by Rimvydas Valatka, political analyst, LRT.lt

The May 20 meeting of the Lithuanian parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has reached a new low in this session of parliament. While voting on the Government’s annual report one member voted “for” with the Nazi Hitler salute.

The video recording in which this man who respects the Nazis and insures the defense and security of our state doesn’t let us identify him at first glance.

The Hitler proponent filmed in the National Security and Defense Committee of Lithuanian Parliament appears with his back to the camera and is wearing a sanitary mask. Even so, the member of parliament held his arm in the Nazi salute for a significant amount of time. As if to show specially and so everyone would see how loyal he is to Government leader Skvernelis. At least he didn’t yell “Heil mein Fuehrer” or “Heil Skvernelis!”

Considering everything, he seems to be a member of the ruling majority. In that case, the more important fact is that neither National Security and Defense Committee chairman Gaižauskas nor members of the opposition reacted to the “seig heil” salute during the meeting of the parliamentary committee. As if this is the proper way for a member of National Security and Defense Committee to vote.

A single MP responded to the Nazi salute during the vote on the Government’s annual report. But not in the manner becoming a parliamentarian in a democratic European country. He didn’t condemn the Nazi salute but merely whispered a warning to the Hitler supporter that the committee meeting was being filmed.

The recording clearly shows him whispering for the Hitler proponent to be cautious, God forbid reporters find out.

“What are you doing, cameras, there are cameras here! Everything is being filmed, fellow thinker,” he whispers at the other side of the table where the Nazi supporter is sitting.

This Nazi salute at the Lithuanian parliament isn’t the first such incident.

A year and a half ago Peasants Party MP Kirkutis praised prime minister Skvernelis from the podium by comparing him to fascist leader Benito Mussolini Polish Electoral Action activist Z. Jedinski regularly sports the band of St. George associated with Russian fascists. Peasants Party MP Kepenis derided Lithuanian partisans from the podium.

A few days ago during a commemoration of the International Day of Fighting Totalitarianism a plaque commemorating Polish military rotmister Witold Pilecki was unveiled in the Užupis neighborhood of Vilnius. He was the hero who voluntarily went to the Auschwitz concentration camp to tell the world of the mass murder of the Holocaust. It is chillingly symbolic Pilecki, who survived Auschwitz, was murdered by the Soviets after the war. It is just as symbolic that only a small handful of representatives of the opposition in the Lithuanian parliament and MEPs attended the ceremony to commemorate the man born in Vilnius who fought the two most brutal totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.

Neither National Security and Defense Committee Gaižauskas nor the MP who gave the Nazi sieg heil salute in voting for the annual report of the Skvernelis Government came to honor courageous citizen of Vilnius Pilecki. It seems the Lithuanian parliament has introduced a much stricter quarantine on morality than on the corona virus.

Commentary delivered over Lithuanian Public Radio