A Special Summer Visit: Remembering the Musikanth Family

While the museum was still a work in progress this summer – busy halls, unfinished displays, and our team deep in preparation – something quietly meaningful took place.

Jaz Zacks (Mother: Shirley Musikanth-Zacks), a descendant of the Jewish Musikanth family that lived in Šeduva since the mid-18th century, came to Lithuania in search of their roots. With the kind guidance of our colleague Gintautas, Jaz visited the old Jewish cemetery and placed stones on the gravestones of their great-great-great-grandfather Tuvyah Musikanth and great-great-great-uncle Shlomo Musikanth. These gravestones do not stand on their original graves. Stolen many years ago, they were recovered from a nearby farm and returned to the cemetery only recently — quiet remnants of a disrupted past, now carefully brought back to their rightful place.

During the visit, a moving discovery was made: the name Yaakov – Tuvyah’s father’s Hebrew name – was inscribed on one of the stones. This is also Jaz’s own Hebrew name, creating an unexpected and emotional link across generations.

The Musikanth family story is also featured in the museum's Emigration section. Tuvyah, a tailor, and his wife Chana had ten children. After Tuvyah and their eldest son Shlomo passed away, Chana sent her surviving children, one by one, to South Africa, hoping to give them a better future. She herself remained in Šeduva with her only daughter, Yentl, and her family.

Tuvye and Khana Muzikant and their children in Šeduva, 1910s. Collection of Alain Musikanth. Note: Original Yiddish spelling of the names preserved.

Since the exact place where Chana and her daughter’s family were murdered in the summer of 1941 is unknown, Jaz and Gintautas visited all three Holocaust memorial sites in the Liaudiškiai and Pakuteniai forests near Šeduva. Jaz placed stones bearing their names at each site – a Jewish tradition honoring the memory of the deceased.

The visit concluded with a stop at two houses on Panevezys Street, where the Musikanth family once lived. There, another unexpected discovery – one of the homes was later inhabited by Gintautas’ relatives.

Neither Jaz nor Gintautas knew this beforehand. But standing outside the same house, they uncovered a shared connection to that place. As Jaz’s mother, Shirley Musikanth-Zacks, later wrote: “It felt like beshert – a meeting meant to be.”

We are thankful to Jaz and Shirley for allowing us to share this story and the photographs.