Group memories surrounding the city of Vilnius are contested because Lithuania only regained its independence in 1991 and Vilnius was even a violently contested city in the interwar period. Most importantly, the people of Vilnius today are not those who made up the bulk of Vilnius' population on the eve of World War II: when one considers that the bulk of the Jewish population was murdered, and the Poles became the "children of Yalta" who took part in a large exodus out of the territory in 1944-1947. It is difficult to be sure of the pre-war population of Vilnius, but it is certain that the bulk of the city was not made up of Lithuanians, but of Poles and Jews. Given these historical circumstances, the challenge involved in considering commemoration in Vilnius is great. The focus of this essay is an analysis of how the democratically elected Lithuanian government has commemorated both its recent and its more distant past by using official government publications, websites, and European Union commemoration documents.