by Zigmas Vitkus

By invitation of the mayor of Ukmergė, a public discussion was held in Ukmergė (Vilkomir) on December 2 concerning the problem of historical commemoration of captain Juozas Krikštaponis, an officer of the Second Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalion. Lithuanian History Institute historian Mindaugas Pocius delivered an extremely important report there detailing his comprehensive and repeated research on this man’s activities during World War II and demonstration Krikštaponis as an officer in a unit which served the Nazis from October to December of 1941 had taken part in the mass murder of thousands of Jews and Soviet POWs in Nazi-occupied Byelorussia.

The Ukmergė administration which has long postponed addressing this problem will have to decide soon what to do with the statue located in the town center dedicated to “the commander of the Lithuanian partisan military district Vytis who died in 1945” in battle with NKVD troops, a man who, as the facts show, was also a war criminal.

Full text in Lithuanian here.