Family reunion in Lithuania leads to powerful exhibition at JW3

Instead, Professor Dr Inga Dailidienė greeted them with words that captured the emotion of the moment: “I've been waiting for you. What took you so long?”

Looking at photos of Villa Sophie with Inga (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

The unexpected reunion is among the stories told in the exhibition, which Dani assembled with her second cousin’s daughter, Leila Kuper, 20.

For Dani, who belongs to South Hampstead Synagogue, the project grew from a long-held wish to share her family's history with a wider audience.

Jawschitz family outside Villa Sophie (Courtesy: Gabriel Javsicas' album)[Missing Credit]

Explaining how it came to fruition, she said she had shown Leila, who is from Paris, an album of old photos of the family in Lithuania.

“I told [Leila] that I had always wanted to exhibit them together with stories of other Litvaks, but I didn't have the capacity. Weeks later, she texted me and said she would love to do this as a project.... and so it was....”

The holiday home at the centre of Dani’s family story, Villa Sophie, was built by Feivel, a successful Jewish timber merchant and banker, for his wife Sophie and their children.

Situated in Sandkrug, now Smiltynė, on Lithuania's Curonian Spit, it stood alongside a neighbouring summer house belonging to Feivel's brother Yankel and his wife Broche.

Between them, the families had 13 children, who spent their summers enjoying the beaches, dunes and freedom of the Baltic coastline.

In her memoir,  A Childhood under Hitler, published in 2020, family member Gaby Kopelman recalled the children's idyllic holidays.

“To the children of the family, Sandkrug meant Paradise. Every year, a whole republic of little cousins – some of whom didn’t see each other from one year to the next, and didn’t even have a language in common – would spill out from the Sandkrug ferry…”

The Jawschitz family in Neringa (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

The carefree summers ended in March 1939, when Nazi Germany annexed the Memel region. Jewish families fled, abandoning homes and possessions. While many Jawschitz relatives escaped abroad, including through France to Cuba, others sought refuge in Kaunas. Some were tragically murdered during the Holocaust.

The family's return in 2026 offered a rare opportunity to reconnect with the place that had occupied such a significant role in their family history, said Dani, adding that the current owner hoped to restore Villa Sophie to its original appearance and revive its historic name.

Villa Sophie (Photo: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

The exhibition looks beyond the tragedy that befell Lithuania's Jews to celebrate the richness of the society that existed before its destruction.

For centuries, Lithuania was a major centre of Jewish religious scholarship, education, political thought and Yiddish culture. 

Between 1881 and 1914, millions of Jews left the Russian Empire's Pale of Settlement, with many Lithuanian Jews establishing new lives in Britain, South Africa, the United States and elsewhere.

Through photographs, letters and memoirs, Litvak Life explores everyday experiences, migration and the preservation of identity across generations and gives visitors a chance to encounter the individuals behind the historical record.

Cousins on dunes in Sandkrug in 2026[Missing Credit]

For Dani and her fellow contributors, these family collections are more than treasured keepsakes. She says they are a means of recovering lives, relationships and traditions that might otherwise be forgotten.

‘Litvak Life: Stories of Jewish Lithuania’ runs until November 11 2026 at JW3. Admission to the exhibition is free, with no booking required.

On November 4, authors Philippe Sands and Deborah Posel will discuss family history and the wider forces that shaped Jewish lives in Eastern Europe.

Further information is available at jewishlifeinlithuania.uk or by clicking here