Vilniaus Gaono žydų istorijos muziejus

The Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History is dedicated to the historical and cultural heritage of Lithuanian Jewry.

The museum was established in 1989 by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. Over the course of the following years, its exhibition items, many from earlier Jewish museums in Lithuania, were brought together. It received its current name in 1997, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the death of the Talmudic scholar Vilna Gaon.

The three main parts of the collection include items from the pre-war Vilnius museum, items from the pre-war historic ethnographic Kaunas museum (both preserved by various Lithuanian museums), and items acquired by the contemporary museum since its inception.

The collection includes: ritual objects, and everyday items used or produced by Lithuanian Jews; Jewish documentation - books, letters, posters, cigarette packet pieces with hand written notes, some copies of Ghetto diaries, seals of various organizations, translations, periodicals, proclamations, archival material from the former the USSR; and artwork by prewar artists B. Michtom, S. Efron, M. Katz, L. Mergashilski, E. Lurje, as well as contemporary pieces by A. Jacovskis, B. Bindler, M. Percov, H. Skliutauskaitė, M. Levitan-Babianskienė, and others.

In the preparation for the Holocaust Exhibition, the museum has collected copies from various archives in Lithuania (Lithuanian State Central Archive, Lithuanian Special Archive) and abroad (Russia, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Israel). These are available for research in the Holocaust Exhibition's copy collections (HE).