On 10 September 2009 the multimedia exhibition “Surviving History: Portraits from Vilna” was launched at the Centre for Tolerance which was organized by Living Imprint (Great Britain). In the evening of the first day of the exhibition there was a preview of the documentary film “Surviving History” by Jesse Quinones and Daniel Quinones which had been screened at the festival at Cannes in May 2009. The singer Polina Shepherd also gave a performance.

The project’s co-authors and sponsors were: the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, the Irish Embassy in Vilnius and the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Vilnius.

Polina Shepherd performance

Speach of Museum director M. Zingeris

J .Markas Zingeris, the director of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, Shivaun Woolfson, the founder of Living Imprint, the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the United Simon Butt and the deputy head of the Mission of the Irish Embassy Janice McGann addressed the guests, as well as the deputy director for research of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum Rachilė Kostanian. This time she spoke as one of the initiators of the exhibition, one of those who have survived the Holocaust. The exhibition includes installations, photographs, written material and video biographies based on the remembrances of ten survivors.  

The initiator of the exhibition Shivaun Woolfson said: “This project started as a quest to understand what might have happened to my own family members had they not managed to flee Lithuania in the early 1900s and make their way to Ireland. It was after the sudden death of my father in January 2007 that I decided to make the trip to Eastern Europe that he had always promised himself but never found the time for. In his honour, I came here to discover what remained of Lithuania’s once thriving Jewish presence. The people I met shared their stories and memories with me. They took us to the places that mattered most to them and showed us the objects – the photos, the artefacts and heirlooms – with which they had elected to surround themselves. I realised that it was not enough to bear witness to their memories, but also to honour the lives that they have carved out of those memories. It is this richness of experience that we seek to present.”