Lithuania: Downloadable (free) Jewish heritage travel guide(s) to Lithuania

Planning a Jewish heritage trip to Lithuania?

We’d like to draw your attention to a new, 50-page travel guide to Jewish Lithuania, published by the state tourism authority, that is available for free in print form at tourism offices but also downloadable as a PDF. To download it — click here and scroll down the page.

Called Jewish Cultural Heritage in Lithuania, the guide — which is richly illustrated and has both English and Lithuanian versions — came out in 2018. (The cover shows the interior of the restored wooden synagogue in Pakruojis, which was rededicated in 2017.)

It includes main sections on Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Telšiai and Ukmergė, with brief entries on nearly two dozen other places around the country.

It’s somewhat selective in its information and leaves out some sites (such as Kalvarija) — but it provides GPS coordinates and maps, and makes a good introduction and basic Jewish heritage guide to the country.

The guidebook was published by the State Department of Tourism under the Ministry of Economy and is drawn from information compiled by Dr. Jurgita Verbickienė, Darius Sakalauskas, Dovilė Troskovaitė, Akvilė Naudžiūnienė, Rūta Anulytė, Aivaras Poška, Tadas Kuzmickas, Monika Ramonaitė, and Julijana Leganovič.

ALSO: In addition to this new publication, the Lithuanian travel website  www.lietuvon.lt now has a recently uploaded section on visiting the “Lost Shtetls” of Lithuania. It was put together as a joint-venture between the Lithuanian Jewish Community and www.lietuvon.lt’s  Karolis Žukauskas and was supported from the Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Department and the Goodwill Foundation.

It includes links to individual downloadable PDF material for many of the sites in the Tourist Authority Guide — but also for others. The aim was to collate material on local and regional Jewish heritage tourist routes that are being developed and promoted by local municipalities, tourism information centers, museums, libraries, and individuals.

Some of the material is in English and Lithuanian, some of it is just in Lithuanian.

The sites are —

Anykščiai      Biržai    Jonava   Joniškis     Kaišiadorys     Kėdainiai     Marijampolė      Merkinė     Molėtai

Palanga     Panevėžys    Raseiniai      Šeduva      Telšiai      Ukmergė      Vilkaviškis      Žagarė

NOTE: There are a number of experienced guides to Jewish heritage in Lithuania, who can help with itineraries and/or accompany visitors on tours.

We have provided contacts and links to some of them, as well as to other tourism resources (including a 10-site Route of Jewish Heritage, on our web site — CLICK HERE

You can find more detailed information to some of the sites that are in the new publications, as well as other resources, in the Lithuania section of our web site.