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Jewish-Affairs-Chanukah-2015
Jewish-Affairs-Chanukah-2015
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JEWISH AFFAIRS Chanukah 2015<br />
human values. Together they hammered out the<br />
tactics and organization of passive, non-violent<br />
resistance and Satyagraha (devotion to the truth),<br />
and applied these evolving methods to oppose<br />
the Transvaal government’s new law insisting<br />
on the registration of the Indian population. It<br />
was the start of an eight year battle for civil<br />
rights for Indians and human equality.<br />
This is the background to the event that took<br />
place in Rusne, Lithuania at the beginning of<br />
October. Rusne, a small town of about 3000<br />
people, also claims to be the birthplace of<br />
Hermann Kallenbach. It is located on Rusne<br />
Island in the Nemunas Delta, Šilutė district<br />
municipality, nine kms from Šilutė, the capital,<br />
and borders on the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad<br />
on the Baltic. In a prime spot alongside the<br />
Skirvyta River and close to the historic Jewish<br />
synagogue, a 1.9 metre bronze life size statue<br />
of Gandhi and Kallenbach has been erected.<br />
On 2 October, it was unveiled by the Prime<br />
Minister of Lithuania, Algirdus Butkevicius,<br />
together with Gandhi’s grandson, Gopal Krishna<br />
Gandhi and one of Gandhi’s great grandsons.<br />
The focus on that occasion was on the link<br />
between Lithuania and India via Gandhi and<br />
Kallenbach, but Johannesburg, the place of their<br />
close friendship, and the South African link in<br />
general seems to have been missed. I wondered<br />
whether a South African diplomat or a South<br />
African Jewish institutional representative had<br />
Monument to Herman Kallenbach and<br />
Mohandas Gandhi in Rusne, Lithuania. The<br />
backdrop is the Skirvyta River (photo Martynas<br />
Ambrazas)<br />
been invited to the prestigious event.<br />
There is a fascinating story as to how the<br />
statue came to be commissioned. A local teacher<br />
of ethics, Vytautas Toleikis, was inspired by<br />
Gandhi’s philosophy and the Lithuanian origins<br />
of his close friend Kallenbach to initiate the<br />
project to immortalise the friendship between the<br />
two men through a bronze statue. The statue’s<br />
sculptor, Romas Kvintas, made a close study<br />
of photographs of Gandhi and Kallenbach, and<br />
also watched the 1982 Richard Attenborough<br />
biopic of Gandhi.<br />
“The monument comes as a testimony to Indo-<br />
Lithuanian friendship. Above the many things<br />
that connect our two nations, the monument to<br />
Gandhi and Kallenbach will tower as a symbol<br />
epitomising a single individual’s impact on the<br />
larger history of mankind,” said Lithuanian<br />
ambassador to India Laimonas Talat-Kelp ša,<br />
who turned fundraiser to bring this project to<br />
fruition. The local municipality contributed<br />
€10 000 to landscape and create a pedestrian<br />
walkway. Another source of funding was the<br />
Good Will Foundation, a Lithuanian Jewish body<br />
which itself is funded from state compensatory<br />
funds for the disastrous losses of the Jewish<br />
population in the Holocaust.<br />
The sculpture, symbolising peace as much<br />
between Russia and Lithuania as between<br />
Lithuania and India, is expected to become a<br />
major tourist attraction. During summer, 32 cruise<br />
liners dock at the Klaipeda seaport, each carrying<br />
around 3000 passengers, and local officials<br />
anticipate a threefold increase in tourism.<br />
“While Gandhi gave the world the concept<br />
of non-violent resistance, which Lithuania also<br />
successfully employed during its struggle with<br />
the Soviet oppression, Kallenbach was pivotal<br />
in shaping Gandhi’s ideas and testing them in<br />
practice. We believe this monument in Rusne<br />
will serve as a powerful reminder that one man<br />
also matters in history,” added Laimonas Talat-<br />
Kelp and quoted in The Times of India report<br />
(available online).<br />
In 1914, Kallenbach planned to accompany<br />
Gandhi to India and they left South Africa<br />
together by ship. However on reaching<br />
Southampton, while Gandhi and his wife<br />
proceeded to India, Kallenbach was interned as<br />
a German enemy alien (World War I was by<br />
then underway) and spent a considerable stretch<br />
of time on the Isle of Man between 1915 and<br />
1917. He returned to South Africa after the<br />
war and resumed his architectural practice in<br />
Johannesburg, with partners A M Kennedy and<br />
Furner. He also purchased farm lands and saw<br />
through the proclamation of the township of<br />
Linksfield Ridge, built his own house on New<br />
Mountain Road and worked with labourers to<br />
make the lane that became Kallenbach Drive.<br />
It was not until 1937 that Kallenbach again<br />
connected with Gandhi when he visited him at<br />
his Indian ashram. He visited India again in 1939.<br />
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