ABSTRACT
In August 2011, my daughter Nicola Mazel and I visited Lithuania to commemorate the memory of my paternal grandparents, Mashe and Mordechai Mazel, and other maternal and paternal family members who were murdered on 23 August 1941. On that day, the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators slaughtered 7,523 people in the Pajouste forest near Panevėžys. This chapter addresses various facets of this trip along with insights gathered during informal dialogues recorded by myself (1997) and one of my brothers (1989) with our parents, who spent much of their early years in Lithuania. The narrative presented embeds autobiographical memory and personal experience in a larger context and analyses it in relation to academic literature. It focuses particularly on memory and silence when dealing with my family’s traumatic Holocaust experience; the feeling of ‘homecoming’ that I experienced in Lithuania, especially Panevėžys, although it was my first visit; and the emotions and thoughts that emerged during our walk down M Valančiaus Gatve, in Panevėžys, the street where my father, Morris Mazel, lived. The chapter concludes by highlighting the inadequate response of Lithuanian society to the memory of the Holocaust, which remains a burden, particularly since its independence from Soviet rule in 1992.
