Needle in a Haystack: Professor Strous’ Century Old Family Quest Ends in Vilnius Cemetery Discovery
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA – In a moment thatblended modern technology with ancient memory, South African professor Rael Strous, standingin an overgrown Lithuanian cemetery this week solved a family mystery nearly acentury in the making, culminating in the emotional discovery of his ancestor’slong lost gravestone.
The story begins with afaded black and white photograph from 1927. It shows a man, a great uncle,standing solemnly beside an ornate gravestone in the Jewish cemetery ofVilnius, then known as Vilna. The person buried beneath it had passed away in1924. For Professor Strous, this photo was the key clue in a quest to connectwith his roots.
His great-grandmotherwas from Vilnius, and her family name, Strashun (later Strauss), was not anordinary one. The Strashuns were one of the city’s most illustrious Jewishfamilies, scholars and benefactors known for founding the famed StrashunLibrary, a cornerstone of Jewish intellectual life in Eastern Europe before theHolocaust.
“We came to Vilnius withabove all hopes that we could find something,” Rabbi Baron of Jewish Heritagein Lita is heard saying in a video documenting the search. “But we knew it wasalmost like finding a needle in a haystack.”
The cemetery itself tolda story of loss. Ravaged by the tumultuous 20th century, many stones werebroken, displaced, or swallowed by nature. The precise location of the Strashunplot was lost to time.
The breakthrough camewith the help of local expert Žilvinas Rinkšelis of the Kovno regionalmunicipality. Analyzing the 1927 photo, Rinkšelis identified subtle backgroundclues—most notably, the distance to a forest line that has since vanished—totriangulate the probable search area.
Guided by thishistorical detective work, the team ventured into the cemetery. And then, amiracle. “Lo and behold, we found the Matzevah (gravestone),” Rabbi Baron exclaims.
The stone was damaged,its top half broken off, but it was unmistakably the one from the photograph.It was revealed that the stone had been recently rediscovered and righted bythe Dutch foundation of penance and reconciliation that have been working handin hand with Jewish Heritage in Lita, and then placed it in the general area,potentially a row or two from its original plot.
But the evidence wasundeniable: the 1924 date matched, and the style and material of the stone wereconsistent with others in the immediate section.
For Professor Strous,the discovery was more than academic; it was a tangible, physical link to aworld that was nearly erased. The video captures a moment of pure triumph, arare victory against time and oblivion.
“This is amazing,” RabbiBaron states. “We just made history.”
The article concludes by noting that the discovery in Vilnius has fueled hope for the team’s future genealogical expeditions, proving that even the most elusive threads of the past can sometimes be pulled back into the present.
