From March 15, 2026 (Sunday), a new exhibition “Saviours” will open at Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum, dedicated to presenting the history of the rescuing Jews in Kaunas.

During the Nazi occupation, Kaunas became one of the most important centres for the rescue of Jews in Lithuania. Despite the harsh regime, the inhabitants of the city and its surroundings created secret rescue networks. The social background of the Jewish saviours was extremely diverse: teachers, priests, artists, doctors, workers, farmers, students, intellectuals.

For some, the impulse came from personal tragic experiences or a connection with the person being rescued: friendship, former working relationships, or neighbourliness. However, all rescuers were united by their determination to act when passive observation meant acquiescence to the killings. After the Holocaust, some rescuers received international recognition and were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. But some of them were punished during the Soviet occupation not for saving Jews, but for real or suspected ties to independent Lithuanian institutions, the church, or anti-Soviet resistance.

Many rescuers kept silent about their activities for decades, treating them as a simple human duty rather than a heroic deed. Today, their stories testify not only to the light they spread, but also to the responsibility that a person can take on even when the world around them is immersed in blind darkness.

The exhibition “Saviours” reveals the following themes: “Roads from the Ghetto”, “Motivation”, “Threat”, “Social Aspect”, “After the Holocaust”. The dark experiential space conveys to visitors, through quotes from Holocaust survivors, the painful childhood experiences that emerge from the subconscious and from which it is impossible to escape throughout one’s entire life. Using an interactive desk phone, visitors can listen to the biographies of the rescuers, while a video projection on a relief map of Kaunas reveals the complexity of the saving process.

EXHIBITION ORGANISED BY:

Project manager – Vytautas Petrikėnas
Historical content editor – Greta Ščeliokaitė
Design solutions – Vytautas Švėgžda, Paulius Buragas (interior concept), Ugnė Dūdėnaitė (graphics), Martyna Maciulevičiūtė (graphics)
Exhibition artist – Darius Aleksandravičius
IT solutions – Arvydas Survila
Visual and multimedia content preparation – Raimundas Gedgaudas
Exhibition concept and construction work – “Multimediamark”
Illumination – “Irsaul”

The installation of the exhibition was funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania with funds from the Museums’ Activity Promotion Action Plan.

Information partners: “Kauno diena”, “OWEXX”, “2go”, “Prie kavos”