Kaunas Synagogue ( lt, Kauno choralinė sinagoga) is one of two operating choral synagogues in

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. It is located in Centras eldership,

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

. The Neo-Baroque synagogue was built in 1872. In 1902, before

the Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews, living in '' Generalbezirk Litauen'' of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 20 ...

, it was one of over 25 synagogues and Jewish prayer houses in the city. The radically designed synagogue claims to have one of the most beautiful arks in the entire Jewish world. The plot for the new synagogue was bestowed to the Kovno Jewish community by the merchant Lewin Boruch Minkowski, the father of

Oskar Minkowski Oskar Minkowski (; 13 January 1858 – 18 July 1931) was a German physician and physiologist who held a professorship at the University of Breslau and is most famous for his research on diabetes. He was the brother of the mathematician Hermann M ...

and

Hermann Minkowski Hermann Minkowski (; ; 22 June 1864 – 12 January 1909) was a German mathematician and professor at Königsberg, Zürich and Göttingen. He created and developed the geometry of numbers and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number t ...

; until 1873 he also subsidized the major part of its construction. A memorial to the estimated 50,000

Lithuanian Jewish Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas o ...

children killed during the Holocaust can be found at the rear of the building, complete with 37

stone tablets According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tablets of the Law (also Tablets of Stone, Stone Tablets, or Tablets of Testimony; Biblical Hebrew: לוּחֹת הַבְּרִית ''lûḥōt habbǝrît'' "tablets of the covenant", לֻחֹת הָאֶבֶן ' ...

showing in which towns and cities they lost their lives and just how many of them died in each one. On 20 April 2011, the anniversary of Hitler's birthday, a sign saying "Jews out" and "Hitler was right" ("Juden raus" "Hitleris buvo teisus") were hung in front of the synagogue.

Gallery

LT Kaunas, judaica - synagoga, 2019.07.18, fot Ivonna Nowicka (1).jpg, At the entrance to the Synagogue LT Kaunas, judaica - synagoga, 2019.07.18, fot Ivonna Nowicka (5).jpg, Structure on top of the roof of the Synagogue Lithuania Kaunas Synagogue.jpg, General view Holocaust memorial in Choral Synagogue in Kaunas.JPG, Holocaust memorial in front of the synagogue Synagogue Kaunas inside view 6.jpg, Inside the Synagogue Synagogue Kaunas inside view 7.jpg, Inside the Synagogue Synagogue Kaunas inside view 5.jpg, Inside the Synagogue Synagogue Kaunas inside view 4.jpg, Inside the Synagogue Synagogue Kaunas inside view 8.jpg, Inside the Synagogue Synagogue Kaunas inside view 3.jpg, Inside the Synagogue Synagogue Kaunas inside view 2.jpg, Plaques with the names of Jewish soldiers from Kaunas fallen in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

Holocaust victims Holocaust victims were people targeted by the government of Nazi Germany based on their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation. The institutionalized practice by the Nazis of singling out and persecuting people resulted ...

References

External links

Virtual panorama of the synagogue
21st-century attacks on synagogues and Jewish communal organizations Buildings and structures in Kaunas History of Kaunas Jews and Judaism in Kaunas Landmarks in Kaunas Synagogues completed in 1872 Synagogues in Lithuania Orthodox synagogues Orthodox Judaism in Lithuania {{Lithuania-synagogue-stub