We mourn the death of a remarkable man, Jakovas (Yaakov) Bunka (Yankl or Yosl Bunk), a renowned folk-style wood-sculptor, World War II hero and passionate keeper of the Jewish flame in his native town, Plunge, Lithuania, who died July 30 at the age of 91.
Bunka was the last Jew in Plunge, where once more than half the population was Jewish.
He and his family, along with several hundred other local Jews, escaped to the Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II. He joined the Soviet Army and became a highly decorated officer.
When he returned home, he found little trace of the 2,500 Jews who had lived in Plunge and surrounding villages before the war. The Germans had entered Plunge on June 25, 1941; in July, helped by Lithuanian collaborators, they marched more 1,800 Jews into a nearby forest, shot them dead, and buried them in mass graves. Hundreds more were massacred at other sites in the area.
After the fall of communism, Bunka took it upon himself to restore Jewish memory and history to the town. He spoke to school groups and showed visitors around; he rescued tombstones from the destroyed Jewish cemetery and built a monument with them; he wrote a history of Plunge Jews (posted on JewishGen, in English, at http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/plunge/plunge.html), and he put together an exhibition on local Jewish life and traditions.
Moreover, he created an extraordinary monument to the Holocaust in Plunge: a series of immense wooden sculptures carved by himself and other artists from tree trunks, arranged at the site of the mass grave where Plunge Jews had been massacred. “When I came back after the war, I felt it was my mission to make a memorial for the destroyed Jews of my town,” Bunka told JHE coordinator Ruth Ellen Gruber in 2006.
In recent years, the Jakova Bunkas Charity and Sponsorship Fund has made it a priority to document the small wooden synagogues that still stand, mainly in Lithuania but also in Belarus.
See a lengthy article about Bunka by Adam Ellick, published in 2002
3 comments on “Death of Jakovas Bunka”
We met Mr Bunka on a trip to Lithuania and visited with him and his wife in their apartment where he told us of his remarkable story. His son was kind enough to take us to the site of the memorial so we could see his wonderful wood carvings.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Bunka in Plunge (Plungyan) while on a roots trip in 2007. He was a delightful and energetic man. He invited us to his apartment and showed us many mementos and his carvings. He also took us to the memorial site with the four totem -style poles he had carved. We also met his wife.
Our excellent Israeli-Lithuanian guide from Vilna had arranged that meeting.
I saw Simon Schama’s interview of Mr. Bunkas on his show. I’m glad this histoy is being preserved. It’s very importamt that everyone know about it.