For four days in mid-June, about 150 soldiers from the German Bundeswehr’s 45th Panzer Brigade joined members of the Maceva Jewish cemetery preservation group to clean up the old Jewish cemetery and Holocaust monument in Merkinė, in southeast Lithuania. The brigade (also called the Lithuanian Brigade) has been stationed in Lithuania since April 1, and the initiative is believed to have been the first time that German soldiers have taken care of Jewish heritage in such a way.
“The Jews buried in Merkinė don’t have families to tend their graves because their families were exterminated,” Faynia Kukliansky, the chair of the Lithuanian Jewish community, said at the action’s concluding ceremony. “It is symbolic that soldiers from the German brigade are taking care of their graves today. While the current generation of Germans are not responsible for the horrors of World War II, nonetheless they feel a moral imperative to make amends for the oppression by Nazi Germany. I thank the soldiers and [German] Ambassador Cornelius Zimmermann in the name of the Lithuanian Jewish Community for their preservation of the only thing that remains when a person dies, memory.”
In this personal essay, Sergey Kanovich, the founder of Maceva, describes the initiative and reflects on the experience and its meaning — “perhaps first and foremost,” he writes, “because the German soldiers have turned the phrases ‘never again’ and ‘we remember’ into deeds. “
Brothers And Sisters in Arms, of Memory
By Sergey Kanovich
June 22, 2025
When six months ago the German Ambassador to Lithuania, Dr. Cornelius Zimmermann, asked me whether I would mind if soldiers of the Bundeswehr Lithuanian Brigade helped document Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania, I was dumbfounded. The first thought that came to mind was – why not Lithuanian soldiers? But I was sitting in the German Ambassador’s guest room at the Embassy.
Since the Litvak cemetery catalogue ‘Maceva’ (the Hebrew word for gravestone) was founded 14 years ago, we have had many volunteers – from Austrian and German Christians to Lithuanian high school students, US embassy employees, guests from Israel, etc. But Bundeswehr soldiers helping to tidy up the territory of a Jewish cemetery and document the tombstones? Why?
When something like this happens, thoughts about guilt and its redemption tend to leap into one’s mind. After all, one can’t forget modern Germany’s constant attention to the history of the Holocaust as well as to European Jewry and their descendants. However, no matter the reason why the country decided to do such a good and honourable deed, what really matters is that such a deed was done.
And so, early one morning almost six months after my conversation with the ambassador, the director of Maceva, Milda Jakulytė, and I were standing in the central square of the little Lithuanian town of Merkinė, waiting for the first group of soldiers from the 45th Panzer Brigade. They soon came, accompanied by military chaplain Eric Hausmann and the chief rabbi of the German army Shlomo Afanasjev, who had flown in specially from Berlin.
Every day, for four days in a row, new groups of soldiers arrived – in all, about 150 soldiers.
We jokingly called the last day of the initiative the VIP Day, as the visitors included the German Brigadier General Christoph Huber; the German Ambassador to Lithuania, Dr. Cornelius Zimmermann; the Israeli Ambassador, Hadas Wittenberg Silverstein; the Chair of the Lithuanian Jewish Community Faina Kukliansky; and cantor Shmuel Yatom.
However, there was no extra official status for any of them at the cemetery that day — no generals, ambassadors or other VIPs: Together with their family members they got down on all fours to clean the monuments, picked up and carried branches, and did other work. Just like the German soldiers.
Every evening, after finishing our work at the cemetery, we would walk a few hundred meters to a much more tragic place of eternal rest – the pits containing the remains of 854 massacred Jews from Merkinė and Liškiava.
I was asked to say a few words to the soldiers every time before going to the mass graves, and every time it made me a little uneasy.
I won’t lie, it did occur to me that among the soldiers there were those whose grandfathers might have… And I was right. At the end of one of the days, I was approached by an officer who said that he was there not only because it was his duty, but also because of what his ancestors had done… I didn’t let him finish the sentence. Not because it was difficult for me, but because I felt how difficult it was for him.
Every time before going to the mass graves, I addressed the soldiers in all honesty: “Dear soldiers,” I told them.
“I understand perfectly well how hard it must be for you, German soldiers, to do what you are doing. How hard it must be for you to pay respects to the murdered brothers and sisters of Merkinė and Liškiava Jews who lie here peacefully buried. I will admit, it is not easy for me either. I am a descendant of Holocaust survivors – if it were not for my grandmother, who on the morning of June 23, 1941 convinced her husband to flee, I would not be standing before you today. I do not believe in collective guilt. I do not believe in collective responsibility for crimes not committed by you. By what you are doing, you prove that you are in Lithuania not only to protect our territorial integrity.
You are here to protect and cherish our common humanity and democratic values. You are setting not only a military example, but also a personal one. Therefore, I sincerely believe that you should be proud of Germany, and Germany must be proud of you. And each one of you has every right to be proud of himself and the flag he serves. Today we are all brothers and sisters in arms of memory. We fight for a resurrected reverent memory. Thank you all for your service.”
There were soldiers who came forward and offered to continue volunteering during their free time from service. There were many who thanked us for the experience. I was assured by General Christoph Huber that the experience was so positive that it was decided to continue it for the whole term of the brigade’s deployment in Lithuania.
According to Eric Hausmann, the chief chaplain, this was the first time in the history of the Bundeswehr that German soldiers were taking care of Jewish heritage.
A role model that I really lack words to describe. Perhaps first and foremost because these German soldiers have turned the phrases “never again” and “we remember” into deeds.
– – – –
Sergey Kanovich is a writer and veteran Jewish heritage activist, founder of Maceva, the Litvak Cemetery Catalogue and founder and former CEO of the Lost Shtetl museum. In January the Lithuanian Jewish Community appointed him Coordinator of Jewish Heritage Projects, and in 2018, Lithuania’s then-president Dalia Grybauskaitė awarded him a high state honor, the medal of the order “For Merit to Lithuania,” for his work to preserve Lithuanian Jewish heritage.
(Essay translated by Judita Gliauberzonaite)