Memory diplomas granted: Šapira Nachmanas
Nachmanas Šapira. Iliustracija iš I. Lemperto knygos "Litvakai"
Associated Professor Doctor Nachmanas Šapira (1894–1943) was the oldest son of the chief rabbi of interwar Kaunas.He studied Semitology at Vienna University, where he received his doctoral degree. Shortly after completion of his doctoral studies he started to work at the University of Lithuania, later renamed as Vytautas Magnus University, where he became the head of the Department of Semitology. He was a famous expert on Hebrew language and Hebrew literature, and an author of several monographs. The planned twelve-volume study The History of the New Hebrew Literature was intended to become his most complete work. The first volume was published simultaneously in Vilnius and Tel Aviv, and was reprinted in Israel in 1967. After the Department of Semitology at the Faculty of Humanities of Vilnius University was closed by the Soviet authorities in autumn 1940, he was fired from Vilnius University. The professor and his family were killed in the Ninth Fort in Kaunas.
