Lithuania is investigating a former chairman of Yad Vashem
on suspicion that he murdered civilians during the Holocaust.
Yitzhak Arad, a noted historian
and partisan fighter who served 21 years as the chairman
of Israel's national Holocaust museum, is suspected by
Lithuanian prosecutors of being involved in the wartime
killing of Lithuanian civilians. The issue came to light
when Lithuanian authorities sought to question Arad,
a request Israel has refused.
On Wednesday, the current
chairman of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev, delivered a written
protest of the matter to visiting Lithuanian Foreign
Minister Petras Vaitiekunas. Shalev urged the minister
to bring the matter to a speedy resolution.
"It is clear that
initiating criminal proceedings into Dr. Arad's involvement
in Lithuanian partisan activity during World War II is
tantamount to a call for an investigation into all partisan
activity," Shalev wrote. "Any attempt to equate those actions with illegal activities, thereby defining
them as criminal, is a dangerous perversion of the events
that occurred in Lithuania during the war."
jta.org
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