During Pesach, Rita and her husband Kac Kobi and their daughter Sheli visited the Jewish community in Panevėžys. The guests were welcomed by the chairman of the community, Gennady Kofman. The meeting was very interesting. Kobi Kac told about his family, showed photos, spoke well of Faina Kukliansky, the chairman of the Lithuanian Jewish (Litvak) community, who found a number of documents about Kobi Kac’s grandfather and grandmother, as well as relatives buried in the Vilnius cemetery. Kobi Kac was born in Vilnius in 1967, left for Israel in 1977, and has been living in Nacharyy city since then. His grandmother Batsheva’s family was already living in Israel at that time. His grandmother was born in Liliūnai (Kėdainiai district), had two sisters who managed to evacuate behind the Urals during the war, thus staying alive, and after the Second World War, one of them married a Jew in Romania, and the other a Pole, finally their families emigrated to Israel. Grandmother also had a brother, Litman Juda, who served in the 16th division of Lithuanian army and was killed, and his wife worked as a nurse in the operating room in a military hospital. Grandfather, Kleiman Izrael Moishe, was born in 1898 in Panevėžys, the family did not flee to Russia during the First World War, Jews were not repressed. In 1945, after the war, Kac Kobi’s grandmother Batševa returned to live in Panevėžys. Neighbors told that the remaining families who were not evacuated were killed. After the war, the grandmother worked in the market of Panevėžys, the grandfather became an invalid after the war and died soon after.
The guests visited Panevėžys Jewish heritage sites, promised to return next year and show their son and daughter their Jewish roots in Lithuania.
Rita Kobi 2023.04.09.