Blog
The fire of 26 Mat 1894 laid waste to the city centre and the street which was then called Policijos (currently P. Butlerienės st.). It created a new empty space which during the reconstruction was used to build a new synagogue. In 1899, city’s architect Valerijus Rybarskis designed a house of prayer and, most likely after one year, it became a new elegant landmark of Marijampolė. The synagogue was actively used until the Second World War. After the war the Soviet government established a warehouse and vegetable shop here. Both the interior and the exterior of the building were damaged. In 1985, the synagogue was reconstructed and given to Marijampolė’s House of Engineers and a library of technical literature. After a decade, the building was started to be used by an educational centre of the Marijampolė district, later replaced by an educational centre of a well-known teacher, educologist and creator of the national school Meilė Lukšienė. In 2014, an art gallery of Beatričė Kleizaitė-Vasaris found home in the synagogue. It exhibits the painting, graphical and sculptural works created by well-known Lithuanian expatriates.