Mark Adam Harold, a member of the Vilnius city council, has sent a request and published it as an open letter to Povilas Poderskis, the director of administration for the municipality, calling for drafting and presenting to the council a measure to change the name of a controversial street in the Lithuanian capital.

Harold is calling for “Škirpos alėja,” or “Škirpa’s alley,” to be renamed “Vėliavos alėja,” or “Flag Alley.”

Kazys Škirpa, Lithuania’s military attaché to Nazi Germany, founded and led the Lithuanian Activists Front in Berlin in November, 1940. LAF cells inside Lithuania were formed and were later called upon by LAF leaders to ease the invasion of the Wehrmacht of what was then considered the western Soviet Union. LAF leaflets and missives also called for the murder of Lithuanian Jews.

On January 1, 1919, Škirpa and other Lithuanian volunteer soldiers raised the Lithuanian tricolor, the flag of the Republic of Lithuania, on top of the Tower of Gediminas on Gediminas Hill overlooking the center of Vilnius, the capital of the newly proclaimed state. Škirpa’s alley is located at the base of the same hill.