Although Lithuania’s De-Sovietization Commission sent a recommendation to the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania [hereinafter Genocide Center] for the removal of a statue commemorating [Nazi collaborator and Holocaust criminal] partizan Juozas Krikštaponis located in Ukmergė [Vilkomir], it appears a decision on the matter has been postponed. Genocide Center says since Krikštaponis’s status as a volunteer soldier hasn’t been annulled, it would be wrong to remove the monument stone honoring him. The Genocide Center says its leadership has asked the Lithuanian prosecutor general to remove his status as a volunteer soldier.
De-Sovietization Commission chairman Vitas Karčiauskas as well as people filing complaints about the statue are all unhappy with this decision by the Genocide Center and believe this is an attempt to postpone addressing the controversy. They say Krikštaponis’s role in Holocaust crimes is obvious and that the stone commemorating him needs to be removed.
Genocide Center deputy general director Vytas Lukšys reported the Genocide Center had signed a request to the Lithuanian Office of Prosecutor General Tuesday [July 25] for voiding Krikštaponis’s status as a volunteer soldier. He said they did so because it would be wrong to remove the marker commemorating Krikštaponis as long as he is recognized as having been a volunteer soldier.
“Tuesday we signed a request to the prosecutor general. Because, despite the fact the [De-Sovietization] commission proposed the city municipality remove the monument, Krikštaponis has been awarded the statues of volunteer soldier, and by presidential decree was given the rank of police officer [posthumously]. So we think it would be wrong and unfair to pull down a monument to a volunteer soldier,” Lukšys told the Lithuanian news agency ELTA.
“He shouldn’t have been given the status of military volunteer if it had been known he participated in the destruction of a Jewish ghetto and POWs,” he said.
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De-Sovietization Commission chairman Vitas Karčiauskas believes Krikštaponis was awarded the status of volunteer soldier correctly. Nonetheless, he says, the monument for commemorating this man should be removed because of his culpability in Holocaust crimes.
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Lithuanian Conservative MP Emanuelis Zingeris was one of the complainants asking the De-Sovietization Commission to remove the monument. He says obvious and clear proof has been collected regarding Krikštaponis’s Holocaust crimes.
“It’s impossible to call this situation anything other than shameful. This is the world of Lithuania’s timid creatures. After all, we are talking here about clear facts and about a person who, in the opinion of all major Lithuanian historians, is a war criminal,” the MP told ELTA.
“As one of the plaintiffs, I am baffled by these attempts to try to find some missing comma [a loophole] in order to postpone this issue. If the issue isn’t solved, I for one will no longer participate at any Holocaust commemorations. And, I believe, many of us will skip these commemorations coming up in September because this would be total hypocrisy on the part of the Lithuanian state,” Zingeris added.
The MP believes Genocide Center director Arūnas Bubnys was unable to withstand pressure from certain groups in society and so decided to delay a decision by passing a request to the Lithuanian Office of Prosecutor General. …
Full story in Lithuanian here.