The destruction of Vilna
Rivka and David Labkovski return to Vilna in 1946. He documented the physical destruction of the city.
Compare the two pieces of destruction to the pieces depicting his childhood in Vilna (below).
Compare the two pieces of destruction to the pieces depicting his childhood in Vilna (below).
What do you notice?
The Great Synagogue of VIlna
To Consider:
The Great Synagogue of Vilna is central to all four pieces shown above. In the two prewar pieces, it is surrounded by the daily comings and goings of the Vilna Jewish community. After the Holocaust, the physical destruction is apparent, and in these paintings, it is the absence of people that is so jarring. Labkovski's work commemorates the people, the culture, and the life the victims of the Holocaust.
Of Interest: The shell of the Great Synagogue did survive the war. True to Labkovski's depiction of the building, it needed great repair. The Vilna survivors petitioned the Soviet government to repair the building; they refused. Eventually the Soviets destroyed the building and constructed a school on the site.
There is an ongoing discussion about the site where the synagogue stood. How should it be commemorated? How can current residents use the space but with deference to its long history? To learn more about this issue, listen to this report, "Excavation of Lithuania's Great Synagogue Highlights a Painful Page of History", featured on National Public Radio.
