Recently
there has been an increasing number of internet articles
by amateur, non-professional authors without training in
history expressing approval for the actions of the 1941 Provisional
Government of Lithuania toward the Jews of Lithuania, without
regard for the antisemitic actions of that government in
the context of the mass murder of the Jews of Lithuania already
underway at that time.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community earlier provided an assessment of the Lithuanian
Activist Front and the Provisional Government.
It is saddening that the authors of
these texts choose to ignore the conclusions of professional
historians as well as the findings of the special commission
established by decree of former president Valdas Adamkus
and operating under the Lithuanian government, which clearly
and categorically judges the actions of the LAF and PG thus:
“… The antisemitic attitudes of the
Provisional Government and Lithuanian Activist Front are
well documented. The fullest antisemitic statement by the
Provisional Government is the legislation ‘On the Status
of Jews’ of August 1, 1941. Although the cabinet approved
measures for the isolation of Jews and the confiscation of
Jewish property, they avoided approving of organized massacres.
The Provisional Government, claiming to speak in the name
of the nation and repeatedly maintaining they had moral authority,
did not distance themselves publicly from the mass murder
of Lithuanian citizens.”
These amateur, biased authors distorting
the facts keep popping up, peddling their unprofessional
pseudo-historical articles which not only fabricate historical
facts but speculate on historical memory. One can only interject
that the Provisional Government didn’t just fail to distance
themselves from the mass murder of Jews underway, but didn’t
even consider opposing it in any way or even making a symbolic
protest. It is sufficient to recall that when the composition
of the government was announced to the nation over the Kaunas
Radiofonas radio station, already under the control of the
Provisional Government, the following LAF appeal was broadcast
immediately after:
“Lithuanian brothers and sisters!
The final hour of reckoning with the
Jews has arrived. Lithuania must be liberated not only from
the enslavement of the Asiatic Bolsheviks, but also from
the prolonged yoke of Jewry. In the name of the entire Lithuanian
nation, the Lithuanian Activist Front most ceremoniously
declares:
1. The ancient right of sanctuary
extended to the Jews by Vytautas the Great is cancelled completely
and finally.
2. Every Jew of Lithuania without
exception is officially warned to quit the land of Lithuania
immediately and without any delay.
3. All those Jews who exceptionally
distinguished themselves through betrayal of the Lithuanian
state and by acts of persecution, torture or harassment of
ethnic Lithuanians will be brought to justice individually
and have earned the appropriate punishment. If it turns out
that during the destiny-filled hour of reckoning and of the
rebirth of Lithuania especially felonious Jews discover opportunities
to secretly escape, it will be the duty of all upstanding
Lithuanians to take their own measures in order to apprehend
such Jews and, in important cases, to mete out punishment.
The new state of Lithuania will be
restored through the efforts of the Lithuanian nation itself,
by their labor, through their heart and by their wisdom.
Jews are eliminated from it [the nation]
completely and forever. If, nonetheless, one of them dares
hope to find for himself some sort of shelter in the new
Lithuania, then let him know today this irrevocable decision
on the Jews: in the newly reestablished Lithuania no Jew
will have any civil rights nor prospects for earning a living.
In this way the mistakes of the past and the treachery of
the Jews will be corrected.
In this way strong foundations for
the happy future and creative work of our Aryan nation will
be laid. Therefore, let’s all prepare for the battle and
the victory—for the freedom of the Lithuanian people, for
the cleansing of the Lithuanian people, for the independent
state of Lithuania and for a transparent and happy future.”
The Lithuanian Activist Front
◊
Despite the work over many years of
historians and of commissions they have formed, despite abundant
materials accessible by all and published and conserved by
the Center for the Study of the Genocide of Lithuanian Residents,
the public is now being offered pictures of murderers of
Jews suspected of being connected to the Soviet NKVD, even
though the material collected by the above mentioned center
clearly shows that hundreds of volunteers, police and other
structures subordinate to the Provisional Government murdered
the Jewish people and plundered their property. The authors
of such pseudo-historical articles insult the memory of their
murdered fellow Lithuanian citizens, whom the Provisional
Government didn’t lift a finger to protect, as well as the
memory of those noble Lithuanians who rescued Jews.
The Lithuanian Jewish Community condemns
any and all attempts to distort historical truth and asks
mass media outlets to demonstrate a greater moral responsibility
to society and to pay closer attention to submissions received
of these sorts of articles, allegedly about history, but
whose goal is to portray black as white, to insult and to
divide.
We hope that the memory of Lithuania’s
murdered Jews and Lithuanian rescuers is dear not just to
us, the Lithuanian Jewish Community, and hope their memory
is important as well to the editors and authors in the Lithuanian
media who write about the topic. defendinghistory.com
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