September 23 was the anniversary
of the 1943 liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto, and as it has every
year since 1994, Lithuania observed Jewish Genocide Day, to commemorate
the victims of the Holocaust. Flags were flown at half-mast, a special
parliamentary session was convened, and there were ceremonies at
sites of mass murder, and at former ghettos and synagogues, to which
youth brought stones and spelled out the word "remember" (atmink,
in Lithuanian).
Given that Lithuania had the highest rate of Jewish Holocaust deaths
in Europe (96.4 percent of its community of 220,000), and that a
significant percentage of those victims were murdered by fellow Lithuanians
- initially in spontaneous pogroms led primarily by armed vigilantes,
and later by security police units - such events are ostensibly very
important and augur well for the future of the country's current
Jewish community of some 5,000. But a closer look at the content
of the observances and at the government's approach to Lithuania's
Holocaust past reveals a stubborn reluctance to honestly confront
the crimes committed by local Nazi collaborators, and what amounts
to an aggressive campaign to minimize Lithuanian guilt by distorting
history.
The writing was on the wall from the start. Thus, one of the first
resolutions passed by the Seimas (the Lithuanian parliament), in
1990, condemned the genocide of the Jews "in the name of the
Lithuanian people," but attributed the blame as far as the locals
were concerned to "Lithuanian citizens," a category that
included Jews as well as Russians and Poles, a clear allusion to
the participation of non-Lithuanians, and even Jews, in the crimes.
This was followed by a deliberate policy of obstructing justice to
ensure that no Lithuanian would actually be punished for Holocaust
crimes. Many of those who had been convicted of such by the Soviets
were even granted pardons and financial benefits - in direct contradiction
to Lithuanian law.
When several prominent Lithuanian Nazi war criminals who had escaped
overseas after the war were eventually deported from the U.S., they
were allowed to return to Lithuania without fear of trial or punishment
for their crimes. Even the three cases of Nazi war criminals who
were prosecuted were handled in such a way that those ultimately
convicted never spent a day in prison.
When Lithuania was admitted to NATO and the European Union, things
only became worse. Freed from their fear of failing to become part
of these bodies, the Lithuanians began an aggressive campaign to
downplay their responsibility for Holocaust atrocities, and maximize
recognition for their suffering under the Soviets. Thus the historical
commission established to investigate Holocaust crimes was entrusted
with studying Communist crimes as well, thereby creating a false
symmetry between the periods of Nazi (1941-44) and Soviet (1940-41
and 1944-91) occupation, designed to relativize Lithuanian complicity
in the horrors of the Shoah. This was followed by efforts to seek
the extradition from Israel for genocide and/or war crimes of Jewish
men who had been KGB officers either in 1941 or immediately after
World War II. At the same time, non-Jewish Lithuanian officers in
the same units were never questioned, let alone investigated or prosecuted.
Simultaneously, the Lithuanian institutions involved in the study
of genocide artificially inflated the number of locals recognized
for assisting Jews during the Shoah, while minimizing or ignoring
their countrymen who actively participated in the implementation
of the Final Solution.
In May 2006, this policy entered a new and much more dangerous phase,
with the start of a campaign to investigate and prosecute Jewish
anti-Nazi Soviet partisans. The primary target of this shocking effort
was none other than noted Holocaust historian and former Yad Vashem
chairman Dr. Yitzhak Arad, who had saved his own life by joining
a Soviet partisan unit. When the opening of an investigation against
him was initially virtually ignored outside Lithuania, additional
Jewish anti-Nazi partisans were added to the list of potential suspects.
Articles in the right-wing Lithuanian media incited against the partisans,
and in a march last winter in the heart of Vilnius, local police
passively looked on as some 200 Lithuanian neo-Nazis shouted anti-Semitic
slogans, even though such expressions are ostensibly illegal in the
country. Subsequently, the Jewish communities of Vilnius, Panevezys
and Klaipeda were vandalized.
Late last month, however, after serious international pressure against
the investigation of Dr. Arad was finally brought to bear on the
Lithuanian authorities, the Prosecutor General's Office announced
that the investigation had been closed due to lack of evidence, explaining
its initial misstep by accusing Arad of having exaggerated his own
activities as a partisan. A day earlier, at the Holocaust Day ceremony
in Ponar (Paneriai in Lithuanian), the site of the mass execution
of approximately 70,000 Lithuanian Jews by a murder squad of local
volunteers, Speaker of Parliament Ceslovas Jursenas claimed that
those who killed Jews did so for fear of their lives, a total distortion
of the Lithuanian reality during the period.
At the same time, the Lithuanian campaign to "equalize" Soviet
and Nazi crimes is moving into high gear in the European Union and
elsewhere as a proposal to grant equal recognition to Holocaust and
Communist crimes is approaching submission to the European parliament.
So while the tip of the ugly iceberg of Holocaust distortion, deflection
and obfuscation has officially been cut off, the huge bulk of lies,
misrepresentations and excuses remains intact.
Under these circumstances, we don't need the crocodile tears shed
last week in Vilnius. A serious measure of painful truth about Lithuanian
complicity would be a lot more valuable, most of all for the Lithuanians
themselves.
haaretz.com
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