WATERBURY — An ESPN television documentary questions whether two elderly Waterbury men participated in the killing of Lithuanian Jews during World War II.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization based in Jerusalem, last month called on Lithuanian prosecutors to investigate city residents Vytautas and Algirdas Norkus, according to ESPN's report and confirmed Tuesday by the center. The documentary aired on SportsCenter Sunday.

Center director Efraim Zuroff told ESPN an Israeli author has recently uncovered evidence that could connect the twin brothers to a mass killing of Jews in Kaunas, Lithuania, during the summer of 1941.

At the time, the Norkus brothers were members of an elite Lithuanian basketball team. The Israeli author, Holocaust survivor Alex Faitelson, contends team members played a basketball game against the

German army on July 6, 1941, the same day more than 2,000 Jews were murdered. As a prize for winning, the Lithuanian team members were given the opportunity to shoot 30 Jewish prisoners.

While survivor testimony describes team members carrying rifles to an area of town where Jews were executed, Faitelson has not found any information proving either brother participated, the report said.

The brothers, now 83, deny the accusations.

"We didn't play that type of game," said Vytautas Norkus, in an interview Tuesday with the Republican-American.

The Norkus brothers, who grew up in Kaunas, acknowledge they played basketball for the Lithuanian team before and during the war. Vytautas Norkus, who taught physical education in Lithuania, played guard. His brother Algirdas Norkus, an engineering student, played forward.

Vytautas Norkus said he remembered playing a German team, but in 1939, before the Germans invaded Lithuania. The team didn't play the Germans in 1941 and didn't participate in any massacre, he said.

"We had to work, go to college, teach and date girls," Vytautas Norkus said. "We didn't have time to kill the Jews."

Zuroff, contacted Tuesday in Israel, said he wasn't surprised to hear of the brothers' denials.

"Very rarely do you have someone who owns up to something like this," Zuroff said.

The investigation is continuing, said Zuroff, who is known for his efforts to track down former Nazis and their collaborators.

During the past 18 months, the center's "Operation: Last Chance" project has led to the opening of eight murder investigations in Lithuania, where more than 200,000 Jews were killed during World War II.

"It's reasonable to assume that this will be the ninth," said Zuroff. "We feel we have an obligation to the victims of these terrible crimes to bring these people to justice."

On March 10, Zuroff presented Faitelson's findings and the names of the Norkus brothers to Lithuanian prosecutors.

ESPN also reported that the brothers' names were handed over to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations. The office is responsible for identifying and taking legal action against U.S. citizens involved in Nazi war crimes. Since 1979, the office has prosecuted 94 people.

Department spokesman Bryan Sierra told the Republican-American he couldn't comment on whether investigators had received the Wiesenthal report.

The brothers have lived in Waterbury since they emigrated to the United States in May 1949.

Algirdas Norkus, who is thin with wispy white hair, lives alone. He spent more than a dozen years working in the engineering department at Scovill Manufacturing. He also worked as a designer at T. Sendzimir, Inc., a global steel company based in Waterbury.

Vytautas Norkus, who is larger than his brother, is married. He is a retired Uniroyal worker who assembled sneakers for more than 30 years.

Both men said they don't know what they will do if they are contacted by Lithuanian authorities.

"This is very upsetting to us," Vytautas Norkus said. "We didn't want to be famous."