On 24 January 2013 the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum together with the Lithuanian Jewish Community marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Tolerance Centre of the Museum.  The new documentary "The Pit of Life and Torment" (2012) was screened during the event. The film’s authors are the director and screenplay, Lilija Kopač; the screenplay co-author and project leader, Danutė Selčinskaja; camera Algis Liutkevičius; editing Anatolijus Tetiušinas.  

The documentary tells the story of a miraculous survival of the Kukliansky family during World War II and is based on the memoirs of Mošė Kuklianskis, the only surviving witness. He was one of the three children of Saulius Kuklianskis, a pharmacist in Veisiejai, and his wife Zinaida, a physician. During the war they lived in Alytus. The dramatic road to survival of the family was marked by losses, full of dangers and constant struggle for life. Having returned to Lithuania in February 1943 from Gardinas, Saulius Kuklianskis and his children Mošė, Ana and Samuelis were hiding in the forests of the Druskininkai district for a year and a half with the help of the inhabitants of the villages Sventijanskas, Gerdašiai, Vainiūnai, Macevičiai and Bugieda. All Jewish inhabitants of Veisiejai, among whom there were many relatives of the Kuklianskis family were killed on 3 November 1941 in Kaktiškės.

The film was shot in Gardinas and the picturesque Dzūkija, with the participation of the large families of Mošė, Ana and Samuelis Kuklianskis’ children and grandchildren and the descendants of the rescuers’ families. 

On 24 January the film “The Pit of Life and Torment” was screened twice: in English and Lithuanian. Markas Zingeris, the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum director, Faina Kukliansky, the chair of the Vilnius Jewish Community and the acting chair of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, Alminas Mačiulis, chancellor of the Lithuanian Prime Minister’s office, Vilnius City Mayor Artūras Zuokas, Danutė Selčinskaja, project author, head of the Museum’s Department of the Rescue and Immortalising the Remembrance of the Jews, the film director and screenplay author, Lilija Kopač, and Maša Grodnikienė, a member of the Jewish Community, spoke at the official opening of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Faina Kukliansky spoke on behalf of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Kuklianskis family, remembering the painful experience of her father Samuelis Kuklianskis during World War II.

Artūras Zuokas, Vilnius City Mayor

Alminas Mačiulis, chancellor of the Prime Minister’s  office

Present also were the Norwegian Ambassador Leif Ulland, Danish Ambassador Jorgen Molde, Irish Ambassador Philomena Murnaghan, Hungarian Ambassador Zoltan Peche, Czech Ambassador Radek Pech, the acting charge d’affairs of the American Embassy, Anne Hall, Austrian Ambassador Helmut Koller, First Secretary of the Polish Embassy Michal Grodsky and other guests of honour.