Lithuania’s Orwellian-named Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, more commonly abbreviated to Genocide Center, lived up to their reputation of ignoring the Holocaust by reportedly issuing a special computer-graphic propaganda poster on facebook May 8, presented below with a translation into English.
Translation:
The Work of the Red Liberators
[photos of corpses, coffins and a Soviet train]
The End of World War II in Europe on May 8
The Red Liberators Liberated Europe and the Baltic States, and This is What Their Liberation Brought Lithuania:
20,000 murdered partisans
110,000 deported Lithuanians
The self-immolation of Romas Kalanta
500 arrested during the Kaunas Spring
14 Lithuanians murdered on January 13
7 officials murdered at the Medininkai border post
World War II ended in Europe on May 8.
After Germany surrendered unconditionally
the Soviets marched into Berlin on May 9
and proclaimed to the entire world “Victory Day” which for many
countries including Lithuania brought only fear,
pain and death.
For those not engaged in right-wing Lithuanian Nazi apologetics, Romas Kalanta, born in 1953, set himself on fire and died in 1972. Kaunas Spring is the name recently invented to describe the protests in Kaunas in 1972 which inspired Kalanta to kill himself. The “14 Lithuanians murdered on January 13” refer to the victims killed at the Vilnius television tower on January 13, 1991, by rogue pro-Soviet anti-independence forces. The “7 officials murdered at the Medininkai border post” were volunteers manning newly-created “Lithuanian border posts” set up unilaterally by the internationally unrecognized independent Republic of Lithuania inside the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991. The Soviets didn’t march into Berlin on May 9, 1945, they had been inside the city fighting for months by then. May 9 was declared Victory Day in the Soviet Union because Germany’s total capitulation was confirmed in Moscow on May 9, while VE or Victory in Europe Day is celebrated in the West on May 8, because that was the date formal surrender papers were signed by Germany.
Despite the factual errors and hyperbole in what is reportedly a poster issued by the Lithuanian state agency charged with commemorating the alleged genocide of Lithuanians under the Soviets but not with commemorating Jewish victims of genocide in Lithuania, the message itself–that nobody wanted to be liberated by the Soviets–is insulting to Holocaust victims and survivors and their families, and to all the many soldiers on the Allied side who fought, were imprisoned, wounded and killed in the cause of defeating the scourge of the Nazis and ending the war in Europe and the world which Nazi Germany started.
The Jews of Lithuania who experienced the ghettos and concentration camps do not agree with the position expressed by the so-called Genocide Center. For Jews the end of the war meant the end of the Holocaust, and survival, even if only a small percentage of the former Jewish community survived. It was the end of the Nazi horror executed by the Allies. We will not forget the many communities and nations whose people fought against the Nazis and for our country, to protect our lives and freedom.
Not all Lithuanian state agencies are involved in this dark rewriting of history. On May 8 the Lithuanian Jewish Community held a ceremony at the Sudervės road Jewish cemetery in Vilnius to honor the dead and the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense participated in the wreath-laying ceremony, as they did at the Ponar Memorial Complex, and at the Antaklanis and Vingis military cemeteries in Vilnius, according to a press release from the ministry. These commemorative and wreath-laying ceremonies were attended by Lithuanian leaders and members of the diplomatic community resident in Vilnius. The ceremonies were performed by Lithuania’s honor guard.
Note: Arūnas Bubnys, recently appointed general director of the Genocide Center by secret parliamentary vote, claims this poster was posted on the Genocide Center’s facebook profile without his knowledge. He claims he personally removed it within one hour of its posting. Thanks to Sergey Kanovich for alerting us to this information and relaying Bubnys’s denials regarding this post.