I have moved twice in my life – both of those times because an aggressor state waged war on my country. In 2014, when I was nine, Russia invaded Ukraine, and my family had to leave our home in Donetsk and move to Kyiv. Eight years later, when the full-scale invasion began, my parents encouraged me to seek safety abroad, no longer certain that I could find it in Ukraine.

These events not only opened my eyes to the experiences of others who have been forcefully displaced, but also resurfaced a deeper sense of empathy toward all people – something, I believe, we all possess, but uncover at different points in our lives.

I have now lived in Vilnius for almost three years. The time spent here has taught me a great deal about what it means to practice mutual acceptance and understanding of other human beings. In Vilnius, a much-used key to that is revisiting one’s personal and collective history, and actively applying the lessons learned from it.

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I walk the narrow streets of the Old Town of the Lithuanian capital on a sunny spring day. It is well known to a Lithuanian just how rare these days are at the end of March – a month which heralds spring only on paper. A newcomer from a distant country soon understands that, too. The warmer the lands from which they travel here, the harder, I imagine, it must be to adapt to this cool, cloudy Baltic state.

A collection of three charming stories about the city accompanies me [Vilnius. Wilno. Vilna by Kristina Sabaliauskaitė] as I cross through the local districts – most of which I have crossed in haste, running for a class or when meeting with a friend. Today, I leave the institute where I study political science on Vokiečių gatvė [German street], deciding to walk slowly.

Many buildings around this area are covered with painted portraits of the Jewish people who used to live there – the result of the profound 'Walls That Remember' project. They remind today’s Vilnius residents of a Jewish community that once blossomed here – the largest in the Baltic region, before the Second World War. Following their faces, now traces of the lives they lived, I cross to Mėsinių gatvė. Just beyond this street, which once marked the boundary between the Jewish ghetto and the rest of the city, the Jewish population was sent to a fate then unimaginable in Europe.

Some streets here, in the former Jewish quarter, no longer exist. To see them now, writes Sabaliauskaitė, there would have to be “a guide who is a ghost, risen from a grave with a moss-covered angel leaning over it in one of Wilno's old cemeteries”. The artist behind 'Walls That Remember', Lina Šlipavičiūtė-Černiauskienė, has done that ghost’s work in the Jewish quarter – shedding light on the real people who used to live, think and feel here.

It is strange to walk through places like this – they are often charged with a heavy spirit. Throughout its history, Vilnius has been the political center of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a town under Polish rule, and a victim of the Soviet and Nazi regimes. In the multiethnic capital, different cultures and perspectives mingled for years: those of Lithuanians, Jews, Poles, Belarusians, Tatars, Russians, among other folk. In the 1940s, the Nazi army, together with local collaborators, violently interfered with the peace: more than 200,000 Jews were murdered in Lithuania during the Holocaust, and The Ponary massacre alone claimed 70,000 lives just south of Vilnius.

The artefacts from this city’s past serve as a stark reminder of what’s at stake if we fail to relate to each other – and how easily history can repeat itself. Tragedy often starts with people looking away from the destruction of a person’s life, or an entire community. The Jewish district is one of these artefacts – a part of a multi-layered history which, brick by brick, has built Vilnius. Now, this history asks the city to nourish and defend the many different voices living here today.

Nowadays, it is possible to choose to learn supportive and empathetic co-existence with the growing foreign population residing in Vilnius. It will be important not to form alliances in constant opposition to one another, but rather to strive for common ground. With extreme climate change, authoritarian regimes gaining ground in democratic countries, and a general spike in radical right-wing sentiments – among other crises – it becomes our duty to look for ways to relate to each other as human beings.

In recent years, Lithuanians have begun to prepare for the potential escalation of the war with Russia; if it spreads beyond Ukraine, only through a special sort of unity can we hope to resist it. Already, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians famously mobilized more swiftly than everyone expected – demonstrating the kind of togetherness that, in times of peace, may be hard to choose over familiar comforts and pragmatic interests. To achieve such spirited and active solidarity again and again (not only during war), we have to ask ourselves difficult questions about where we stand with other people, and what sentiments we have in common. This, in turn, will help us deal with global issues collectively, not individually, and especially now, when peace in Europe is at risk. But to cooperate with another human being, one must learn to accept them.

One way to make steps towards that is by engaging with art.

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Until the end of the summer, Vilnius locals and tourists can attend an immersive exhibition titled ‘From Within’, at MO Museum – the modern art museum just a ten minute walk from the Jewish district. The current exhibition has brought together Lithuanian art and the philosophy of Carl Jung and Alain de Botton, encouraging visitors to reflect on the feelings a painting stirs up inside of them. ‘What is it that comes from within?’, the exhibition asks.

As you walk through the cool rooms and look at the paintings, you are invited to answer personal questions: ‘What roles do I play?,’, ‘How do I act in a group?’, ‘Are my roles compatible?’ There are not only paintings, but also sculptures, mixed media, and video installations. In one of the last rooms, I ponder on questions directly related to what I have been thinking about on my walks in Vilnius: ‘Can I accept someone who looks different?’. How do I relate to people from different backgrounds?

Sigita Maslauskaitė-Mažylienė’s ‘Wall’ and ‘Girls’, are impressive, almost two-meters wide paintings. In 2020, ‘Wall’ won first place at the UN-organized art competition ‘The Future We Want’ in Geneva. It depicts what looks like a family looking over a high wall – a young boy on his father’s shoulders, getting a glimpse of what, the author suggests, might be “a life without persecutors and war”, or “freedom without disease”. She also explains that they are refugees.

Next to it, the exhibition asks again, in red: ‘Can I accept someone who looks different?’. It is a learning process, I think. And the key to it shouldn’t necessarily be going through a war. It can also be found in thoughtfully revising the history of your town and nation and always recognizing an equal, struggling human being in everyone you meet.

Projects like this – one of several curated in Vilnius that remind us of human values through art – encourage us to concentrate on our shared condition as complicated people, instead of our cultural differences.

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I have the impression that Vilnius routinely pushes its residents, including those of us here ‘in transit’, to think of themselves in relation to what they have been through, what they are going through, and what awaits them in the future. On Saturday, March 29th, the town calls me to action: in the center of the city I join a protest in solidarity with Palestine.

The protest begins at the Martynas Mažvydas Library – a nice starting point for political action. Before you go off to protest, whatever the cause you are to speak up for, it is as though you must crack a book open before claiming to know anything about a foreign conflict. Last year, a survey found that one third of Lithuanian respondents did not have a stance on whether Lithuania should recognize the state of Palestine, which is often attributed to Lithuania’s long distance from Palestine.

The same cannot be said of the position Lithuania has taken à propos the war Ukraine is fighting against Russia. For the people of Lithuania, Ukraine’s security invariably means the security of Lithuania – a statement they have passionately supported with rebuilding initiatives in Ukraine, humanitarian aid, and financial help, where Lithuania ranks third in the world in terms of GDP percentage spent on aid to Ukraine. However, if we consider the existential aspect of the war Russia started in Ukraine – in that it is challenging not just Ukrainian peace, but the entire idea of security and solidarity in the Western world – we could learn to be more actively empathetic towards everyone who struggles to achieve and preserve these things. The first stage to conflict resolution worldwide could be to unite around our intrinsic common values: goodness, friendship, sincerity, inclusion, and acceptance.

On the day of the protest in support of Palestine, a number of Vilnians came to support the event, although it is still an ongoing challenge for them to relate to Palestinians.

Dozens gather at the library, and even more join as the protesters move along Gedimino prospektas, the central avenue. I approach a woman holding a poster: in bright red it says ‘Free Palestine’, the letters outlined in green. She tells me it was her son who made the poster. “When I saw him painting it, it looked like his hands were covered in blood”, she says.

We walk along the street and through the Merchants’ club, on the roof of which the Greek hero Atlas towers over us, holding up the world; past the bench monument set up to pay tribute to the Lithuanian musician Vytautas Kernagis – one of the first places where he performed; and then right under the statue of Saint George fending off a dragon. The air feels different from what I have felt during demonstrations expressing support for Ukraine. In Lithuania, that’s a given. This one political act, however, is defiant, and a definitive ‘no’ to something that keeps happening no matter how hard you shout in disagreement.

Many of the chants in the protest allude to the similarities between the injustice experienced by Ukrainians and Palestinians. “From Ukraine to Palestine, occupation is a crime!”, the people would cry out, some of them carrying the Ukrainian flag alongside that of Palestine. At Vinco Kudirkos square, where the march ends, one participant gives a fiery speech concerning the European Union judging the crimes committed by Russia, but turning away from the same atrocities brought upon Palestine. Later I found out he himself is Ukrainian, too.

There, I also speak to a young Palestinian woman, as we stand behind other protesters holding up flags and posters, shouting out slogans. She hugs me really tightly upon hearing I am Ukrainian. Her name is Noura; a few weeks later she agreed to have a chat with me about the protest. In the past, NARA has interviewed her and another Palestinian student, Michael, after the conflict in Gaza escalated following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.

A volunteer at an activist organization called Luna6, she often goes to Palestine-related rallies in Vilnius. “I am more of a face of Palestine here, not an organizer of protests,” she says, adding that she doesn’t want to sound too arrogant. When Noura’s colleagues at the organization need someone to deliver a speech, she has to rise to the occasion. “Not a lot of other Palestinians in Vilnius participate in these things, or take action,” she explains. “They are scared of facing negative consequences, mostly for legal reasons, which I respect. Speaking up might affect them; I, on the other hand, do not have to come back to Palestine, because I wasn’t raised there.”

Noura grew up in Lebanon, and her parents, both Palestinian, still live there in the South. She moved from there to Malta when she was 18 and received a Bachelor’s degree in social policy; now Noura works in international communications. She moved to Vilnius for love. Noura has never been to Palestine. “I am a wanderer”, she tells me. “I don’t have a home to come back to, so it’s not a difficult decision for me to move. And when I say I want to go back to Palestine, I mean I want to have the option. God knows where I will stay, but I don’t want anyone to deny me the freedom to choose.”

She continues: “I would definitely want to visit Palestine when there is no occupation. Palestine in my head is something very pure; I don’t want to pollute it with reality. Occupation is something monstrous. We want a free Palestinian land: no occupation, no apartheid, all people living on that land, Jewish, Arab, all have equal rights, no privileges.” Following this, I ask if she could imagine a society in which we support each other’s cultures – and not doubt their validity just because of their unfamiliarity. “To me, the first step is to listen to the stories of people”, she responds. “I cannot emphasize this more, but I don’t want to listen about people, I want to hear from them. People need to narrate their stories with their own voice. This is the first barrier to break.”

I ask Noura if she feels like Vilnius understands her. “Not really”, she responds. “People here don’t know much about Palestine. Lithuanians don’t even know we are stateless people. But I myself lack knowledge about other people’s struggles, so it’s okay. I still tell my story – this is a way to introduce people to Palestine. I have a lot of people coming up to me crying, saying they had no idea what was happening. This is a responsibility that I take very seriously.”

Indeed, Noura was born without a passport, in a refugee camp in Lebanon. No document confirming her Palestinian identity, but also no Lebanese blood – how must she have felt growing up there? “I knew I belonged in Palestine – but it always felt unattainable. I tried to create a home in Lebanon – it was the only way. And I loved Lebanon, but I felt like it didn’t love me back. It denies me the right to belong.”

“The concept of belonging is very difficult for me. I have an emotional connection to Lithuania”, she continues. “Emotional connection and belonging are two different things. For the longest time I’ve struggled to define it. For some people it’s a person, for others it’s a country, or a workplace. But although I’ve never been to Palestine, I feel very strongly like I belong there. At the same time, I do feel emotionally connected to Malta and Lithuania, these countries have given me a lot.” She adds that: “You can never reside somewhere and not have that place affect you.”

Since the protest in March, another took place in Vilnius on June 1st. Similar protests have been happening all over Europe and the US, and many anti-government demonstrations have emerged in Israel condemning their government’s disastrous war on the Gazan people.

On the day Noura and I met, the people of Vilnius – mostly youth – came together to stand up against injustices – sly enough to find its way everywhere, at any time in history, on anyone’s turf, under the scorching sun or wrapped in constant, heavy rain. If cities have spiritual tasks, Vilnius is currently on the way to fulfilling its own – recalling its layered history and tending to the different communities who live here today. And while the former is achieved through language, public spaces, art and conversation, the latter lies in committed political action.

By structuring weekends in Vilnius around seeing a friend or two, preferably from different countries, visiting an art exhibition, and joining a cause by which they are personally impacted, the city’s residents continue to relate to each other on a profound level. We have to prioritize trust in each other based on mutual recognition of humanity within – because it is fear and numbness to the world which eventually has us turn away from it.

“Remembering is an ethical act.”

Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag