Family Grief

The news item about Lithuania “rewriting holocaust history” was the main headline at CNN’s webpage cnn.com. The lengthy piece features Zuroff remembering the grief his family experienced.

Zuroff tells CNN of the tragic death of his grandfather’s brother, a Lithuanian Jew. According to the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which pursues Nazi criminals, he was kidnapped on July 13, 1941, by a gang of Lithuanians who “terrorized the streets of the city looking for bearded Jews they could take prisoner.” “He was taken to Lukiskes prison and quickly killed,” Zuroff recalls.

It was in honor of his late relative that the Nazi hunter was named Efraim. He calls the search for Nazi criminals in Lithuania disappointing. Allegedly the country is trying to rewrite holocaust history, since 1991 when it reestablished independence it hasn’t convicted a single Jew-shooter.

Donskis: That’s Not Genocide

The CNN piece presents graphic facts about the massacre of Jews done by Lithuanian units. It is claimed that after a year of Soviet occupation the Nazis were welcomed as rescuers in Lithuania and the Jews were considered Communist collaborators. “A rather large portion of Lithuanian society is still, even now, convinced that Jews are collectively responsible for mass murders and deportations of civilians, as well as for other crimes of the Soviet occupation,” Lithuanian member of the European Parliament Leonidas Donskis told CNN.

The politician, according to CNN, called the claim that Soviet crimes in Lithuania need to be considered genocide “totally shameful.” “Historical and political evidence don’t provide a basis for the theory that the Soviet Union exterminated Lithuanians because of ethnicity or nationality,” Donskis is quoted as saying by CNN. He said Lithuanians who agreed to cooperate with the Soviet regime were accepted in the army as well as the Communist Party and among the elite of society. Commenting on trials of possible Nazi collaborators in Lithuania, the europarliamentarian didn’t mince strong words either. “The state has in essence failed the exam, because not even one criminal has received justice,” Donskis claimed.

Lithuanian ambassador to the USA Audrius Bruzga’s attempts to defend the country hit a brick wall. For example, CNN journalists laughed at the Museum of Lithuanian Genocide Victims—it seems Soviet crimes shouldn’t be called genocide. CNN demanded the ambassador answer whether this museum (it is established in the former KGB building and dedicated namely to commemorating the victims of Stalinism, but the journalists don’t mention this for some reason) shouldn’t find some space for the Jews of Lithuania who experienced genocide. The question to the ambassador, most likely, was unexpected. CNN derided his answer.

In August the Simon Wiesenthal Center will present its annual report on the pursuit of Nazi war criminals around the entire world. Zuroff isn’t hiding the fact that Lithuania will fall among the most criticized countries.