Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues

More than 100,000 people have visited Lithuania’s Lost Shtetl Museum in its first year, a remarkable milestone for a museum located in the small town of Šeduva. Opened in September 2025, the museum brings back to life the world of Lithuania’s shtetls, the towns where Jewish communities lived for centuries and played an integral role in the country’s cultural, economic and social life. Šeduva’s own story lies at the heart of the museum. In August 1941, 664 Jewish men, women and children from the town were murdered in nearby forests, effectively destroying a centuries-old community. Rather than focusing only on how that community died, the museum seeks to show how it lived, through photographs, personal testimonies, family stories, objects and multimedia installations. Its surrounding memorial park traces the landscape of the community’s final journey to the killing sites. The museum itself has become part of the story. Designed by Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamäki, its buildings resemble a cluster of traditional houses, creating an abstract reconstruction of a lost shtetl. The exhibition was designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the firm behind the permanent exhibition of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Visitors have travelled from Israel, the United States, South Africa and across Europe, demonstrating the enduring international connection to Lithuania’s once-vibrant Jewish world. Admission remains free for the museum’s second year, ensuring that this history — and the individual lives behind it — remains accessible to everyone.