It stands like a lone sentinel, keeping a 24-hour watch over the souls of the dead. Quietly but determinedly, it commands us to heed its eternal message of remembrance. The area had been a Jewish village for four hundred years.
Jewish history runs particularly deep Lithuania.
Before the war, some 200 communities across the nation supported the lives and livelihoods of nearly 240,000 people. More than ninety percent perished. Jews are first known to have lived in Kovno as early as 1410 when they were brought forcibly as prisoners of war by the Grand Duke Vytautas. Living conditions for many Jews were squalid. In 1858, archaic living restrictions were relaxed and all but 6,000 of the city's 35,000 Jews flocked to the Old Town in search of something better.