Lrytas.lt

“On Friday the working group adopted a conclusion proposing the parliamentary leadership ask the parliament to consider whether Adas Jakubauskas is the appropriate person to hold the post of general director of the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania,” working group director MP Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė told BNS.

Six members voted in favor and one against this conclusion. Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė said everyone was interested in seeing a strong Genocide Center which would operate smoothly and represent the interests of the Lithuanian state.

“… It has become clear A. Jakubauskas has not been successful in insuring the smooth operation of the institution,” she said. “The director of the Center has not been successful in solving arising problems in a constructive manner. The method of operation selected has only increased stress and conflict within the center he directs. Also, the constant public reports about the situation in the Center diminishes the exemplary reputation of this institution.”

Peasants Party MP Jonas Jarutis voted against the finding, saying he was disappointed other members of the working group had taken the easy way out.

Over a dozen historians and academics staged a protest Friday outside the Genocide Center in Vilnius. They said they wanted to show support for historian Mingailė Jurkutė who was terminated. She also took part in the protest. Protestors also said they wanted to bring attention to Center director Jakubauskas’s attempts to restrict freedom of speech and inquiry.

The leadership of parliament, that institution’s nominal board of directors composed of the heads of major factions there, could initiate Jakubauskas’s removal from the post of general director, as could a parliamentary committee, or a call by MPs with one-fifth voting for this.

Full story in Lithuanian here.
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Member of parliament Paulė Kuzmickienė has been chosen to succeed Valdas Rakutis as chairwoman of the Lithuanian parliament’s Commission on Battles for Freedom and State Historical Memory. Paulė Kuzmickienė is a member of the Conservative Party/Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party faction in parliament. Fourteen members of the Commission voted in favor of her, one against and one abstained Wednesday. The move must still be approved by the parliament.

Outgoing chairman Valdas Rakutis resigned the post in late January after causing scandal with his remarks on the Holocaust. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day he published an article saying Jews had collaborated with the Nazis and Soviets. His statements were criticized by the Lithuanian Jewish Community, foreign diplomats and leaders in the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party.

Lrytas.lt

Radvilės Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, head of the Lithuanian parliamentary working group convened to inquire into problems at the Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania, says while MPs hold different opinions regarding the state history institution, they were unanimous in the finding dialogue won’t bridge the divide between the Genocide Center’s leadership and some of its staff.

The working group plans to release their findings Friday.

“We decided to make a final decision Friday morning. The views of commission members are somewhat at odds, but basically everyone who spoke said the Center is experiencing problems and it doesn’t appear there is a desire to come to terms,” Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė told ELTA Wednesday.

She pointed to the Center’s leadership as the main culprits, saying that became clear when general director Adas Jakubauskas fired historian Mingailė Jurkutė.

Full story in Lithuanian here.

Katarzyna Markusz was questioned on suspicion of violating a law against defaming the country after an anonymous complaint about an article from 2020. She faces up to 3 years in jail.

Polish police are probing a local journalist who wrote last year about Polish complicity in the Holocaust.

Katarzyna Markusz, who runs the Jewish.pl website and writes for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, was questioned last Thursday on suspicion that she violated Article 133 of the Polish constitution, which subjects those who “publicly insults the Nation or the Republic of Poland” to up to three years in prison.

An anonymous complaint was filed against Markusz, which led to her detention and interrogation, according to Oko.press.

In October, 2020, Markusz wrote in an article: “Will we live to see the day when the Polish authorities also admit that hostility toward Jews was widespread among Poles, and that Polish complicity in the Holocaust is a historical fact?

by Mingailė Jurkutė, chief historian, Center for the Study of the Genocide and Resistance of Residents of Lithuania

The current director of the Genocide Center is trying to give the impression all that is happening are just internal department disputes, depot against depot, one faction of historians against another, or maybe historians vs. museum specialists, or maybe even brave, ambitious and mobile visionaries of the new administration against the academics at a small bureaucratic institution who long for stagnation and a light work-load. This is a terrific and naked lie.

Center historians are productive and their academic production and other specific Center production, for example, writing brief–barely two pages long–and exact findings of history, which often require examining just as much material as for an article in the normal academic format. And they want reform, they are proposing reforms themselves. This story is a very successful technique when you want misconstrue and hide what is going on, for example, as Soviet ideologues went to extremes to explain the partisan war was really a class war, or a civil war, and in any case… an internal social dispute.

But I want to return the real players (the sides) to center stage, because they are getting lost due to the noise, agitation and intentional mud-slinging (of which an example is the letter the administration drafted to defend the administration, not without pressure from direct bosses to staff to sign on in telephone calls made outside working hours, forcing employees to arrive in person at the workplace to sign in the midst of the pandemic).

by G. Jaruševičiūtė, ELTA

Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda criticized scandalous statements on the Holocaust by Conservative MP Valdas Rakutis. He said he regretted people with such great political responsibility sometimes make these sorts of statements painful to the families of Holocaust victims.

“It’s really a regretful misunderstanding made on this very important commemorative day when we all again bow and stand in memory with the victims, the Jewish people during World War II. And it’s a shame that we sometimes hear these kinds of speculations by people with great political responsibility which cause further pain to relatives of the victims, and pain to our partners,” president Nausėda said at a press conference at the Office of President.

He expressed hope the correct conclusions would be drawn from Rakutis’s statements.

“I hope the conclusion will be drawn that this person’s opinion, specially that of Mr. Valdas Rakutis, in no way expresses the opinion of the party, the parliamentary faction or the parliament. I think there have been sufficient comments made and denials issued from the head of the party, but still we apologize for the lack of understanding and request no hurried conclusions be made,” the president said.

Full report in Lithuanian here.