Lithuania’s government has sparked international outrage after announcing plans to build a conference center on a historic Jewish cemetery.
The Šnipiškės cemetery, also known as the Piramónt Cemetery, stands as the oldest Jewish burial ground in Vilnius, with graves dating back to the 15th century. For centuries, it served as the final resting place for thousands of Lithuanian Jews, including renowned rabbis, scholars, and community leaders who made Vilnius the “Jerusalem of Lithuania.”
Among those originally buried there was the legendary 18th-century sage known as the Vilna Gaon, though his remains were relocated in 1949. Before the Holocaust, this cemetery represented the heart of one of Europe’s most illustrious Jewish communities—Lithuania’s 168,000 Jews, approximately 90% of whom were murdered during Nazi occupation with extensive local collaboration.
In 1971, during Soviet rule, authorities destroyed the historic graveyard and built the Vilnius Concert and Sports Palace directly on top of the burial site. The facility operated until 2004, when it closed and fell into disrepair. Since then, the abandoned building has been subject to frequent vandalism while thousands of Jewish remains lie beneath its foundation.
Prior to his resignation last month, then-Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas announced that his government would revive decade-old proposals to convert the abandoned sports complex into the “Vilnius Congress Centre.” Government officials defended the €133 million project as economically necessary, citing preliminary estimates that it could generate up to €133 million annually and create up to 1,200 jobs across tourism, logistics, and event-organizing sectors.
Lithuania currently lacks an A-class conference center, which the proposed facility would provide. Vice Minister of Economy Agila Barzdienė told LRT that the site receives neither respect nor security in its current state and argued that conference tourism represents “one of the most profitable and useful sectors for any city.”
Jewish organizations worldwide have condemned the decision as a betrayal of solemn promises made by previous Lithuanian governments.
“This is a painful betrayal of Lithuania’s own past commitments and a desecration to the interred deceased,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, told the Algemeiner. The rabbinical alliance represents more than 700 religious leaders across Europe.
Goldschmidt noted that a special committee established by the previous Lithuanian government in 2023 concluded the historic cemetery site should not be developed further and instead drafted proposals for commemorating the area with a memorial site within the existing building.
“We now urge the current government to honor those conclusions, which were reached through serious consultation and international engagement,” he said. “This is not a matter of politics, but of moral and historical responsibility. Thousands of Jewish graves lie beneath that site. Turning it into a venue for entertainment and gatherings is a profound desecration of their dignity.”
American Jewish Committee officials expressed similar dismay, calling the announcement “shocking” in a Friday statement demanding immediate reversal.
“This reverses an internationally endorsed decision of the previous government, which rightly committed to transforming the site into a place of Jewish remembrance and education,” the AJC stated. “The abrupt nature of this decision raises serious questions and casts a shadow over Lithuania’s stated commitment to Holocaust memory and Jewish heritage.”
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