Memorial book: the Ritavas community : a tribute to the memory of our town (Rietavas, Lithuania)
ENThis is a memorial (Yizkor) book, published in honour of a small town, a shtetl in Lithuania. The town is called Rietavas (or Ritavas) in Lithuanian, Ritova in Hebrew and Riteve in Yiddish. Let us call it Riteve, since most of its inhabitants were Yiddish-speaking Jews. The first memorial book dedicated to Riteve appeared in Israel in 1975, written with some sections in Yiddish and Hebrew and a few in English. Every page vibrates with the love and nostalgia shared by all those who once lived there and with their desire to make the book a monument to their town. In this respect it is no different in any way from dozens of other Yizkor books, written by the townsfolk. In these books, repetitions, irrelevant materiell, rather ornate style and a somewhat exaggerated rosy picture of the place and the people who inhabited it are often the general rule. Inasmuch as this occurred in the Riteve material, out of respect to the work done before we began ours, careful editing was employed in order to preserve the original tone and spirit in which it was written. The life stories of some of the personalities who were connected with Riteve only briefly or indirectly were included, however, as long as they demonstrated the strength and values acquired through life in this little town. [...].
