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Why “Operation: Last Chance” Is Being Launched in the Baltics? |
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There
are numerous reasons why the Baltics were chosen as the initial
place to implement “Operation: Last Chance.” While several relate to the specific nature of the events of the Holocaust in
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, others are a product of practical
and technical considerations. The most important are the
following:
1. |
These
countries had the highest victimology rate in Europe
during the Holocaust. Not only were the local Jewish
communities almost completely annihilated but many
thousands of Jews from other countries (Germany, Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and France) were deported to
the Baltics and murdered in Lithuania, Latvia, and
Estonia. |
2. |
The extremely large number of local collaborators who actively participated in
the mass murder of the local Jewish communities and
Jews deported to these countries |
3. |
The fact that local police units from each of the Baltic countries were sent
abroad, where they actively participated in the mass
murder of Jews (especially in Belarus and Poland.) |
4. |
Following the occupation of the Baltics by the Soviet Union in 1944, many Nazi
war criminals were prosecuted and convicted by the
Soviet authorities. These individuals can testify regarding
crimes committed during the Holocaust that they personally
witnessed without fear of prosecution |
5. |
The fact that there has not been a single prosecution of a local Nazi war criminal – in which the defendant was healthy enough to attend the trial and bear punishment
if convicted – in any of the three Baltic countries makes the efforts to bring the guilty to
justice of unique significance for Lithuanian, Latvian,
and Estonian society. |
6. |
With all three countries on the verge of being invited to join NATO and the European
Union, there will be special interest in the attitude
of the Baltic republics to this important subject. |
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