VILNIUS (Vladimir Beskudnikov for RIA Novosti) - Where the Nazi henchmen of
World War II are concerned, most Lithuanians hurry to set themselves apart
from their Baltic neighbors, Latvians and Estonians. They keep saying: "There
was no SS division recruited in Lithuania," but their actions prove the contrary.
Although there was no Lithuanian SS division, there were auxiliary police units,
battalions, whose ill fame spread far beyond Lithuania's
borders. Lithuanian police slaughtered both the Jewish population
of Lithuania, which was being confined and killed in ghettos,
and Red Army servicemen taken prisoner. Twelve Lithuanian
police battalions, totaling 485 men, led by Maj. Antanas
Impulyavichius, left a trail of blood in Belarus as well,
having burned down several dozen villages.
Over 200 villagers from Khatyn, which
became a symbol of tragedy of the Belarusian people, were
burnt alive on Impulyavichius' order. The Genocide and Resistance
Research Center of Lithuania has officially acknowledged
that this unit is responsible for the murder of over 20,000
Belarusian civilians, who were in no way connected with combat
actions.
After gaining independence in 1991,
Lithuanian authorities tried to partly admit liability for
atrocities committed by their fellow countrymen. Algirdas
Brazauskas, former First Secretary of Lithuania's Communist
Party and then President of the independent Republic of Lithuania,
during his visit to Israel in 1995, offered apologies on
behalf of the Lithuanian people. Lithuania's ambassador to
Belarus was always present at the events commemorating the
burnt Belarusian villages.
In recent few years, however, the
political environment in Lithuania has seen a major shift.
Although Ceslovas Jursenas, Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament,
delivered a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day on September
23 in Panerai outside Vilnius, the authorities' attitude
towards Jews is gradually changing from repentance to threats
and insults.
It is no secret that Lithuania's current
President Valdas Adamkus collaborated with the Nazis during
WWII, enlisting in one of the "auxiliary units." It is not by accident that in 1944 he emigrated to Germany, and after a while
to the United States.
After the Nazis launched an attack
on the U.S.S.R. in June 1941, right after the Red Army withdrew
from Lithuania, Lithuanian voluntary militia units started
the extermination of the Jewish population. In Kaunas alone,
over 9,000 Jews were tortured to death in just one day. By
the end of 1941, thanks to "high efficiency" of Lithuanian volunteer units around 80% of the country's 200,000 Jews were
killed, accused of being "Bolshevik henchmen."
Today, there are 2,800 Jews left in
Lithuania. Still, the country's government is unable to ensure
their security. In recent years, many friends turned into
enemies. Since last September, Lithuania's Prosecutor's Office
has been demanding extradition of a former member of Lithuanian
NKVD (former Commissariat for Internal Affairs), Yitzhak
Arad, from Israel, to sue him for killing Nazi collaborationists,
who are now proudly called "partisans." The government is making every effort to put together the crimes committed by
the Soviets and the Nazis, and have eventually made "Soviet" a synonym for "Nazi."
In 2000, Lithuanian President Valdas
Adamkus signed a decree to establish a commission for the
investigation of Nazi and Soviet crimes. In 2005, he refused
to attend the 60th anniversary of Victory Day in Moscow to
pay tribute to the memory of the fallen in the fight against
Nazism.
Several months ago a law forbidding
the use of Nazi and Soviet symbols was passed in Lithuania.
The authorities' attitude towards World War II veterans also
seems inexplicable. Everyone who took part in the war was
put together in a single category, no matter on which side
they fought, and therefore a former Nazi could easily go
marching through Lithuanian streets. Marches of Nazi "veterans," however, haven't become a regular event in Lithuania yet, unlike in Latvia and
Estonia.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center's investigation
in Lithuania to identify absconding former Nazi collaborationists,
was confronted with the opposition of the country's official
authorities. The center's director Efraim Zuroff, who has
collected data on over 360 suspects, says Lithuanian politicians
refuse to prosecute the Nazi criminals, claiming that many
Lithuanians were victims of war crimes, and not criminals.
Although they (the Baltic states)
talk a lot of their suffering during the Soviet era, they
do nothing to punish the murderers who collaborated with
the Nazis. The government is reluctant to reveal the true
number of the country's citizens who were involved in atrocities,
Efraim Zuroff said.
Currently, Lithuania is included in
the organization's black list as a country taking no substantial
action to identify Nazi collaborationists, despite the existing
legal base for that. Along with Lithuania, this group also
includes Croatia, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine.
rian.ru
|