Before World War II, there were 135 synagogues in Vilnius, but the Great Synagogue was the centre of spiritual and cultural life for Litvaks. Today, the remains of the Great Synagogue of Vilna are an important part of the city’s cultural heritage.
The Great Synagogue of Vilna was founded at the end of the 16th century when the Litvak community was granted the right to attend their houses of prayer. The first house of prayer was wooden. In 1633, King Wladyslaw IV Vasa allowed a brick synagogue to be built in the Jewish Quarter. The synagogue couldn’t be taller than the nearby churches, so the building’s architects found a creative solution and built a couple of floors below ground level.
Outside, the synagogue looked to be about three stories tall, but inside it was over five stories. The main prayer hall was square and could hold 3,000 people, but this synagogue was well ahead of all other similar structures of the time and could host up to 5,000 worshipers.
During World War II, Nazis burned, looted, and destroyed it. Then the Soviet authorities demolished the ruins in 1955. In its place, they built a kindergarten. Finally, in summer 2018 during archaeological excavations begun. The archaeological excavations were both inside and outside the kindergarten building. Thanks to ground-penetrating radar, archaeologists found the bimah and mikvah (ritual bath) of the Great Synagogue. The kindergarten is still there, but it’s not operating anymore. And there are plans to demolish the building in order to empty the space for the cultural memorial center.
During the recent excavations, archaeologists located the bimah of the Great Synagogue, along with some of the floor tiles surrounding that platform, in a part of the structure buried beneath the former school principal's office. The bimah was a raised platform at the geometrical center of the square-shaped sacred building, where passages from the Torah, the Jewish holy book, were read aloud. Until this day, the city had preserved three original pieces of the Great Synagogue of Vilna: a door of the Holy Ark, a reader’s desk, and a bas-relief of the Ten Commandments. The three remains can be seen at the Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum.
To honor the Jews who died during the Holocaust, as well as the Great Synagogue, Vilnius plans to create a Jewish memorial centre at the site by 2023, when Vilnius celebrates its 700th birthday.
The 3D project reveals realistic footage of the important historical site, which marks yet another crucial milestone in preserving Lithuania’s Jewish heritage.