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"Holocaust haunts Lithuanians as painful past comes to light"

 

Lithuanians are taking an agonising closer look at their forefathers' role in killing Jewish neighbours during the Holocaust, a dark chapter of the Baltic country's history that was hidden for decades. A series of books and films has triggered national soul-searching by making the point that while Lithuanians were the victims of Nazi and Soviet occupation of the country, at times they too were perpetrators of crimes and their victims were Jews. Bestselling author Ruta Vanagaite, who co-wrote "Our People" (Musiskiai) with top Israeli Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, is the latest to spark difficult discussions. Writing the book turned out to be deeply personal and painful when she discovered her grandfather had collaborated with Nazis by working for a commission compiling lists of Jews in 1941.  "I want to break the silence, to open up the wound," Vanagaite told an audience recently at a bookshop in Vilnius, a city once dubbed the "Jerusalem of the North" for its vibrant Jewish life before the war. "A mature nation must know its history so it is not repeated." the 61-year-old author said.  Two black-and-white photographs adorn the cover of her book: Jewish cyclist Isakas Nolikas who represented Lithuania in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics and perished in 1943, and Balys Norvaisa, a Lithuanian lieutenant who killed Jews.  Among the emotionally wrenching testimony in the book, an elderly woman told Vanagaite: "Many people wanted to help Jewish children, but they were afraid. Not of the Germans, but of their own."  Lithuania was home to a community of more than 200,000 Jews before World War II. But historians contend that around 195,000 perished at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators under the 1941-44 German occupation, nearly the entire Jewish population. Today there are around 3,000 Jews living in the EU and NATO member state of three million people. A state-funded research centre has identified 2,000 Lithuanians suspected of taking part in the Holocaust, either by killing Jews, sending them to execution or by confiscating their wealth. The study is due to be released later this year. At the same time nearly 900 Lithuanians hold the honorary title of "Righteous Among The Nations", awarded by Israel to gentiles who risked their lives to save Jewish neighbours. But Zuroff, who has slammed Vilnius for being slow to prosecute suspected collaborators, insists that Vanagaite's own soul-searching is valuable.  There is "a good chance that it will help Lithuanian society because it is written not in an academic way but in a journalistic way" that is more accessible to readers, Zuroff, who works at Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center's Jerusalem office, told AFP.  Respected Lithuanian author Sigitas Parulskis was among the first to hit a raw nerve when he focused on the genocide in rural Lithuania with his novel "Darkness and Partners" (Tamsa ir Partneriai), earning him a local human rights award in 2012. Film and theatre directors have also focused on the Holocaust, notably the movie "Ghetto" by Andrius Juzenas. The Holocaust was either distorted or ignored in Lithuania under five decades of Soviet rule. An honest examination only began after it became the first republic to split from the USSR in 1990. The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940 under Moscow's secret pact with Nazi Germany, and later the Soviets deported over 17,000 Lithuanians to Siberia.   Anti-Semitic propaganda blaming the Jews for Soviet terror became rife.   Germany then drove out the Red Army when it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Some Lithuanians hailed the Germans as liberators, hoping they would grant Lithuania a measure of sovereignty.  The Soviets returned in 1944, going on to deport and exile more than 275,000 Lithuanians, mostly to Siberia. Another 21,000 died in an anti-Soviet insurgency.  President Algirdas Brazauskas apologised for Lithuanian collaborators with the Nazis during his historic 1995 speech in Israel's parliament. Lithuania's parliament passed a compensation package in 2011 for Jewish communal property seized by the Nazis and then kept by the Soviet regime. It marked a milestone for the Baltic state's tiny Jewish community, but its leader says a great deal of work is still needed. "There has been a tremendous amount of academic research about the Holocaust, but I think we lag behind in education," Jewish community leader Faina Kukliansky told AFP. "The history of Lithuanian Jews must become an integral part of Lithuania's system of education.".

 

 

^ Every  country occupied by the Germans during World War 2 had its collaborators. That is a fact. It is now up to each of those countries whether they recognize that fact or not. Many have hidden the truth for decades and are only just now starting to talk about it. Every country in the world has its dark side and the sign of a truly great country is how they deal (openly) with that dark period. Those that hide their heads in the sand and act as though nothing bad ever happened are only hurting their own people and bringing themselves backwards in time rather than forwards. The Lithuanians suffered under the Czarist Russian Empire as well as under Soviet Rule. That is a fact. What is also a fact is that many Lithuanians (along with Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians, etc.)  welcomed the Germans with open arms in 1941 and worked with them to destroy the Jews -both in Lithuania itself as well as around occupied-Europe (most notably in Warsaw and at many of the concentration and death camps in Poland and the rest of eastern Europe.) People may ask why any country should care about what happened in its past over 70 years ago. 70 years is only a part of the whole history of a country, but collaborating in the most horrendous crime the world has ever seen  - the Holocaust - can not simply be brushed aside in the same way that the crimes of the Soviet occupiers of Lithuania can be. ^

http://news.yahoo.com/holocaust-haunts-lithuanians-painful-past-comes-light-042543315.html