A Photo Exhibition of Lithuanian Judaica

Jewish Synagogues of Lithuania
from the Photo Archives of Ethnographer Balys Buracas

The noted Lithuanian Photo Journalist and Ethnographer, Balys Buracas (1897-1972) received a Gold Medal at the 1937 International Exposition of Art and Technology in Paris. His work was also exhibited at the 1939 World Exposition in New York, and his photos of Lithuanian sacral arts and cultural traditions appeared in L'Encyclopédie Larousse and the Illustrated London News. 

These photographs were taken between 1922 and 1926. Some of the synagogues were old and disappeared in the 1920s and 1930s. Most if not all of the rest of these synagogues were destroyed during World War II. One of the synagoges were built as early as 1790 (Yurburg).

These photos show a number of no longer existing Lithuanian Jewish Synagogues and their interior and come from Balys Buracas's unique and very singular 36,000 photograph and document archive collection and appear here thanks to the generous cooperation of his nephew, Professor Antanas Buracas who can be reached at: anbura@lrs.lt

For additional information on Balys Buracas and his work go to these URLS:

http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/HTML/OnlineJournals/BalysBuracas.htm
http://www.eat-online.net/art/english/photography/balys_buracas.htm
There exists a book of Photographs of Synagogues of Balys Buracas, but links have disappeared for it.

Permission has been granted by Professor Buracas for these images to be used within the JewishGen web pages, so long as attribution is made: "Photographs by Balys Buracas - requests for higher resolution images should be made to Professor Antanas Buracas: anbura@lrs.lt "