On Political Responsibility in Judging Collaboration with Occupational Regimes

The Lithuanian Jewish Community expresses concern certain Lithuanian political forces and political figures, not possessing any legal or historical foundation to do so, are publicly and actively defending people, people whose tragic fates do not exonerate them from actions which are documented and have been assessed by authoritative and competent commissions constituted of historians including the International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Soviet and Nazis Occupational Regimes in Lithuania, formed by presidential decree in 1998.

We call upon the political elite of the country to abstain from defending those whose reputations have been tarnished by their collaboration with the Nazis as well as the Soviets. We would remind them that this sort of public defense legally transgresses the internationally accepted definition of the crime of genocide adopted by the United Nations as well as the international definition of anti-Semitism which Lithuania has adopted. We would like to point out that these kinds of irresponsible statements in fact border upon Holocaust denial and should cease immediately. We hope for more understanding and support from the highest leaders of state in solving these and similar problems at the national level.