KAUNAS (AFP-EJP)---The Lithuanian government surged ahead with plans to rebury the ashes of WWII leader Juozas Brazaitis in a state-funded ceremony in Kaunas, in the face of protests from the Jewish community who claim he “collaborated” with the Nazis during the war.

Brazaitis died in exile in the United States in 1974, having assumed power in Lithuania in 1941, when Nazi Germany drove out the Soviets, following their year-long brutal occupation of the country. He was buried in a Cathedral in central Kaunas on Sunday, with the national anthem accompanying the ceremony.

Whilst the Lithuanian state claim Brazaitis’ government tried to restore national sovereignty, Jewish groups insist he was a Nazi collaborator who refused to halt anti-Semitic pogroms and contributing to the climate with a wave of anti-Semitic legislation.

The Lithuanian Jewish community expressed “deep hurt” at the decision to hold a state burial, which it said amounted to “disrespect for Jewish citizens killed here and Holocaust survivors”.

Lithuanian MP and Chairman of the International Commission to Evaluate the Crimes of the Nazi-Soviet Occupations of Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris, issued the following statement:

“The Lithuanian Provisional Government (PG, led by Brazaitis) played a controversial, if less direct role, in the process of persecution and destruction...The PG’s ambiguous position emanated from the paradoxical political morass in which it found itself: the regime, such as it was, claimed sovereignty, but never effectively exercised power.”

“The PG, which claimed to speak on behalf of the nation and more than once insisted on its own moral authority, did not publicly disassociate itself from the murder of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens”, he went on to say.

Lithuania was home to 220,000 Jews before WWII, but 95% perished during the war at the hands of the Nazis and local collaborators. Today, approximately 5,000 Jews are thought to live in the country.

ejpress.org