Lietuva in brief - 2010-09-30

This week, Kristina Brazauskiene, who applied for a presidential widow’s annuity, intends to suspend her membership in the Social Democrat political party, reports the LTV program ‘Labas Rytas.’ Brazauskiene, the wife of the late president Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas, is a member of the Vilnius Department of the Social Democratic political party. According to the media, on July 15, Brazauskiene sold the apartment hotel that was under construction, for almost 14 million litas (4.0 million euros). Kristinas Brazauskiene applied for the annuity just a week after the successful transaction.

During his visit to New York, on Sept. 27, at the City University of New York, Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Azubalis opened a photography exhibition dedicated to the Lithuanian Jewish cultural heritage and conferred an award of Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on former Executive Director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, reports ELTA. The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research was founded in Vilnius. At the opening of a photography exhibition entitled ‘The Sounds of Silence’ by one of the best Lithuanian photographers, Raimondas Paknys, Minister Azubalis emphasized a considerable contribution of Litvaks to the Lithuanian culture and the development of culture, science and economy. The Minister regretted that the Holocaust had irreparably destroyed all of it. “With the sole help of a united effort and learning from other countries’ experience, Lithuania is more and more clearly aware of its losses. We are really proud that descendants of Litvaks become presidents, prime ministers and ministers in Israel, that many well-known politicians, economists, cultural professionals in the largest states are Litvaks,” Minister Azubalis said. The photograph exhibition covers more than five centuries of Lithuanian Jewish history: synagogues, yeshivas, cemeteries and other photos of locations related to the life of Jews in Lithuania.