The Lithuanian embassy to Israel and the Lithuanian Foreign Minister held a conference called Lithuania and Israel: Past, Present, Future at the Peres Peace Center in Tel Aviv on November 24, 2016. The conference discussed Lithuanian Holocaust studies, progress in commemorating victims, current activities of the Lithuanian Jewish Community and Lithuanian citizenship restoration issues.

Lithuanian ambassador to Israel Edminas Bagdonas spoke about increasing partnership between the two countries in his opening speech. He noted Litvaks in both countries are making great contributions to this. Lithuanian ambassador-at-large Dainius Junevičius emphasized the change in attitude towards the country’s history by the public and especially young people. Ronaldas Račinskas, executive director of Lithuania’s International Commission to Assess the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes in Lithuania, spoke about progress in Lithuanian Holocaust research and commemoration. Vytautas Magnus University lecturer Robert van Voren presented his studies into the Holocaust in Lithuania and spoke about parallels between Lithuania and the Netherlands. Yad Vashem representative Dr. Arkadi Zeltser addressed the state of monuments for commemorating Holocaust victims in Lithuania. Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky provided an overview of the current situation and activities of the community. She also field a large number of questions from the audience about the Litvak legacy and heritage in Lithuania.

Two weeks ago representatives from the United States embassy in Vilnius visited Kaunas. They toured the Seventh Fort and met at the Sugihara House museum with Sugihara Foundation founders Ramūnas Garbaravičius and Egidijus Aleksandravičius, Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas and reporter Birutė Garbaravičienė. Ted Janis of the American embassy expressed satisfaction the Kaunas and Lithuanian Jewish Communities, the Kaunas municipality, the Seventh Fort collective and Israeli ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon had combined forces to commemorate the Holocaust victims of the Seventh Fort at the mass grave site. They also spoke about the situation regarding Holocaust education in Lithuania, the importance of the Sugihara museum and Jewish life in Kaunas.

Because of the short notice given, the Lithuanian Jewish Community was unable to send a speaker to the Vilnius municipality’s discussion renaming Kazys Škirpa Alley held in Vilnius on November 29. Chairwoman Faina Kukliansky sent a statement which was read out loud at the discussion which follows.

The discussion initiated by the municipality of Vilnius being held today, “Should We Change the Name of Kazys Škirpa Alley?,” might have been called something else. Why not ask the citizens of Lithuania if they want to have public spaces in Vilnius named after suspected Holocaust perpetrators instead?

On the one hand, the very concept of the discussion appears strange. Does Lithuania have no one of whom to be proud, so that we can only lionize a person famous for his anti-Semitic statements, his vision of a Lithuania free of Jews and his idealization of Hitler’s Germany?

On the other hand, for most of society Kazys Škirpa doesn’t signify much, and the forum being held should theoretically at least shed some light on different aspects of his personality. Hopefully historians unafraid to express their positions and not subservient to the right-wing have been invited to participate. Were state institutions which use the word “Jew” in their titles invited to participate? Probably not.

When we marked the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust in Lithuania, there was a conference at the parliament where the historian A. Kasparavičius said all of the “power” in the Provisional Government of Lithuania and the Lithuanian Activist Front was in Škirpa’s hands. The historian noted Škirpa made no attempt to hide his enchantment with Germany and spent more than 10 years there, working as consul and later as military attaché. It was during this period, between 1933 and 1934, when Škirpa’s documents sent from Berlin to Kaunas show how enthralled he was with the policies being carried out by Germany. “He had many problems because of this. President Antanas Smetona even raised the question of relieving K. Škirpa from diplomatic service at the end of the winter in 1939,” Kasparavičius said. But Škirpa wasn’t fired. He created the Activist Front in Berlin. Members of the Front sought to liberate Lithuania from Soviet occupation and organized the uprising in 1941. They foresaw a free Lithuania without Jews. It was Škirpa’s idea to create the Tautinio darbo apsaugos batalionas [TDA, National Labor Security Battalion] who shot thousands of Jews without trial at the Seventh Fort in Kaunas.

After the Soviets occupied Vilnius in 1940, Kazys Škirpa organized the nucleus of the Lithuanian Activist Front in Berlin. LAF propaganda followed official fascist propaganda, which led to Lithuanians’ active involvement in perpetrating the Holocaust. He was named [Lithuanian] prime minister in the uprising of June 23, 1941. In accepting the post of prime minister, Škirpa included in his government Rapolas Skipitis and Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis. His government included 11 ministers: 4 from Vilnius (Vytautas Bulvičius, Vladas Nasevičius, Vytautas Statkus, Jonas Masiliūnas), 6 from Kaunas (Juozas Ambrazevičius, Jonas Matulionis, Adolfas Damušis, Balys Vitkus, Juozas Pajaujis, Vytautas Landsbergis-Žemkalnis), resident of Berlin Rapolas Skipitis, plus comptroller Pranas Vainauskas. [Prevented from leaving Berlin, his minister Juozas Ambrazevičius was appointed acting prime minister in Kaunas.]

The position of the Lithuanian Jewish Community regarding the question posed by the discussion is clear: the name of Kazys Škirpa Alley must be changed. If only to honor all Lithuanian citizens.

As this discussion takes place, the Lithuanian Jewish Community yet again reminds readers there is still no monument to rescuers of Jews, to Righteous Gentiles, in Vilnius. Neither are there public places in the city named after famous Litvaks who contributed to establishing Lithuanian statehood and strengthening democratic institutions. Lithuanian history textbooks still make no mention of 600 years of shared Lithuanian and Litvak history. What sort of priorities is the Lithuanian state setting for itself?

Faina Kukliansky, chairwoman

by Sergejus Kanovičius

For our freedom and yours, we heard this motto during the independence movement in 1990 inviting everyone–Lithuanians, us Jews, and others–to rally to fight for independence. And we rallied, believing that in that Lithuania–the Lithuania of today–we would all be equal, and not just before God. We thought we’d be equal before memory, and before our history. As brothers and sisters. Are we equal in memory? Are we equal before history?

What about today, when discussion has come up whether it is worth honoring with a street name a volunteer soldier who fought for Lithuanian independence, the first to raise the tricolor on the castle tower almost a century ago, a man who commanded a different sort of movement, one which systematically and openly called for freedom only for some, before and after the June Uprising.

His ideology and that of his organization, the Lithuanian Activist Front, was inseparable from that of the battle for independence. For independence without Jews–without me, without my father, my grandparents and of those for whom there are annual bureaucratic gatherings to feel ashamed beside the larger pits, or beside those for whom the television cameras await.