VILKAVISKIS
a small town in Southern Lithuania
Where the Jewish Community is no more
GASKEL, Sara (1904-1974)
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GASKEL, Sara (1904-1974)
Gaskel, Sara, (confessed under the name Sonia Gaskell), ballet leader (Vilkaviškis (Lithuania, Russia) 14-4-1904 - Paris (France) 9-7-1974. For the of Solomon Gaskel, grain trader, and Anna Karnovsky. Married around 1922 with Abraham Goldenson, mathematical and philosopher. Married after divorce on 11-1-1939 with Philipp Heinrich Bauchhenss (1894-1948), decorator. Both marriages remained childless. image of Gaskel, Sara Sara Gaskel grew up as on after senior of five yet-delicate in a well-to-do Jewish-Russisch-Russian family. Its father was a grain trader, who much of house were and travelled around by Russia and Siberia. In the parental house names art and culture an important place. Thus piano and followed themselves played the mother of Sara as from its eighth with much success balletles. In 1914, moved the family Gaskel from Lithuania to Charkov in the Ukraine. Sara visited there the lyceum, where she skipped a class and for this reason already on fifteen-year-old age end examination did. On school developed they a brio for letter, and was thus its dream writer at
Gaskell, Sonia (b Vilkaviskis, 14 Apr. 1904, d Paris, 9 July 1974). Lithuanian-Dutch dancer, teacher, choreographer, and ballet director. One of the most important figures in the development of Dutch ballet. She studied in Kharkov in the Ukraine but fled to Palestine in 1921 to avoid the pogroms against Jews in Russia. She arrived in Paris in 1925 where she trained with Lubov Egorova and Léo Staats. She began her career as a cabaret dancer touring Europe in the 1930s. She was founder and choreographer of Les Ballets de Paris (1936-9) and taught in Paris before going to Amsterdam in 1939 as a teacher with her Dutch husband. During the Second World War she went into hiding, although she still managed to give ballet lessons to her students. She ran several companies (Ballet Studio '45, Ballet Recital, and the Netherlands Ballet); she also founded the Netherlands Ballet Academy in The Hague. In 1961 she was named artistic director of the newly formed Dutch National Ballet, a position she held until 1968. Although she choreographed many ballets for her various companies, it was as a teacher and director that she made her greatest contribution. She gave the Netherlands a ballet company capable of performing the 19th-century classics, and worked hard to promote new choreography from within her ranks. One of those whose careers she encouraged was van Dantzig.
The Visit of the Dutch Ambassador to Lithuania to Vilkaviskis April 2009
The Dutch Ambassador [in the orange jacket] far right the Mayor of Vilkaviskis, the The Honorable Mr. Algirdas S Bagušinskas and the Director of the Vilkaviskis Museum  Mr. Antanas Zilinskas
The Dutch Ambassador and the Director of the Vilkaviskis Museum at the Regional Museum
In the background what used to be the Jewish Old Age Home
What used to the center of Jewish Vilkaviskis
The visitors in front of what used to the Bravol cigarette factory
On Thursday his visit to our homage to the edge of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Ambassador to Lithuania Annemieke Ruigrok. Guest was accompanied by the Embassy of cultural projects coordinator, translator Biruta Mumėnaitė.
Initiative has shown itself to come ...
From the homepage of  Santaka the Vilkaviskis newspaper 
http://santaka.info/
New material kindly provided by Michelle Racine, niece of Sonia Gaskell follow this link