Ichchok Mayor Square

Sculptor Kazys Bimba created a stone sculpture to honour the memory of the writer Icchokas Meras, who was born in Kelmė. The sculptor chose I. Meras’s book “Stalemate” inviting us to remember the tragic fate of the large Kelmė Jewish community. The chess board depicted in the sculpture seems to retell the plot of a brilliant novel – the game that became devilish in the Vilnius ghetto and created unbearable tension: if the commandant wins, the children of the ghetto will die, but Isaac will remain alive; if the young man wins, he himself will die, but the children will be saved. The only, almost impossible solution is a draw. The monument was built in Icchokas Meras Square in Kelmė in the year 2010.