Aktuelles

Anika Olbrisch will present the audioguide about Jonava as a Lithuanian shtetl, which was developed at the Chair for Public History in Hagen. She will explain about the context and the development of the audioguide to the Vienna Jewish Studies Colloquium, including the Jewish Studies Program of Central European University in Vienna and the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies.

The audioguide introduces the city’s places of Jewish life to the participants to explore Jonava as an authentic historical place and an exemplary Lithuanian shtetl that was destroyed during the Holocaust. To understand the local history, this audioguide sheds light not just on the Jewish past, but also on the first Lithuanian independence in 1918, the Soviet occupation, the German invasion, and the murder of the entire Jewish community during the Holocaust.

Not far from today’s Jonava, members of the German Bundeswehr are stationed as part of NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence. Therefore, the audioguide was developed specifically for the Bundeswehr soldiers stationed on site to visualise the local history, but also the historical context of the site of their current deployment.

The presentation will introduce the historical background of the Jewish community in Jonava, the current context on site and the development of the project. The audioguide can be used both on site in Jonava and remotely on the website rukla-jonava.org.

Short biography

Anika Olbrisch is an MA student at the University of Greifswald and at the Jewish Studies Program at Central European University in Vienna. She received BAs in History and East Slavic Studies from the University of Leipzig and has studied abroad in Vilnius and St. Petersburg.