VILNIUS (AFP)--- Jewish human rights organisation The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called on Lithuanian authorities to punish the owners of a bar in Kaunas for displaying symbols of Nazi Germany.

Lithuanian daily L.T. this week reported that the swastika-emblazoned red flag of Nazi Germany was displayed in the Fortas pub in Kaunas at the weekend, to mark the bar's 10th anniversary.

A waiter, dressed and made-up to look like Adolf Hitler, welcomed customers to the bar, the daily said.

According to L.T., Hitler's birthday is also celebrated at the bar.

"The time has come for the government to make it unequivocally clear that Nazi symbols and figures have no place in democratic Lithuania," Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter, said in a statement, which also called for "the prosecution of those responsible for this outrage".

"Perhaps if the Lithuanian authorities had exhibited the necessary zeal in prosecuting and punishing local Nazi war criminals, Nazi flags would not have been flown in Kaunas this week," he added.

The first massive slaughter of Jews in Lithuania during Nazi occupation took place in Kaunas.

Lithuania's thriving pre-World War II Jewish community of around 220,000 was almost entirely wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust.

Today, around 4,000 Jews live in the Baltic state.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in 2001 handed Lithuania a list with 97 names of suspected Nazi collaborators, and urged the Baltic state to bring war criminals to justice.

But as of March this year, only three suspected Nazi war criminals had stood trial for Holocaust crimes.

All three were given either suspended sentences on health grounds, or were not sentenced at all, again because of poor health.

ejpress.org