In an article dated February 28, the Jerusalem Post reported on plans to rename a street in Molėtai, Lithuania after a man suspected of complicity in the mass murder of 1,200 Jews from the town during the Holocaust.

The man in question is the late priest Jonas Žvinys, long dead but honored with a state medal by Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus in 1999.

The Jerusalem Post article quotes Lithuanian author and activist Rūta Vanagaitė complaining no one is will to take responsibility in investigating the supposed hero’s past. Vanagaite also said that after searching through KGB archives she discovered the priest in fact had set up the unit responsible for the mass murder operation in Molėtai, and that one of the unit’s commanders was his brother who later confessed to his role in the massacre.

Dr. Efraim Zuroff, Holocaust researcher, author and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Jerusalem Post the Žvinys case reflects a “much wider problem.”

“The failure to properly investigate the activities during the Holocaust of numerous postwar heroes of the anti-Soviet resistance in Lithuania has enabled the glorification of individuals who played a direct role in the mass murder of Lithuanian Jewry, and whose crimes during the Shoah should have automatically disqualified them from receiving state honors,” he said.

“This very problematic situation calls for a review of those cases of persons who are alleged to have participated in the murder of Jews and if these accusations are confirmed, to cancel whatever official state recognition and honors they received. Such an investigation, if properly conducted, would be a critical step in helping Lithuania finally honestly face its Holocaust past,” Dr. Zuroff continued.

Full story here.