Wiesenthal Centre to Lithuanan President: "Invoke Your Moral Authority to End Harassment of Jewish Partisans"
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus today received the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr.Shimon Samuels, at the Presidential Palace in Vilnius.
Samuels raised the following issues of concern in the Jewish-Lithuanian context:
-the poisonous political climate conflating the fate of Jewish Holocaust victims mass murdered in Ponar with that of Lithuanians exiled to the Soviet Gulag
-the subsequent antisemitic media attacks and judicial harassment of elderly Jewish partisans, Fania Brantsovskaya and Rachel Margolis - as also Yad VaShem Chairman emeritus, Dr.Yitzhak Arad
-the restitution of Jewish community property and the dispute over the Jewish cemetery
-the lack of Holocaust education
Now a member of European and Western international organizations, Samuels urged Lithuania to comply with their provisions on tolerance and antiracism,with a special historic responsibility to join the campaign against resurgent antisemitism at the UN Durban Review Conference in Geneva next April.
The Centre, likewise, called on Lithuania to "celebrate the anti-Nazi resistance by both Jewish and non-Jewish partisans."
Samuels acknowledged the President's statement denouncing Skinhead violence,the banning of Nazi insignia and his wreath laying at the AMIA Jewish Centre bombsite on his State visit to Argentina.
"Mr.President, all these measures are eclipsed by the offence to the Jewish partisans," continued Samuels, "as a respected international statesman and Ambassador of Goodwill of UNESCO, our Centre calls on you to invoke your moral authority for prompt closure on this issue...the United States Congress has just registered its own discontentment."
"Next month's 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto is perhaps a fitting occasion for a Presidential major statement honouring the anti-Nazi resistence by inviting Fania, Rachel and Dr. Arad as guests of the State," concluded Samuels.
President Adamkus responded by condemning the Holocaust as, "the most horrible crime of the twentieth century," adding, "Lithuania, a small country, lost its leading Jewish intellectuals and doctors to the Nazi genocide and its leading citizens to the Soviets."
He added, "I recognize the crimes committed by my fellow Lithuanians. This group destroyed our image...our Righteous Gentiles, though few, showed what should have been our true principles. These were moments of which I am ashamed."
"Regarding the cemetery, it was first desecrated by the Soviet Sports Palace in the 1950's. The open space in front of it - even if privately owned - is to be sequestered and dedicated to Jewish memory for generations. Our Prime Minister agrees that it must be untouched."
"On the partisans, I have spoken with the Attorney General, the Arad case is closed. Neither are the two women suspects. If they would give their expertise in a historical investigation, that would be welcome."
Samuels advised that this formula would be construed as continued implication in a judicial process and requested a public statement confirming the definitive closure of this painful crisis.
The Centre thanked the President looking forward to the implementation of these oral commitments.
Read entire article at Simon Wiesenthal Center
Samuels raised the following issues of concern in the Jewish-Lithuanian context:
-the poisonous political climate conflating the fate of Jewish Holocaust victims mass murdered in Ponar with that of Lithuanians exiled to the Soviet Gulag
-the subsequent antisemitic media attacks and judicial harassment of elderly Jewish partisans, Fania Brantsovskaya and Rachel Margolis - as also Yad VaShem Chairman emeritus, Dr.Yitzhak Arad
-the restitution of Jewish community property and the dispute over the Jewish cemetery
-the lack of Holocaust education
Now a member of European and Western international organizations, Samuels urged Lithuania to comply with their provisions on tolerance and antiracism,with a special historic responsibility to join the campaign against resurgent antisemitism at the UN Durban Review Conference in Geneva next April.
The Centre, likewise, called on Lithuania to "celebrate the anti-Nazi resistance by both Jewish and non-Jewish partisans."
Samuels acknowledged the President's statement denouncing Skinhead violence,the banning of Nazi insignia and his wreath laying at the AMIA Jewish Centre bombsite on his State visit to Argentina.
"Mr.President, all these measures are eclipsed by the offence to the Jewish partisans," continued Samuels, "as a respected international statesman and Ambassador of Goodwill of UNESCO, our Centre calls on you to invoke your moral authority for prompt closure on this issue...the United States Congress has just registered its own discontentment."
"Next month's 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto is perhaps a fitting occasion for a Presidential major statement honouring the anti-Nazi resistence by inviting Fania, Rachel and Dr. Arad as guests of the State," concluded Samuels.
President Adamkus responded by condemning the Holocaust as, "the most horrible crime of the twentieth century," adding, "Lithuania, a small country, lost its leading Jewish intellectuals and doctors to the Nazi genocide and its leading citizens to the Soviets."
He added, "I recognize the crimes committed by my fellow Lithuanians. This group destroyed our image...our Righteous Gentiles, though few, showed what should have been our true principles. These were moments of which I am ashamed."
"Regarding the cemetery, it was first desecrated by the Soviet Sports Palace in the 1950's. The open space in front of it - even if privately owned - is to be sequestered and dedicated to Jewish memory for generations. Our Prime Minister agrees that it must be untouched."
"On the partisans, I have spoken with the Attorney General, the Arad case is closed. Neither are the two women suspects. If they would give their expertise in a historical investigation, that would be welcome."
Samuels advised that this formula would be construed as continued implication in a judicial process and requested a public statement confirming the definitive closure of this painful crisis.
The Centre thanked the President looking forward to the implementation of these oral commitments.