life yet again in countries with yet different cultures and different languages. How did these people cope? It is beyond the scope of human understanding. 

And yet they built new lives successfully and all the while maintaining their traditions and their family heritage. 

Truly, Am Yisrael Chai. 

There is also a display of the pictures of some of the Israel-awarded designees as Righteous Among the Nations, who were from the Kedainiai area, and bravely, at considerable risk to their personal safety, saved Jews from the hands of the Nazis. 


Lithuanian citizens are remembered on the one hand, for their eagerness in killing Jews and on the other hand, as the country with the highest per capita number of Righteous Among the Nations in any European country. Go figure? 

It was a quiet Sunday morning in this small, seemingly peaceful town, and workers were busy erecting Jumping Trampolines for a street fair to be held just outside the two synagogues later that day. There would be many local children playing there that day, their smiling faces filled with happiness, enjoying the day with their families. 

We could not help but contrast their laughter and joy with the total terror and fear felt by many Jewish children in that same square some 80 years earlier, being taken to their death simply for being Jewish.

This trip continues to be an emotionally draining one for us. 

Our guide is constantly pointing out to us memorials and signs indicating the sites of mass murders of Jews and the sites of Jewish cemeteries and is praising the present Lithuanian government for building and maintaining these memorials and for guiding us to these sites. We are not so easy in giving praise to a people and a nation that brutally decimated entire communities. 

We now continued in a north western direction, and on the way noticed the signs of places that were familiar to us. 



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One was Rietavas, known in Yiddish as Riteve, where my mother’s great grandfather Rabbi Isaac Aaronovitch served as the Riteve Dayan or the head of the Jewish Court in the 1800s, and authored the sefer Kesher Torah. 




Riteve is also the area from where many South African Litvak Jews originated and the kosher restaurant at the Cape Town JCC is known as Riteve. 


Another familiar name was Telsiai, which was the site of the famous Telshe Yeshiva where my great grandfather studied and was ordained. 

The third was our next destination, the small town of Varniai or Vorno in Yiddish, where my maternal great grandfather, Rabbi Nachum Lipa Chananye, (after whom my brother is named) founded and served as Rosh Yeshiva from 1875 until his passing in 1910. 


We were told by a distant cousin, Michael Tiger of Montreal, that he had visited some years ago and that he had found my great grandfather’s final resting place and his tombstone. 

We drove through the quiet town of Vorno and turned onto a gravel road which lead to the small Jewish Cemetery. It was relatively well kept and was surrounded by a low rise metal fence which we had to scale in order to find the location of the grave. 


Most of the headstones were badly faded and unreadable and it was only from carefully studying the picture that Michael had taken some years ago, that we were able to compare the shape and location and eventually find the grave of Rav Nachum Lipa Chananye, of blessed memory. 




When I wrote to Michael in Montreal and thanked him for assisting us in locating the location, he replied:

There are many threads in our lives.  I remain touched by the fact that my mother saved an old letter (in Yiddish) from Meina Liebe Chananie to my grandfather Jacob Chananie, dated Oct 1897, Johanessburg. In that letter he mentions his brother Nachum Lipman and wants my grandfather to send letters or pictures to Nachum.  This week, 122 years later, you have visited Nachum's kever and we communicate via Internet.” 

Michael’s note points out that despite the fact that the methods and speed of communication has changed, we as a family have to still remain in touch and connected. Great lesson! 

Many of the readers of this blog will remember my maternal grandfather Yitzchak Zvi Cannon. He lived with us in Toronto after my grandmother passed away in 1955 until his passing in 1976. When he arrived in England in the early 1900’s, he was asked for his family name. He said it was Chananye.  The British authorities renamed him Cannon. Some of the family that came to Canada maintained the name Chananye while others changed it to Kantor. 

We recited the memorial prayer and prayed at his burial place for good health, happiness and success for our family and for  our friends. It was a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand a connection with the past and a link in the chain of tradition in our family. On the other hand, it was sad. One of our patriarchs, here, all alone, with no one in the area to visit on a Yartzeit, to recite a memorial prayer. 

We were back on the road, this time to the town of Telsiai, commonly known as Telz, site of the famous Yeshiva where up to 500 students studied Torah. We parked in the centre of town, across from the entrance to the old ghetto area, and then walked one block to a dilapidated ruin of a red brick building which once housed the Yeshiva. There was a simple metal sign nailed to the front of the building indicating that the Yeshiva which at one time was here, was occupied by the Soviets and had since relocated to Cleveland. 




Our guide indicated that there was a move underway to renovate the building as a remembrance to bygone days. 

Just up the road was the Old Jewish Cemetery and we visited the kever of  Rav Yosef Yehuda Bloch and his wife Miriam. He served as the Rosh Yeshiva. 


We were now back on the road to Riga. On the way we made two more stops. The first was to the town of Šiauliai, or as we commonly called it, Shavel. Shavel was a centre of Jewish life, and in the early 1900s, over 65% of the 17000 inhabitants were Jewish. The centre of industry in the town was the leather factory of Chaim Fraenkel, the largest leather factory in the Russian Empire. 

The home is still standing and now serves as the local Museum, with a portion of the displays highlighting Chaim Fraenkel’s Jewish roots.


Behind the home is his huge garden and next door is the manufacturing plant. 



When we entered, we were told by the local guide that we should have been there a few hours earlier. We had just missed the Jewish Cultural Concert. Again, my question was “how many Jews are in Shavel today”. And the same answer, “none”.

Chaim was an observant Jew and he built a Synagogue next to the factory so that his workers would have a place to pray. Below is a current picture of the shul and the original drawings. 

He supported most of the Jewish social services in town.




Across the street from the mansion is a city erected statue of Chaim Fraenkel. 


Later that night when I recounted this to my mother in Toronto, she said that her aunt was married to one of the Fraenkel children and had lived in Shavel and that as a child she was told about the fame and fortune of the Fraenkel family. 

Our final stop before getting to Riga was the small town of Joniskis, close to the Latvian border. 

Here too, there were two restored synagogues side by side in the town square, one the summer shul and one the winter shul, alsocalled the Red Synagogue and the White Synagogue.


Beautiful restored buildings but sadly because it was late on a Sunday evening, we had no way of entering the buildings. Sadder still, beautiful empty buildings that had once served thriving Jewish communities.  

This had been a sad day, empty Shuls, seldom visited cemeteries and ruined Yeshivot standing as a witness to the decimation of Lithuanian Jewry. We remember what once was, in stark contrast to what we see before us today. From the heights to the depths. 

Tomorrow, Riga and then on to Tallinn as we close this chapter in our travels. 

All the best

Fran and David


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