The renovation of the former synagogue in Alytus, Lithuania is progressing — but apparently more slowly than originally anticipated.
According to a report by Ramūnas Jakubauskas on the BNS news agency, the work should be completed by the end of this year.
We reported in 2017 that renovation began on the building in September 2016 — and it had been planned for it to be opened as a cultural and educational space — including a Jewish museum — in 2019.
With funding support from the European Regional Development Fund and Alytus City Municipality, a more than €404,000 contract was signed in January 2019 with the Ekodora company for the transformation of the building into a Visual Arts Center, a division of the Alytus Ethnographic Museum, that will host exhibitions, conferences, seminars, educational programs, training, lectures, book presentations, film screenings, and other activities. An exhibition on Jewish history is also planned.
The contract was for 16 months, with a possible extension of two months.
The city’s deputy mayor Jurgita Shukeviciene told BNS that the opening would most likely take place at the end of this year. She said repairs – including to the floors and railings in the Women’s Gallery – will be completed by May, and restoration of the fragmentary was paintings should be completed by the end of the year.
Work has been carried out in coordination with heritage authorities, as the masonry building is a protected historic monument.
Mainly constructed of yellow brick with red brick trim and other decoration, it was built in 1911 after fire ravaged the town and destroyed an earlier wooden synagogue. During the Soviet era, it was used as a warehouse for salt and then left empty. Some of the interior decoration has survived, including polychrome paintings in the main sanctuary.
“The synagogue will retain authentic fragments. An exposition dedicated to Jewish history should be set up. In any case, the synagogue and Jewish culture will go hand in hand and this will be a priority, ”Šukevičienė told BNS.
Renovation work to date has focused on the the brick structure, roof, windows, plumbing, sanitary facilities, wiring, and other infrastructure.
According to a detailed description of the building by the Center for Jewish Art:
In the first days of the Nazi occupation, the synagogue was converted into a hospital for prisoners of war, which operated there until the end of August 1941. Later it housed the locksmith workshops of the Alytus Craft School. In the Soviet period, the synagogue served as a salt warehouse, and as the building was adapted for a new purpose, the interior was changed and damaged. […]
The synagogue was erected in so-called “brick-style”, mainly from yellow bricks, using red brick to emphasize the decorative elements. The rectangular building, composed of a prayer hall in the eastern volume and a two-story western volume, is covered with a gable roof of asbestos sheets. The western volume includes a vestibule with two adjacent rooms on the ground floor, and the women’s section on the first floor.
The Center’s detailed description — taken from the book Lithuanian Synagogues: A Catalogue, edited by Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, Sergey Kravtsov, Vladimir Levin, Giedrė Mickūnaitė and Jurgita Šiaučiūnaitė-Verbickienė — details the traces of interior decoration that remain.
Remains of wall paintings are preserved on the northern part of the eastern wall. The discernable remains allow a reconstruction of the prayer hall’s decoration. The walls were colored blue. Brown pilasters were painted in the piers, with a gray frieze between their capitals, adorned with scrolls. A blue field with a rose and foliate decoration in the frieze between the capitals. The pointed heads of the windows were surmounted by a rocaille painted in grisaille.