The Simon Wiesenthal
Center totally and unequivocally rejected the dismissal yesterday
by the prosecutor’s office of the Kaunas District of evidence
it had submitted to the Lithuanian Special Prosecutor for genocide
cases regarding the participation of members of the Lithuanian
national basketball team in the murder of Jews in the Seventh Fort
in Kaunas in early July 1941.In a statement issued in Jerusalem
by its chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the
Center insisted that the material presented clearly implicated
the Lithuanian players and that yesterday’s decision to clear
all of them of any suspicion of involvement in crimes that they
had clearly committed was “an unfortunate and hasty decision
which reeks of misplaced political correctness.” The Center
also noted that the statement issued by the prosecutor’s
office of the Kaunas district which referred to the testimony of
Holocaust survivors and Holocaust victims as “literature” and “gossip,” is
not only an affront to the memory of those murdered, but also in
effect delegitimizes the accounts presented by the Holocaust’s
victims, which are undoubtedly among the most important sources
of information on this terrible tragedy.
According to Zuroff, ”It is extremely unfortunate that once
again Lithuanian prosecutors have failed to acknowledge important
evidence from the Holocaust and have rushed to exonerate individuals
who deserve to be condemned rather than cleared of any suspicion.
In the light of the unpardonable and totally fallacious comments
regarding the evidence of Holocaust survivors made by the Kaunas
prosecutors, one can only wonder whether it is at all possible
for a Lithuanian Nazi war criminal to be convicted of his or her
crimes in Lithuania.”
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