The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, co-sponsored in October–November 2003 a three-part program entitled Lithuania and the Jews. Our intention was to further research in the field and enhance our understanding of this history. In addition, this series of programs on Lithuanian Jewry addressed a more specific aim: acknowledging and exploring the crucial ties among scholars in Holocaust studies and Jewish studies by focusing on Jews and Jewish communities before, during, and after the Holocaust.

Eleven scholars participated in this symposium, which began in New York City on October 1, 2002, with the session entitled The Intellectual Contributions of Lithuanian Jewry from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century. The symposium continued in Washington on October 28 with a panel examining Lithuania and the Holocaust, and concluded in New York City on November 13 with the third session entitled Jewish Life under Soviet-Occupied Lithuania and Today. His Excellency Vygaudas Ušackas, Ambassador of Lithuania to the United States, opened the
symposium by remarking on the shared heritage and culture of Jewish and non-Jewish Lithuanians, and the importance of honest reflection on the history of Nazi occupation and on the role of Lithuanian perpetrators.