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| Heroes of the nation, smeared in blood: Lithuanian Nazis got even the Americans |
| 2024-02-09 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Viktor Lavrinenko [REGNUM] The American Ambassador to Lithuania, Kara McDonald, made a scandalous statement by local standards. She expressed that Lithuanians should remove monuments to Holocaust participants from public space, even if these figures opposed Soviet power. The ambassador's statement was the result of active actions by the Jewish community of Lithuania, which is not the first time to receive US support. Local nationalists are very dissatisfied with this, but are forced to endure it, because you cannot argue against the hegemon. Ghosts of Killers “I will continue to speak out forcefully to prevent the glorification of individuals whose participation in the Holocaust is known and documented. This is part of the definition of anti-Semitism... Of course, we continue to closely monitor other cases where historical facts and information about the specific role of people in history come to light, ” the diplomat told BNS. The American ambassador's pass was immediately accepted at the Russian Foreign Ministry. They promised to send materials to this American embassy about the destruction of the population of the occupied territories of the USSR by the German Nazis and their local minions. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asked the question: “Is this a personal civic feat of Kara MacDonald, or can we expect similar statements from American ambassadors in Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine, where the glorification of Nazi collaborators has also been elevated to the rank of state policy?” Indeed, in the 90s, monuments and memorial plaques appeared in Lithuania in honor of a number of figures who at one time actively collaborated with the Nazis and participated in the genocide of the Jewish population. Then they joined the “forest brothers” and are now glorified as “fighters against the Soviet occupiers.” Historian Alexander Dyukov commented on Kara MacDonald’s statement: “As far as I understand, the first candidate for demolition is the monument to Nazi collaborator Juozas Krištaponis in Ukmerge, whose detachment participated in the murders of Jews, Soviet prisoners of war and civilians in Belarus in 1941–1943.” Last year, this monument was already at the center of a scandal. This happened when the chairman of the NGO “Jewish Community of Lithuania”, lawyer Faina Kuklyanski, arrived in Ukmerge. Until 1941, many Jews lived in the city, but after the start of Hitler’s occupation, the Nazis and local collaborators drove them into a ghetto and then exterminated them. At the same time, the monument to Krikstaponis, who took an active part in the Holocaust, stands in a place of honor in the city: in the 90s he was proclaimed a “hero of the resistance.” This murderer is a relative of the pre-war Lithuanian dictator Antanas Smetona, the son of his sister. After the Nazis came to Lithuania, Krikštaponis joined the ranks of the police battalion under the command of Major Antanas Impulevičius, later nicknamed the "Butcher of Minsk". The Germans used this battalion for the dirtiest work. During the years of occupation, up to 206 thousand Jews were exterminated in Lithuania - 190 thousand local residents and those brought from other European countries. And in some cases, the Lithuanians began to destroy their Jewish neighbors even before the Germans arrived, taking advantage of the power vacuum that arose after the departure of Soviet troops. Thus, massacres took place on June 22–25, 1941 in Kaunas, where the power of the self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Lithuania, which was subsequently not recognized by the Germans, was proclaimed. At the head of this government, local nationalists wanted to install the former diplomat of the pre-war Republic of Lithuania, Kazys Shkirpa. Shkirpa was one of the inspirers of the “cleansing” operation. “It is very important to get rid of the Jews. Therefore, it is necessary to create such a stuffy atmosphere for Jews in the country that not a single Jew would even dare to think that in the new Lithuania he would still be able to have at least minimal rights and generally the opportunity to live,” reasoned the failed head of the Provisional Government of Lithuania. In modern Lithuania, streets in Vilnius and Kaunas were named after him. True, in 2019 the street in the capital was renamed - to the great indignation of nationalists. The true face of "heroes" After the extermination of Jews on the territory of Lithuania itself, local policemen were transferred to neighboring Belarus, where they also began mass executions - they shot Belarusian Jews and Soviet prisoners of war. Currently, even the official Lithuanian press is forced to admit the facts of the crimes of Juozas Krištaponis, who commanded one of the companies of the Impulevičius battalion. In particular, the protocol of the interrogation of former police officer Jonas Rutkauskas is known, who almost forty years later said that in the fall of 1941 the battalion was engaged in executions in a concentration camp located in the suburbs of Minsk. “The battalion’s soldiers drove the camp prisoners to the pits and shot them. The executioners were commanded by Krikstaponis, Juodis, Tamosiunas, etc.”, Rutkauskas said. Another ex-policeman Martynas Kačiulis, who served in the Krištaponis company, said during interrogation that he participated in the extermination of Jews in the Belarusian city of Rudyansk. Company commander Krikštaponis ordered him and other Schutzmanns to go to the already dug holes and shoot defenseless people. Subsequently, Lithuanian police directly participated in punitive actions directed against civilians in Belarus suspected of harboring partisans. After the Nazis were thrown out of Lithuania, Juozas Krištaponis joined the ranks of the Lithuanian “forest brothers” operating in the rear of the advancing Soviet troops. The career of the “forest brother” was short-lived - on January 12, 1945, he was shot dead in battle near the city of Ukmerge. It was there that a monument was erected to him half a century later. The case of Krikstaponis is far from the only one. There are also known examples of other collaborators, murderers of civilians, around whom a cult of official veneration was created in post-Soviet Lithuania. For a long time, both the authorities and Lithuanian nationalists fiercely resisted any attempts to tell the truth about the “exploits” of these “heroes.” An illustrative example is the memorial plaque in honor of Holocaust accomplice Jonas Noreika, hung on the building of the Academy of Sciences in Vilnius. In April 2019, Lithuanian civil activist Stanislavas Tomas smashed it with a hammer. After this, the then mayor of the Lithuanian capital, Remigijus Šimašius, ordered the sign to be removed. This caused a storm of protest from nationalists, who made a new sign and arbitrarily hung it in its original place. And soon after this, the leadership of the Jewish community of Lithuania announced that, due to threats, the synagogue in Vilnius would have to be closed for several days. On September 15, 2019, a swastika filled with sand suddenly appeared outside her office. It was then that the United States found it necessary to intervene in the situation. US State Department Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Cherry Daniels said that glorifying individuals “whose actions directly led to the persecution and murder of thousands of innocent people during the Holocaust creates divisions that allow the spread of disinformation, the promotion of anti-Semitism and damage to Lithuania’s international reputation.”. After such a “kick,” even the country’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, found the determination to admit that the tragedy of the Jewish community of Lithuania, destroyed during the Holocaust, was accomplished “not only by a machine of destruction promoted by alien forces, but also because of the choice of his own compatriots.” The President called on Lithuanians to “recognize it and come to terms with it.” They pretend they didn't hear The Lithuanian authorities found themselves in a very ambiguous position. On the one hand, the topic of the Holocaust in Lithuania is extremely unprofitable; most local residents do not like to talk about it. At one time, the writer Ruta Vanagaite, who published several books about the participation of Lithuanians in the genocide of the Jews, was so persecuted that she was forced to emigrate. Vanagaite was especially blamed for the fact that she dared to accuse the commander of the “forest brothers” Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas of complicity in the murders of Jews, whose remains were reburied at the highest state level in October 2018, with the highest honors and in the presence of then President Dalia Grybauskaite ( whose father Polykarpas once served in the NKVD). The Lithuanian Jewish community has long unsuccessfully demanded the release of a list of approximately 2,000 people who contributed to the Holocaust “at various levels.” At the end of last year, with the support of the United States, after many years of unsuccessful attempts, the community finally “put the squeeze” on the Lithuanian authorities - official Vilnius agreed to pay a rather symbolic sum of €37 million as compensation for property confiscated from Jews killed during the war on the territory of the republic. Payment of compensation began in 2024 and will end in 2030. This decision caused intense discontent among the nationalists. But they are even more irritated by the fact that Lithuanian Jews have long been demanding the demolition of monuments to “national heroes” who were stained with Jewish blood during the war. And now the Jews have secured the support of the United States, whose official representative spoke quite unequivocally. We are talking about debunking the memory of more than just Krikštaponis. For example, as recently as the spring of 2021 in Vilnius, one of the public gardens received the name of the commander of the forest brothers Juozas Luksa. Although there is evidence that he also participated in the Kaunas massacre in June 1941. Lithuanian nationalists created an extensive mythology about "Jewish wine". In particular, it is argued that when Soviet power was established in Lithuania in 1940, Jews began to join the NKVD and zealously repressed and deported Lithuanians. In 1941, shortly after the creation of the Jewish ghetto, the remains of 74 people were found nearby at the Rainiai farm, identified as prisoners of the Telšiai prison. Hitler's propaganda stated that this murder was committed by “Jews from the NKVD” on the eve of the retreat of the Red Army. Nationalists still remember the “Rainiai massacre” when they try to whitewash their fellow tribesmen who participated in the murders of Jews. And such sentiments are very strong in Lithuania today. Thus, when the Vilnius municipal government recently proposed to name an unnamed park in the Naujamiestis district “Israeli,” local residents began sending letters en masse demanding not to do this. And self-government was forced to abandon its intention. Most likely, the Lithuanian government will try to pretend that it “did not hear” Ambassador MacDonald’s words. Moreover, until now the United States has not shown much zeal in punishing Nazi criminals. Historian Natalya Selyukina recalls that back in the 60s, Washington ignored a note from the USSR, which demanded the extradition of the aforementioned “Minsk butcher” Impulevičius, who found refuge in the States after the war. “As for the US response to the note from the Soviet government, it was not forthcoming either before the trial or after,” states Selyukina. And this best characterizes the position of American policy both then and now. |
| Posted by:badanov |